Soccer vs. Volleyball
January 28th, 2008 by RomanWhen we were thinking last year about what kind of activity we can do as young Christians that would be attractive to our non-Christian friends, that would be also fun and a relationship-building activity at the same time, we came up with the word “Soccer”! Soccer is very popular in Slovakia, so we thought that naturally many of our friends would be interested in joining us.
So since December, some from our youth group have been playing soccer every Sunday night. And as we all quickly realized, it fulfilled our desired goals:
1.) We are spending more time together as brothers and sisters and friends in the church, who have some interests in common. It’s not only a good time of sport, but also a good time of many laughs, smiles and heartfelt situations that are spontaneously generated among brothers and sisters.
2.) We started to invite our friends that don’t come to the church yet. And they started to come! Through this enjoyable activity we are gradually getting to know them better in very informal manner.
Also, most of us stay after the game for a cup of kofola and a good talk. If you don’t have any experience with kofola, one of these days you may try it! (It is a very traditional Czecho-Slovak soft drink that comes from the era of Communism. The taste of the soft drink can lightly remind you of Coca-Cola.) The additional talk after the game can give us more opportunities to share our lives with our friends as well as our faith.
Interestingly, after playing a few matches of soccer in December we switched to volleyball in January and the number of our visitors grew rapidly! Who would have thought that in a country so “addicted” to Soccer, Volleyball would be more popular?! We are happy about the new friendships and new opportunities to share our lives and faith!
Please keep this new relationship-building (and also to some extent evangelistic) activity in your prayers!
Posted in Mission strategies, Life of the church |