I had a high school track teammate who was strong in his Christian faith. And to be honest, many of us gave him a hard time. We thought the Christian life was boring.
When we sat around talking about parties, he’d invite us to church. When we joked about girls, he’d bring up God and how much he loved us. We didn’t always want to hear about Jesus. Sometimes we avoided our teammate—not because he was judgmental, but because his life made us uncomfortable. I often felt convicted because I knew a lot of what I engaged in was wrong. This conviction wasn’t due to finger pointing and judgment from my teammate but because deep down, I wanted the Jesus he talked about. But I was more concerned about missing out on “fun” and how others would perceive me.
Living Like Jesus Is Real
I’ll never forget one day after practice. I was sitting on the bleachers, weighed down by some personal stuff, when my Christian teammate sat beside me. I opened up about a traumatic experience I hadn’t fully processed yet: when I had been robbed at gunpoint.
He listened, and then shared a story from his own life. His family owned a store, and one night, a masked man walked in with a gun and started giving orders; demanding money, threatening everyone. His mom, overwhelmed with fear, began to cry out the name of Jesus over and over again. And then, something unexpected happened. The gunman paused… lowered his weapon…and walked out.
That story got to me—not in a scary way, but in an intriguing way. It made me wonder: What was it about that name of Jesus that changed the moment?
But what changed me more than his story was the consistency of my teammate’s life, even after such a traumatic experience. He didn’t just talk about Jesus. He lived like Jesus was real.
Here’s the truth: I wasn’t the only one on the team who felt that tension. Deep down, many of us wrestled with it: the pull to blend in, to fit in, and to avoid standing out as “too religious.” Many of the students we serve are wrestling with this same tension in their schools and maybe especially on their sports teams. Here’s the advice I encourage you to give student athletes you disciple.
Do Not Be Conformed
The problem is, because of sin, far too many Christian athletes are conforming to the patterns of this world (Romans 12:2). We hide our faith to protect our image. We stay silent about Jesus to avoid awkward conversations. Our desire to be accepted becomes louder than our desire to represent Christ. We wear the team colors boldly but we tuck our faith away like something private. And when we do, we rob the people around us of seeing Jesus and experiencing his peace and power that comes from knowing him.
But we must remind our students that hiding our faith away is not what we were made for. We weren’t made to blend in. We were made to live in such a way that people see something different in us and want to know why.
Living Letters
This is what Paul is saying in 2 Corinthians 3:2-3:
You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
Paul addresses the church in Corinth and expresses that their lives, not simply Paul’s teaching as an apostle, are living proof of the power of the gospel. The same gospel that captured Paul’s sinful heart on that road to Damascus is the same gospel that we are called to live out. Paul says, essentially, “You are the message. You are the evidence. You’re the letter people read to know what Christ is like.”
This is a beautiful image that, as believers, we are not just messengers of the gospel. We are living letters, written by the Spirit of God, meant to be seen, known, and read by the world around us. There is power in the name of Jesus. So much power that even demons shudder (James 2:19). So much power that a robber put down his weapon and fled. So much power that he overcame the cross and the grave because he loves us. This gospel is the power of God for salvation (Rom. 1:16).
Life Out Loud
As a Christian athlete, this verse carries deep weight. This passage reminds us that we are living letters from Christ and athletes have a built-in platform to represent him. The field, court, or track becomes the page where their stories are written for all to see.
Your students may not get up and preach a sermon before or after the game, but it is important for students to know that their lives are indeed preaching one. This is not the famous quote that says, “preach the gospel at all times and if necessary use words” that is often attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. The way we live out our faith, like my teammate, provides opportunities to preach the gospel with our words.
Each Christian athlete is a letter, read in locker rooms, on buses, during practice, and in the heat of competition. Our students’ teammates, coaches, opponents, and fans are reading our reactions, our attitude, our work ethic, our wins, our losses, our integrity, and our joy. This is also not a call to a works-based faith. Instead, Jesus’ sustaining love for us and his power working inside of us enables us to live in a way that glorifies him. We don’t live a perfect life, but we follow a perfect Savior who is perfecting our faith (Heb. 12:2).
A Note To Youth Ministers
The gospel impacts the lives of our students in a significant way. In a world that tells them their value comes from performance, the gospel gives them something stronger: identity in Christ. The gospel gives students a proper perspective of who they are and who God is. We are sinners. Jesus is Savior. As sinners, we need a Savior. The gospel frees them from chasing approval through trophies and titles. It allows them to compete with confidence, knowing their worth is secure in Jesus. As youth ministers, the challenge is to lead with the truth of the gospel. Leading with the truth of the gospel challenges students because it gives them a proper view of themselves and God.
Again, our student athletes don’t have to be perfect, but God does call us to be intentional. We can urge them to let the Spirit of God write something on their hearts that others can’t help but notice. We hope they will let their lives communicate the kind of love, resilience, humility, and joy that makes people curious about our God.
I leave you with a line from one of my poems, “Our lives are a part of God’s story and he has written our future with his blood so that it is beautifully read.”
For a resource that will help you guide your child through performance anxiety, we’d like to suggest a 31-day Rooted devotional, Anxiety: Finding a Better Story.
