How can we reach athletes with the Gospel of Jesus?

Jesus said, Blessed are the persecuted and they are suffering big time right now. This is Bible League International and 19-year-old Aria was beaten by her own father and violated by local authorities. You know what her crime was?

Simply that she gave her life to Jesus Christ after leaving radical Islam. They need Bibles in order to endure and persevere. And that's why Truth Network and Bible League are teamed up to send God's Word to 3500 persecuted believers around the world at $5 a Bible, $100 since 20. Call 800-YES-WORD, 800-YES-WORD, 800-YES-WORD, or give at truthnetwork.com. This is Robbie Dilmore from The Christian Car Guy and Kingdom Pursuit, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.

Enjoy it and share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. And a man, a guy who has a ministry called Date the Word, who's been a preacher, a school administrator, a businessman, head of student life at a major Christian university, Dr. Duane Carson.

Dr. Carson, what's going on here with all these people, man? We're just learning the Word here and excited about being able to share the Word. We know the Lord and we make him known. Amen. I love that. And he puts a Bible verse every day of the calendar year he just gave me for my birthday, an amazing plaque in front of these men last week.

Now, the noise you hear is from Wednesday in the Word. What would you say Pastor J happens every week when we come together? Oh, it's just a great time of fellowship and accountability and spending time in the Word of God, just going straight through Scripture. And I always enjoy it.

It's a wonderful time of learning and growing. And Pastor J didn't mention a lot of our favorite whole parts is when he at the beginning brings the worship and plays a song and takes us to God's throne. And you, Pastor, you lead worship, you're a recording artist, and you're leading worship this Tuesday night, October 25th, for a very special event for FCA, Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Tell us how excited you are about that. Oh, I'm very excited about it.

I've had the privilege to be involved with FCA over the years. Just kind of indirectly, I've got, as a matter of fact, I've got a young lady in our church, Ricky Kansler, who is a representative. And she'll be there. She's going to sing with me.

She's one of our worship leaders at our church. So I'm very excited about it and looking forward to seeing what God's going to do. And again, he, you know, he dodges the whole thing that he's a fabulous athlete and baller himself.

He's got a smooth, silky left-hand three-point shot. Bearshawn Thompson, you are playing ball at the top of your game. Some things happen where God got your attention. Fast forward, now you're running the Triad area FCA chapter, Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

That's in North Carolina. FCA is all over the world. But tell us how God brought you to FCA.

What's coming up this week? Yeah, so engage, equip, and power. I mean, that's what the word of God has done in my heart is engaged me. I've got a relationship with Jesus Christ, equipped me with the word and with prayer, and we're empowering coaches, we're empowering student-athletes to live out their faith.

So important in the culture that we live in today, that student-athletes can live freely in Jesus Christ and live out their faith. So there's an FCA banquet where you have a speaker. This year's speaker is who? And Pastor J's doing the music, which will be amazing. It's at this great venue where the Winston-Dasch play, the truest stadium, a massive in the middle of Winston-Salem. Everyone's invited, but you got to go to the website and get tickets. But tell us what's going on that night.

Yeah, so we've got Rusty LaRue. He's going to share how, you know, the gospel and how FCA has impacted his life personally, and his business, and his ministry. It's going to be a great night. We're going to have folks from all over the Triad and beyond attending this event at the Truist Stadium. It starts at 6 30, www.westerntriadfca.org. You can go there to find out more. We still have some seats left.

If you want to be a part of that, just reach out to us at westerntriadfca.org and we will get you registered. The problem is they picked a kind of shady MC of the event. That's me, yours truly. Dr. Carson, I guess they wanted to go to the bottom barrel to get an MC for this thing.

What do you think? We wanted to get the very best and we've got the best. So you're on the board and you're encouraged. For people that can't get there, how can they be praying for the ministry of FCA? How important is it that this ministry is in the schools, the public schools, sharing Christ?

Well, there's no question. Praying for these directors, huddle leaders, the coaches, because they have an opportunity to touch a student's life in ways that no one else gets to do. And many of them are not saved and we're praying that their eyes will be open to the glorious gospel and these coaches will have that chance to share this.

They become the witnesses. I call FCA the church in the trenches. They're out there helping share Christ in ways that other people in the church will never get to. And that's why I love FCA and we need to be supporting this ministry so that we can get the the tracks that they need so that they can hand out the gospel to these athletes. And another athlete who started off in North Carolina playing college ball, went all the way to Colorado Springs, has the Destiny Project, an amazing ministry, who we met through our mutual friend Brent Hoops of Hope Fuqua out in the Springs. Tell us, Rex Tompkins, what God's doing in your life. You hear these guys talk about sports, ministry, reaching people for Christ with the gospel.

Tell us how that resonates with you. Well, actually, FCA, I was the president of FCA in my college at LR and so the ministry of the Destiny was birthed out of FCA and so I've been doing the Destiny Project. It's a youth outreach helping young people understand their purpose and destiny in Christ. And we've been doing it, me and my wife, for 25 years. We travel the country doing sports camps, leadership camps, basketball and football camps all over the country.

We've been doing that since 2000, 2001 and we've been living in Colorado Springs since 96. So work for the legendary leader, Dr. James Dobson. Love working for him, learned a lot from him. A lot of curriculum was birthed out of working for focus on the family. Well, Rex, let me ask you, you know, you think about sports, you think about scandals, you hear about stories like stuff come out, drugs and guys want money and these guys, you know, something we talk about how, man, what in the world, you know, what are they thinking?

