Comparing that with religious belief, she added: “When you have religious belief, you’re a participant in something, you have those beliefs. Christianity calls upon you to act on those beliefs and, as a football fan, I’m called upon to not just watch but to really get behind the team.” The FA says the project aims to make the game truly inclusive. Arran Williams, diversity and inclusion manager at the FA, told the webinar that other upcoming events include an Iftar and call to prayer at Wembley stadiumand events for Vaisakhi in the West Midlands.

Making disciples takes risk. Relationships are risky. But do you know what? Jesus has given you the authority. And Jesus himself will be with you. The kingdom is coming. As N T Wright notes, “Every time we say the words ‘Our father…’ we are pleading for that day to be soon, and pledging ourselves to work to bring it closer.” When the church began and a man named Paul traveled around to help churches get started, he worked with a variety of people to share the message of Jesus. Paul describes one person, Titus, not just as another person on the team, but as someone he could trust: “As for Titus, he is my partner and co-worker among you; as for our brothers, they are representatives of the churches and an honor to Christ” ( 2 Corinthians 8:23). Now an initiative organised by the Football Association hopes to show that a dedication to the sport can work hand in hand with faith groups to enhance the game’s reputation — on and off the pitch.

Football is also a team game that demands individual practice. Every player has a specific role that, when executed properly, leads to team achievement. And that proper execution is the result of extreme training. Behind every move of every player is hours of work — of drills and sweat and pain — that ultimately targets one thing: team wins. Seriously. Make no mistake about it. Integral to football is real, tangible moments when personal comfort yields to a greater cause. The team wins because the team members sacrifice. They wear out their bodies for something bigger than their pain. The More Perfect Display Along with Sitake, wide receiver Chase Roberts and defensive end Tyler Batty represented the BYU football program. From BYU basketball, guard Trey Stewart conducted the devotional. Plus volleyball setter Whitney Bower and in soccer, Olivia Katoa, nee Wade. American football is the most popular sport in the United States, with over 1 million high school athletes and over 67,000 college students participating in the sport at any one time, with a small percentage going professional. Whatever your thoughts about football, there’s no denying that with the sport’s qualities of teamwork, work ethic, and leadership, among others, football can teach its participants important life lessons that resonate both on and off the field.

After all, it’s only a game. The apostle makes this distinction clear: “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever” (1 Corinthians 9:25). In our efforts to please the Lord, we need to dodge obstacles and move steadily to the goal. It takes perseverance and self-discipline. We can learn a lot about that from well-trained athletes, but the truth is thatIn the coaching ranks, ESPN and other networks will often televise the introduction of a new head coach in the college ranks or NFL. This moment is not possible without the roles that prepared the coach to be a head coach, like the hours as a low paid graduate assistant or living behind the scenes as a special teams coordinator. We meet Jesus’ disciples—eleven of them, anyway—waiting on the top of a mountain in Galilee. They are gathered there to see what this man who was dead and is now alive has to say. What the plan is now. No doubt their heads are spinning. It’s been a crazy week. As a young assistant football coach this scene made a powerful impression on me, not just as a coach, but as a man following Christ. Like Paul, I cannot think about my Christian walk without noting the obvious parallels to lessons learned from athletic competition. Here, I hope to point to some lessons from sports that I have been able to leverage for spiritual growth. My hope is that these examples will help you to think more intentionally and profitably as a Christian about your interaction with sports and doing so will be a catalyst toward sanctification. My Christian faith is based on making a difference, of serving that model we have of Jesus during his 33 years on this earth.”

