Crave Community

Crave:SPORT Ministry

By Luke Williams

I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. – 1 Corinthians 9:26-27

The Crave:SPORT Ministry was launched in early 2009 as a part of the HTD Young Adults “CRAVE” Discipleship and Evangelism Strategy. The vision for the overall CRAVE ministry is “To see Revival and Redemption in our Community as we Follow Jesus, Proclaim Jesus, and Impact the World for Jesus.”

Under this strategy, Crave:SPORT aims to build strong relationships within the church, and to engage the culture around us with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The ministry has a two-fold mission:

Discipleship: We want to build stronger relationships between Christian brothers and sisters, to encourage HTD christians to live with Christ as their focus. We want to use sport as one of the means to achieve this.

Evangelism: Not enough young people are being introduced to Jesus. Young people love sport and get fired up about it, so why not take the gospel to them through sport? We want to use sport as a means to share the Gospel with others: both in the way that we play, and through direct Gospel conversations.

It is the same gospel we hear preached from the pulpit on Sunday, just delivered in a different setting.

At this point in time we have an indoor soccer team called “HTD United”. The ministry of the team is to show (through sportsmanship, fair play and competitiveness) that Jesus is Lord of our lives. We also train throughout the week, and we encourage the guys to bring their non-christian mates along. Our mission as a team is that God would bring us close together as brothers, and that He would bring us into contact with people with whom we can share the Gospel.

In the future, we would like to expand the scope of our ministry. We plan to have a few mixed-gender soccer or netball teams, as well as some women’s teams.

In addition to this, we hope to purchase some decent sports equipment (e.g a home gym) when the new building is complete and we have a full size basketball court. That way people can invite their non-christian mates along for a workout or a game.

For all of this to happen, we need people to commit to the ministry; To play, to pray, and to financially support us as God leads.

For more information about this ministry, please contact Luke Williams on 0401 972 216, or email luke.williams101@hotmail.com