Leading coaches & athletes into a growing relationship with jesus Christ & his church
Coaches and athletes face many challenges in following Jesus. Join us in helping them turn these challenges into opportunities for spiritual growth so the next generation of leaders will leave a Christ-centered imprint on the world.
Engage
Coaches & Athletes with the Good News of Jesus
Equip
Coaches & Athletes to grow in their faith in Jesus.
empower
Coaches & Athletes to engage others with the Good News
Today’s athletes face many Challenges
Today’s athletes are some of the most ambitious people on the planet. Tomorrow they will be the leaders who shape our world. Here’s the problem: While facing real challenges to faith in Jesus, they are largely spiritually unengaged. With little spiritual resourcing, student-athletes often struggle alone with:
-
We were created to live from a Christ-centered identity built upon the eternal and unconditional grace and love of God. We were meant to work FROM a place of secure identity and acceptance.
Yet, every day student-athletes are bombarded with the temptation to work FOR an identity, and ultimately find love and acceptance based on performance, statistics, awards, and the win/loss column.
Building a performance-based identity ultimately results in performative leadership, relationships, and love.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
-
We were created for peace and flourishing with God, ourselves, others, creation, and work.
Yet due to the sin affecting us all, student-athletes think they can find peace with God through their performance or morality. They also struggle with mental health challenges, strained relationships, and often an unhealthy attachment to their school and sport (work).
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
-
We were created to live with a secure identity and peace in relationships.
Yet many student-athletes, with a performance-based identity, attempt to find peace in relationships through their performance.
This amounts to an intense pressure God never intended us to face: Identity and relationships are completely based off the student-athletes ability to perform.
This sort of pressure often leads to underage drinking, partying, undesired sexual experiences, the love of money, and other vain attempts to find life that lead to turmoil, isolation, and destruction.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
NO Coach or athlete SHouLD WALK ALONE
Perhaps you wrestled with some of these challenges during high school or college and wish you had a spiritual mentor and community to help you navigate life.
Perhaps you had spiritual resourcing and it was a game-changer for your faith.
Investing in the next generation is a powerful way to ensure future leaders can turn these challenges into opportunities to learn how to follow Jesus.
we’re the Petersons
As a former college athlete and coach, I understand these challenges firsthand. As a part-time staff member with Fellowship of Christian Athletes, I am uniquely positioned to walk alongside coaches and athletes.
I am committed to playing my part in helping fulfill the Great Commission entrusted to us by Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20. My mission is to make disciples of Jesus who make disciples Jesus.
Turning Challenges into Opportunities
Every challenge a coach and athlete faces presents an opportunity to learn how to walk with Jesus in real life. A coach or athlete’s sport can be a training ground for walking with God for a lifetime. We make disciples on high school and college campuses with the same strategy Jesus used: engaging, equipping, and empowering coaches and athletes.
-
We have the unique opportunity to serve athletic departments, building trusting relationships with administrators, coaches, support staff, and student-athletes. We are relational, intentional, and clear in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ in both word and deed.
This means we take the initiative to engage athletes and coaches through a consistent presence of service with relational and intentional conversations about Jesus.
On any given day you will find us engaging in the places where athletes and coaches exist: athletics offices, weight rooms, training rooms, cafeterias, and practice rooms.
-
As student-athletes and coaches place their trust in Christ, we help disciple them towards maturity in the faith, helping them navigate how to walk with Jesus in daily living.
This means we equip student-athletes and coaches with practical spiritual tools through Bible-saturated discipleship groups, personal mentorship, large fellowship environments, and foreign and domestic disciple-making opportunities.
-
Jesus conferred His Kingdom to a handful of teenagers and then empowered them with His Spirit. He entrusted the work of God to the hearts and hands of young women and men.
We aim to empower student-athletes and coaches to walk with God, make disciples, and lead and love with Christ at the center - for a lifetime.
This means we empower student-athletes and coaches to take ownership of their faith, learn to hear and obey Jesus for themselves, and walk in the Spirit by faith.
While equipping them with a holistic Biblical worldview, we empower them to engage in ministry to their athletic teams and communities, multiplying the same process of engaging, training, and sending others.
The Peterson Pace: Our Latest Ministry Update
We work towards a future where Coaches and athletes Walk with Jesus and leave a Christ-centered imprint on the world.
We cannot accomplish the Work without you.
Partner with us to reach Coaches and athletes with the good news of Jesus.
We trust the Lord to provide a team of financial and prayer partners who will go the distance with us to help us accomplish the mission.
Many of our partners remember the challenges of their high school and college years and wish they had the resourcing we provide.
You can make a difference for the next generation.