Information for Parents and Guardians

Information for parents

 

The dream

The role of the parent

How can Christians in Sport help you?

What next?

 

The dream

There are almost seven million 11-19 year olds in the UK.  Some 70% of young people see themselves as ‘sporty types’ whilst 58% of 11-16 year olds spend on average, each week , five hours or more playing sport. These are figures from recent surveys!

 

Christians in Sport exists to see lost sportspeople saved for eternity by the good news of Jesus – How?  By equipping every Christian sportsperson to be a shining light in a dark place – the sports world.

 

It is the dream of Christians in Sport to see young Christians in every single sports club in this country representing Christ and helping to build the church. 

If you have children who are Christians and passionate about sport, please read on—we want to help you support them in their world of sport

If you have children who love sport yet are not too sure about Jesus, please read on– we want to help you as you encourage them to explore the good news of Jesus for themselves

 

Colossians 4v2-6 gives us a framework for representing Christ in our sporting environment.

 

2Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. 3And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. 4Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. 5Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. 6Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.   (NIV)

 

Just imagine a new generation of Christ-like young sports players taking time to:

 

·      PRAY for their lost sporting friends – (v 2 Devote yourselves to prayer)

 

·      PLAY in a way that honours God – (v 5 Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders)

 

·      SAY something of the good news of Jesus – (v 6 So that you may know how to answer everyone)

 

 

The role of a parent

At its most basic level, the Bible gives us a straight forward mandate for raising children.  Simply: to go and make disciples.  It should be every parents aim to help their child to know Jesus, respond to Him and last the course for eternity?

  

·    Making disciples

The last commission of Jesus in Matthew 28v19-20 was to go and make disciples of all nations.  Jesus does not say “go and make people who profess faith, who seem a little interested.”  He wants the disciples to go and invest in others as he had invested in them. If you are going to be true to the call of Jesus in parenting, your ultimate aim has to be seeing your child follow Jesus faithfully for the rest of our lives.  I am sure that many of you would settle for that as a lifetimes ambition!

  

Yet, what about if my children aren’t Christians yet ? I want them to become Christians before I think about them becoming disciples? This is a very valid comment. I am sure you want to see your children own Jesus for themselves as Lord and Rescuer of their own lives. 

  

In Colossians 1v28 Paul stresses that his job is to simply proclaim Christ and in doing so, to present all people mature in Him on that final day. Paul is intent on making real life followers of Jesus and bringing them to a full measure of understanding.

What is your job within this framework as a parent? What is a youth leaders job?  What is a church pastor’s job? 

It surely must be the same—to go and make disciples, true followers of Jesus for a lifetime. As long as the mandate is the same, the responsibilities and functions of the role will differ. Your role will look very different to a local church youth leader’s. You are the parent/guardian of a child, the closest living relative, and so comes with that a huge  responsibility and privilege that no youth leader will ever have.  Let’s try and unpack that a bit further in the next pages

 

The diagram below explains the process of bringing young people to the cross and then helping them to continue as true followers of Jesus.  We know that it is only God who opens blind eyes to the truth and transforms lives for eternity yet we are called to play our part. Often, very unhelpfully,  we are quick to distinguish between helping young people become Christians, and then helping them become disciples.  We should not be too hasty in doing this.  As we have seen the last mandate to the disciples was ‘to go and make disciples’.  This should be your complete mandate too at whatever stage your child is at, your aim should be to turn them into a disciple. You can place your child anywhere on the discipleship scale below—therefore everything you try and achieve with them should always be seen as taking them a step further in becoming true followers of Jesus. 

 

·       Helping unbelieving young sports players respond to Jesus

There is no set formula of helping young people respond to Jesus. What you talk about with a child at the –10 stage would be very different from a child at the –1 stage who is close to responding to Jesus and his claims.

There are many things that can be put in place to assist this process:

• Good church youth group

• Bible study notes—check out the resources on page 6

• Camps/events—check out the event info on page 7

 

   

·       Helping Christian young sports players grow in Christ

Once/if a young person responds to the good news of Jesus we must be in a position to continually help them grow.  We have seen that Paul’s ambition in all that he did was to present people perfect/mature in Christ. How do we best do this? To keep raising up Jesus and helping our young people to understand him better. 

The diagram below explains what Christians in Sport thrust is in helping young sportspeople become mature. Maturity in faith will naturally lead to sharing the good news with others. Christians in Sport desperately wants to see this happen—Christian young sportspeople all over this country Pray-Play-Saying!

 

PRAY PLAY SAY in sport is to be more like Christ. We want young sports players to understand what it really is to live a life of fullness,  using the sporting gifts God has given them to the best of their ability and for the glory of God. We need to teach young sports players how to really play in a way that honours God and represents him well. Once they understand the joy of playing for God so they understand the need of their lost friends. We need to teach our young sports players to pray for their friends and to be able to say something of their hope when   opportunities arise. 

 

 

 

How can Christians in Sport help you?

 

We want to support you in two ways

·    Make the word of God accessible and relevant to young sports players

as the focus of discipleship. Help them understand who God is, what he has done through Jesus and what that means to play sport whilst representing him there.

 

·    Help you have an understanding of the sports culture and an awareness of the sports world in which young people are involved.

 

Here are the ways in which we offer support in these two areas

·                 Resources

The youth department have a bank of purchasable/free items, both in written and audio format.  These range in format across the discipleship scale for the ‘just looking’ to the ‘following Jesus’. A  full library of items can be found on the website, however these are a couple of key ones to look out for.

 

‘The One and Only’ - 8 studies in John’s gospel of the life of Jesus for the young sports player.  Ideal for young people just looking into Christianity.

 

 

 

 

And the Winner is…’ - 10 studies in the Sermon on  the Mount for the young sports player. Ideal for the Christian looking to grow in Jesus. (Also available to download)

 

 

 

 

 

·                 Website

We try to ensure that this is accessible and useful for young sports players, youth leaders and parents. Regular updates, relevant articles question boards, information about camps, events, gap years and lots more -check out the youth pages - www.christiansinsport.org.uk/youth_sport 

  

·                 Contact

- For the young people:  A weekly youth email goes out to encourage and inform young sports players all over the country. This email is aimed at the young pray, play say-er, for equipping and encouragement, yet is not exclusive. Others can also receive this including parents and youth leaders.

 

        - Parents and youth leaders might at times want a sounding board to think of ways to support

          their young sports players. The Youth Department is ready to offer that personal support.

          Email: youthsport@christiansinsport.org.uk

 

- Also receive the bi-annual magazine produced by Christians in Sport.

 

·                 Events

The youth department is active in many parts of the country. We run our own events that offer the opportunity to youth leaders and parents to bring/send  their young sports players  to. Events such as the ‘PPS groups’, ’Night of Champions’ and ‘Sports Plus Camps’ are our main activities. A full diary can be viewed on the website informing you of coming events that we are holding at a place near you.

We also support local youth leaders to put on sports outreach events that suit their specific need when we are able.

 

 

 

What next?

We do hope that this has been helpful for you. The Christians in Sport Youth Department exists to support parents/guardians like you  to support your young sports players. Do please use us!!

 

 

Ian Lancaster

Youth Department Team leader