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What we do: Engaging with sport and physical activity

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Nearly 40% of London’s population will engage in sport and physical activity this week. 40,000 – 50,000 of these people will do this through one of our churches or schools. This is a huge, largely untapped, mission field for the church to reach out to the local community – to meet physical as well as emotional needs, and offer gospel hope, relationship and fun.

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If you are already engaging your church and community in sport and physical activity and are willing to share your experience, then we would love to hear from you at capitalvisionsport@nulllondon.anglican.org.

Click here to download the Sport England and Diocese of London sport report summary.

Useful Organisations:

Adventure Plus is an adventure youth work & outdoor education charity that provides adventure holidays, Gap Year Training programmes and internships, all in a positive Christian environment. They cater for groups of all sizes and levels of adventure delivering a wide range of adventure activities to suit all ages and abilities, with the aim of challenging, inspiring and growing your team or group.

They can provide an adventure day, a residential weekend or a full week, with adventure activities and team building exercises, walks in the hills, a river journey by canoe, or bushcraft experience for young people and adults. They also bring a Christian theme to activities or an evening reflection, and can offer a Active Retreats for church groups.

They also offer Easter and Summer holiday programmes for 8-17 year olds.

Their programmes can be delivered at their outdoor education centre at Windmill Farm in West Oxfordshire, at a number of Associate Centres around the country or a chosen venue.

Visit their website for more details.

Ambassadors Football is an international Christian Charity who look to serve the local church inspiring and equipping it to build Christ centred relationships through football – whether that is children, youth or adults football. They train and support churches to start to engage local children, youth and adults through football coaching and games. They also partners with local churches, football clubs and other organisations to deliver Holiday Clubs.

Ambassadors also run local outreach projects:

  • The award winning Fathers Football project brings together local fathers at school gates to build friendships, fellowship, and opportunities support these men as fathers within their families and community.
  • The Genesis Project works with marginalised and vulnerable adults who are in the depressing cycles of unemployment, homelessness and addiction. Using football they challenge negative behaviour and reinforce good character to help these men to develop as people, family members and members of society and potentially into education and employment.
  • Walking football is for the older generation or those who lack mobility and builds friendships, fellowship, trust, and provides opportunities to share Jesus in word and action.

Visit their website for more information.

Church Runner provides advice on how to use a church running club to engage the local community. Some clubs participate in Parkruns. Many of the runners are not church members and people run for a variety of reasons – some want to display their faith in God, others for fun or fitness.

To find a local club look here or for help setting up a club click here.

Visit their website for more information.

Christian Vision for Men host conferences, events and men’s days all across the country in which sport often plays an important role.  Furthermore, the annual CVM Sports Week in Lanzarote in March boasts more than 30 sports and exercise facilities. They ask that you bring a male friend who is not a believer.

Visit the website for more information.

Christians in Sport want to reach the world of sport for Christ.

Their Sports Mission Pack 2018 can be freely downloaded and has a dedicated website of tips and support. The pack includes a multimedia sports quiz, plans for school assemblies and lessons, guides on how to run sports tournaments, evangelistic films and more.

Kick London is Christian Charity based in London with a vision to transform young peoples lives with God’s love through sport and support. Kick provides primary and secondary schools with high quality values based sports coaching, streetdance and solutions focused mentoring and sports chaplaincy. They look to build relationships and work with local churches in the area to equip them to run additional sporting provision at the weekend.

They also have a strong Kick Academy model which provides churches with all the tools and resources to deliver high quality football and dance coaching linked to a theme, which enables them to share a sports’ ministry slot from the bible before the children end with matches/performances. In the holidays they run Kick Camps.

Find out more on their website.

Scripture Union is an international Christian mission charity who provide opportunities for young people to explore the Bible, respond to Jesus and grow in faith.

Their sports resources provide opportunities for the language and activity of sports and games to naturally collide with the language of faith and can downloaded here. They include resources for parishes to use sport in the community, in schools and in church.

Find out more on their website.

Sports Chaplaincy UK provides spiritual and pastoral care to professional and amateur sports people and helps sporting organisations support, train and appoint sports chaplains. Sports chaplaincy is now commonplace in Football, Rugby Union, and Rugby League yet with 151,000 clubs throughout the country totalling 25 million men, women and children there is a substantial mission field.

A number of Sports Chaplains are ordained but you don’t have to be ordained.

If you are interested in becoming a chaplain at your local sports clubs find out more about the process here. Sports Chaplaincy provides induction training, a professional appointment process, ongoing training, a support network and other resources.

Find out more on their website. 

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