She said: “He has said very publicly that he’s driven by his personal experience of growing up in poverty but also by his faith.It isn’t just for the headlines. There are a lot of other players putting their faith into practice at a local level really quietly, but really brilliantly.” The lesser and nonessential agony and conflict of sports has lessons for us about ultimate and eternally significant agony and conflict of spiritual war. The church lives as the outpost of the kingdom of Christ in the time of the overlap of the ages, the already/but not yet of the kingdom. Therefore, the Christian lives in the context of a cosmic spiritual battle and is called to fight against sin. According to Paul, if athletes agonize to fulfill determined temporal goals, how much more should he and others agonize to “be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 2:1, 3-4)? Both the athlete and the soldier need single-minded focus and the incentive of victory. Each must endure hardship, consistently and agonizingly striving in preparation and disciplined training. Legendary basketball coach John Wooden coined the phrase “Competitive Greatness.” But as a competitive athlete, I sometimes get it mixed up with “Being Great.” Competitive greatness is not being the best, but being the best you can be. There can only be one best, but everyone can achieve being the best they can be. If you are offended by Christianity, then this place is not for you. These devotionals are unashamedly Christian, but they are also unashamedly loving. They are light and hope to hurting people who come to play each week. These devotionals reflect the struggle for a life of courage, character and integrity on the playing field. Heartbreak from a guy's perspectivePROVO, Utah – BYU athletics has been waiting for this moment for decades. That moment is moving into the Big 12 Conference. In “Any Given Sunday”, Al Pacino plays an aging NFL coach. Toward the end of the movie, he gives a monologue about how football, like life, is a game of inches: So we’re all going to have hard moments in life. And we’re all going to feel like we came one yard short of achieving the unattainable or the dream. It’s Jesus and the atonement that will give us strength. Those difficult times will make our rushing-the-field moments even better,” said Sitake. “It is through these moments that we will be able to enjoy the highlights of life but also find the meaning behind pain and struggle. And we will come with love because of Christ and that we will find a way to be Christ tough.”

Undivided, straightforward, sacrificial focus for good. That is what I mean by warrior instinct. It’s a summary of the character Paul refers to beginning in 2 Timothy 2:3 — the character of a “good soldier of Christ Jesus.” Elaborating on the soldier metaphor, Paul tells Timothy, “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.” Get this: Paul, the experienced missionary, encourages Timothy, the young pastor, with the example of a warrior. What exactly is that example? It’s focus. Warriors don’t get distracted. They don’t get caught up with the wrong things. They are clear about their aim. Life and death are on the line. The following attachments are devotionals created by Sportsfaith writer Shawn Leibegott to help coaches teach athletes not only about Christ but about important characteristics all athletes should develop. I consider football the ultimate team sport, and I cannot help but draw parallels between football, the church, and Christian sanctification. For the Christian, humbly accepting one’s role, trusting your team, and doing your job with all your heart, should have a familiar ring. The apostle Paul describes the church as a unified body with many interdependent parts bound together in a common mission of spiritual war.Matt Baker has been chaplain at Charlton Athletic since 2000 and is national director for England at Sports Chaplaincy UK. While footballing has a reputation as a glamorous career path, players often struggle to cope with the transition to life in the spotlight, he said. Speaking of focus, we Christians know one who embodied it perfectly — who came into this world for one purpose and set his face like flint until it was accomplished. We know one who was himself the truth — who committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. We know one who sacrificed — who though he was rich, yet for our sake became poor and sweat tears of blood, enduring the greatest agony because something even greater was set before him. We know Jesus, you see. We shouldn’t see these as three unrelated illustrations, but as one total, connected picture of what it means to be a good soldier of Christ Jesus. In a similar way, Doug Wilson notes that all the “overwhelmingly positive” metaphors of sports and war in the Bible point to the same characteristics of “discipline, sacrifice, hard work, focus, intensity, and so on” (“Empire, Sports, and War,” 292). If we want to win the World Cup, we need to get more young people playing football on the streets, then playing football on the pitch, then playing football up the levels,” he said. “And the only way of doing that is actually working with communities because they have a great organising power. Retired professional footballer Linvoy Primus, who played for Portsmouth, Reading and Charlton Athletic, saw a change in his career after he converted to Christianity.“Playing football was my dream, but at 27 or 28 I realised it wasn’t giving me everything I hoped it would give me,” he said.