And there's all kinds of issues and salary caps and this and that, but there's a whole another side. There's a whole ministry. There's guys like you and Bear Shawn who are ministering and sharing Jesus with these guys, trying to bring them closer to Jesus. They're struggling and they need someone to reach.

Who's going to reach them? God sends his servants into the athletic arena to share the good news with professional athletes, college athletes, high school athletes, all the way down to, you know, elementary just to share in the love of Christ. And we have to have coaches who are skilled who have a testimony of God's impact on their life. What impacted me, of course, I grew up in Greensboro, but God sent a preacher into the inner city to lead me to Christ. And so I'm forever grateful for that leader coming to the inner city, great one homes in Greensboro, North Carolina, to share the good news with my brother and them.

They led me to Christ when I was 12 years old. And now you have a whole ministry called the Destiny Project because someone took interest in a kid through basketball. Pastor J, you got a gym at your church. There's guys that would never go like 25 feet on the other side of the gym in the sanctuary, but they hear a ball bouncing, they come in and they'll dunk it, drop the three, and you're sharing Jesus there. Talk about the power of that, Pastor J. You're coaching also on the college level, you know, helping out.

What is that? How can God use that in a big way? I think anytime you can use your gifts and talents as tools to present the gospel, you know, we want to do whatever it takes to get the word of life to people. So, you know, at our church, we play ball three times a week and invite, there's all kinds of guys that come and several of them, like you said, Stu, they don't attend church regularly. They may not know the Lord, but we try to represent Christ to them.

And then this year, of course, getting the opportunity to volunteer over at Carolina University and just to be an influence in the lives of those kids, those young men over there, to try to speak life, speak Jesus into their lives has been also an awesome opportunity. So sports is a great avenue to get Jesus preached to kids and college kids and adults alike. Well, I'll just never forget a Saturday night, Pastor J. called me and I'm like, you know, a lot of pastors won't call you on a Saturday night because they're thinking about something coming up the next day, big, you know, their big Sunday. He said, Stu, you're not going to believe who we're baptizing. And it was one of the guys we play ball with.

And that just really encouraged me. This guy came to a church to play ball and the church saw that as a beautiful gospel opportunity, just like Paul made tents. It was like Peter caught fish.

But he used that to be a fisher of men. And, of course, there's water involved because he got dunked. And that's the greatest dunk you can happen to you, not on the court, but in that baptismal.

Right. So that, you know, but because it's demonstrating the beauty, the power of the gospel, that you are buried with him in baptism, raised in new life. So, Bear Shawn Thompson, Fellowship of Christian Athletes director, what's your challenge out there? You know, I know you've got your big banquet coming up.

Everyone, please get involved. Donate to FCA because you're helping him get into schools. You're helping him take the gospel into the trenches, like Dr. Duane said. What's your challenge out there about utilizing sports and about going to where the athletes are and sharing the gospel with them?

Yeah, sometimes they won't know what they don't know. And in order for them to know the truth that will make them free, we've got to have people in the trenches. We've got to have people where the athletes are. And so I just challenge you today, if you're out there listening and you are a servant of the Most High God and you feel God is calling you to be a part of FCA, I just challenge you to pray for us. I challenge you to go to our website, westerntriadfca.org, and let us know, hey, I want to be involved.

I want to join the team because we have a huge area to serve, Forsyth County, Stokes County. There's so many people who still don't know the gospel and there's athletes, there's coaches, there's students' lives who need to be impacted by the gospel of Christ. So we challenge you to get on board and join the team and just fulfill the calling that God has on your life if you feel led that the Lord is doing that for you. Yeah, there I was a senior at Mount Tabor High School and I'm like, how do I reach my school for Christ? I want to tell everyone about Jesus and we could start a Christian club legally in a public high school called Fellowship of Christian Athletes and God used that to do a ton of stuff in me and then use that to witness everyone else. Rex, what's the Destiny Project website and what's your challenge to everyone out there?

Yeah, the Destiny Project website is www.youhaveadestiny.org and so basically our challenge is we want to basically help young people understand that they have a purpose and a destiny and we do that through sports camps, we do that through written curriculum, and we do that through written books. So we always need people to partner and team up with us to help us fund those things to dance to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Every summer we see hundreds of young people come to Christ from Florida to North Carolina to Colorado to Wyoming. Every year we see kids receive Christ at our sports camps. It's amazing how the Holy Spirit moves at these events. Big B, Pastor J, Rex, all the way from Colorado Springs, Bear Shawn, he didn't know he'd walk into this crazy clamorous group.

We're still at Dario. Wednesday the word was over a little bit ago, but there's guys still praying and fellowshiping. Dr. Carson, take us home. Your final challenge to everyone at every level to use whatever gift they have to impact our world while we still have time before the king returns. We have that responsibility as you shared in Wednesday in the Word today. We're to know our God and then make him known. We've got to share the truth because only the truth sets people free. And we have this glorious gospel now to shine to other people, and it is a glorious gospel.

And without knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, no one enters into heaven. And so what a message we have to share. And FCA, again, is using their gifts and talents so that young people can come to know Jesus at a young age and then make a difference for him throughout their lives. Wow, that's awesome. And what's the website for your ministry?

Because I know there's people who want to get a daily verse dropped in their email that corresponds with the date of the day. What is that website? www.datetheword.com.

Date of the word, one word, dot com. Everyone get to know all these guys. Get involved. FCA, Destiny Project. Get involved in a local church. Get involved volunteering as an associate for a basketball team, on a street team, and involved in a ministry where you can get involved in a ministry where you can make a difference for Jesus. We're still here to take as many people in with us as we can. This is the Truth Network.