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This November in Malta, after four years of planning, UK Christians in Sport staff will join over 100 leaders in sports ministry, from more than 30 countries involved in competitive and elite sport, for a four-day conference.

The conference includes the release of over 150 brand-new resources in four languages, and an internationally accessible leadership development programme.

This summer young people and adult volunteers are coming together to run Sports Plus – seven, week-long, residential camps across five locations in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Sports Plus Director Ian Lancaster describes it as ‘serious sports action for the serious sporty young person.’ He added: ‘Competitive young people make friends with like-minded others from across the UK and come under the sound of the good news of Jesus. It is a vital work for these youngsters to start connecting their sport and faith – working out how the gospel enables them to play with freedom, and how it can define their identity in a performance driven world.’

Christians in Sport, in partnership with other sports ministry organisations globally, is helping to pilot a new training journey specifically for young Christian leaders who are active in the world of competitive and elite sport.

As good as the many ministry training schemes in the UK are, they are often not best suited to the competitive and elite sports player. Mission and discipleship within this world is one of the most unique aspects of sport ministry. Working with athletes who compete at the highest levels, train intensively and often travel regularly, they are often on their own with few believers around them. Some of them are also in the public eye.

Over 75,000 people took part in online sports quizzes run by Christians in Sport from April to June as most competitive and elite level sport stopped.

Teams would take part in four rounds of creative sports questions and then hear a short gospel talk from either Graham Daniels or Ian Lancaster, with Christian team-mates given follow-up questions to work through with their teams.

As the world gets to grips with the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, sportspeople all over the world are also seeing their lives change – particularly those in top-level sport, as their careers are on indefinite hold with serious financial implications.

In April, Christians in Sport (CiS) launched a new campaign calling on Christian sportspeople all over the world to reach out and keep investing in the lives of their sports friends even though sport has been cancelled. In the midst of all the uncertainty, the call to Christian sportspersons remains the same: reach the world of sport for Christ.