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Liberia: Gospel Goes to the Soccer Pitch
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The Inquirer (Monrovia)
25 April 2008
Posted to the web 25 April 2008
The preaching of the gospel in street corners, market houses and other public places is a popular phenomenon in Liberia in recent years, but evangelizing on the football field is quiet strange in our setting.
However, this is the method being introduced by the Liberia Christian Sport Coalition to reach the gospel out to athletes and make them feel that they can still be playing sports and yet remain Christians.
Evangelizing yesterday on the training grounds of Mark Professionals Football Club at the Tubman High School football pitch on 12th Street Sinkor, the president and founder of the Liberia Christian Sports Coalition, Rev. Emmanuel Jones said he and some of his colleagues had once felt that being a Christian and playing sports was actually being worldly. He said after undergoing training at the international sports leadership school in South Africa, they have come to the realization that indeed one can be a Christian and still be playing sports.
He said music is an art and since Christians believe that it is right to get involve with music then it will also be right to get deeply involved with sports, which is also an art.
He said the Liberia Christian Sports coalition has gotten the vision of going to the sports world and reaching out to people through sports and teaching them how they can use sports for the glory of God and at the same time they can use sports to draw people to the kingdom of God.
Rev. Jones said the group hopes to get deeply involved with various sports clubs in the spread of the gospel and hopefully by next year, it intends to open a sports school in the country.
He said he has just being elected as president of Karn United football club and they are presently evangelizing on the practice grounds of both Karn United and Mark Professionals. He said the group will be reaching out very soon the Under -20 national team of Liberia.
He said the group comprises of individuals, who were once deeply involved in sports but upon becoming Christians, they were constrained to leave the game because of public sentiment. He said now they have decided to return to the pitch and preach the gospel, while still involved in the game.
Also evangelizing with the Liberia Christian Sports Coalition was Bernie Bitter, the president of Sports Outreach Africa based in Johannesburg, South Africa, who is in the country at guest of the Liberian group.
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Bernie also said he was a former athlete and played in Zimbabwe many years ago and got converted to the church in the 1980s. He said he is in the country to help the local Christian sports ministry to up and reach out to as many athletes as possible.
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