Sport is a wonderful opportunity to provide healthy, happy activities that bring diverse people together into community.
The skills and attitudes required on the sports pitch (or on the sea – see below!) can provide young people with teachable moments applicable to the rest of life, as well as developing trusting relationships to allow deeper conversations to take place.
Many visionary Christians have noticed this and created charitable organisations to run sports programs for children, young people or adults. Others charities partner share their experiences with churches to deliver sport community building in their location.
Here are four sport focused organisations to pray for and support this summer:
Ambassadors Football
Ambassadors Football has a clear mission to equip the local church to use football to build relationships in their community and share Jesus. Ambassadors also believe that football isn’t just for young people: walking football for over-55s is very popular!
They also operate tours for believers to travel around the world to play and coach football, and visit prisons, orphanages or refugee centres.
Please pray for Ambassadors football as they run football camps across the country, and tours around the globe this summer.
Christians In Sport
Christians in Sport seek to engage with sportspeople in the formative under-25 years, at either the amateur level, on performance pathways or professional athletes.
Although many professional athletes will feel privileged, it can also be an isolated and transient existence. Christians in Sport love to pastorally support them and their families, so they can be salt and light in their unique circumstances.
Please pray for Christian in Sport as they continue to mentor athletes over the summer.
Christian Youth Enterprises
CYE is a Christian residential activity centre, where up to 50 people can stay on their barge in Chichester harbour by night, and enjoying sailing, kayaking, canoeing and land-based activities by day.
The site welcomes schools and church groups for packed programmes of activities and plenty of opportunities to engage with the good news about Jesus.
Please pray for CYE as they care for many young people over the summer, and as they fundraise to develop their site to support their ambitious future plans.
Support the Christian Youth Enterprises Sailing Centre
KICK
Founded just over 20 years ago, Kick is a wonderful charity using sport to transform young people’s lives. As the name suggests it originally started with football but now extends to multiple sports and dance. Kick employs coaches, mentors and chaplains to deliver sports sessions in schools and community centres, as well as holiday Kick academies.
Please pray for Kick that they will continue to provide this unapologetically Christian influence on young people across the country.
Help sports ministries with a Stewardship Giving Account
You can help and support all of the above Stewardship registered charities with a Stewardship Giving Account. You can make a one off gift or a regular payment really easily, with the ability to adjust amounts and dates at the click of a button. Check out our Sports and Recreation cause page for a more complete list of Christian charities seeking to utilise the power of sport to share Jesus.
A Stewardship Giving Account can also help you discover more charities working for causes you care about. It provides you with full visibility of how much you give and who you are supporting, and the flexibility to make changes to your giving at any time.
Find out how you could be increasing the impact of your gifts today.
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James Bishop
James is our Digital Marketing Manager and works within our Purpose team to connect Christians to the causes they care about and to inspire them to live out the freedom that active generosity offers. He works on website content and email newsletters, advertising on social media and making sure people using search engines can find us. James also contributes to campaigns such as 40acts and the Generosity Report.
Before joining Stewardship in 2025, James worked in marketing departments of all sizes, from a biotech startup to a large civil engineering consultancy and most recently a learning disability charity.
James lives in Surrey and serves in a local church as a director of their non-profit community café and on their AV team. James is reluctantly making a middle-age transition from football to golf and loves making homemade pizza and good coffee.
