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 About
Church Sports International
CSI is a faith-supported missions organization that was
started in August of 1992 by Rodger Oswald and a governing
Board of Directors. As CSI was formed, the ministry motto
was ". . . reaching your community and the world for Christ
through sports"; the ministry is Scripturally undergirded by
the cultural mandate declared by Paul in I Corinthians 9
(his willingness to be Jew or Greek), as well as by his
example in Acts as he observed cultural distinctives in
order to preach the gospel.
CSI has three
goals...
· To work with churches - to
empower them to carry out the God-given tasks of worship,
empowered evangelization, and edification of the body of
Christ.
· To work with mission agencies
- to stimulate and equip the agency in the employment of
sports as a means to carry out Great Commission tasks in
planting and growing churches.
· To work with sports
parachurch ministries - to cooperate and participate in
major event evangelism that is productive in helping the
local church reach out and grow.
In each of these cases the intention is
to create a vision for sports ministry in the local church,
equip the church to carry out that vision and to come
alongside in order to implement the vision.
Mission & Purpose of CSI
Vision
Kingdom building through creative evangelism and
discipleship using the vehicle of sports and recreation.
Mission
To stimulate, equip and assist in implementing sports and
recreation ministry in the life of the local church in order
to facilitate culturally relevant and, therefore, strategic
evangelistic and discipleship efforts that lead to the
numerical and spiritual growth of the church.
Ministry Scope
Serving churches, mission agencies or parachurch sports
ministries committed to church growth
and/or church planting locally, nationally and
internationally.
Ministry
Strategies
· Conferences and Seminars
· Workshops and Consulting
· Audio Visual and Written
Resources
· Global Network Partners
(Trained international associates)
· Project Reclamation
(Gathering and Sending sports equipment, uniforms and shoes
to developing nations)
· Strategic Alliances (One
Challenge International – Sports Ambassadors, Church Sports
and Recreation
Ministers association, Sports Outreach America, International Sports
Coalition)
· CSI
Website
As the church seeks to carry out the Great
Commission, sports can be used as a culturally relevant and,
therefore, strategic tool for evangelism as well as for
building up the individual saint in his or her faith. Sports
is a tool to reach the nearby community, as well as
resistant parts of that community, and is a means to fulfill
the global call of Christ. CSI exists to facilitate a vision
for, the development of, and the implementation of an
impacting sports ministry in the local church.
Why Sports
Ministry?
The church is
called to be a dynamic organism that is sent into the world
to be a witness for Jesus Christ, and thereby glorify God.
In partnership with God, the church carries out her
redemptive work by equipping, mobilizing and sending out
saints to proclaim the Good News. Because of this critical
call on the church, this dynamic body of believers must be
strategic . . . must be expedient . . . must be prudent in
carrying out that call.
With that in mind, the church would be wise to understand
the phenomenon of sports and recreation since it has such a
pivotal and pervasive place in our society - and the
societies of the world. Seventyfive percent of Americans
watch, read about, or participate in sports once a week, and
ninety-eight percent do so once a month. If that is where
the people are, if that is what the people are doing, it
seems prudent for the church to determine how best to
utilize that cultural interest for the sake of declaring
Christ.
Why Sports Ministry? Because sports and
recreation offer the church unique tools to accomplish the
following tasks:
· A means of forming friendships and building
relationships
·
A means of promoting "body life" (internal church
fellowship)
· Facilitates life-style and proclamational evangelism
· Creates a bridge to the lost in the community . . .
even to the resistant
· A means of helping someone grow in his or her faith .
. . a tool for discipleship within the sporting
environment
· A door of service for those who are not involved in
ministry to the body
· A means of "closing the back door" through small
group discipleship and accountability
· A ministry servant to the other ministries of the
church (Children, Youth, Adult, Singles, Seniors, etc.)
· A ministry that contributes to leadership training
· A means of building "stepping stones" from the
field/gym to the worship center
Sports is culturally relevant and,
therefore, a strategic way to introduce people to the church
and to the person of Jesus Christ. It doesn’t matter if I am
interested in sports; the key is to recognize that lost
people are interested and that is where they congregate.
Where would Jesus be?
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