Blog: God & Culture Conversations

[Peter Horne]

I realized several months ago that many of the younger guys were more invested in fantasy football, or playing Madden than in Bible studies.  They'll readily talk about their football team, but never about what God's doing in their lives.  For guys in particular spiritual conversations challenge them to be vulnerable, which runs counter to all our cultural messages. So how do we overcome this to challenge our men, (our current or future leaders) whether Christian or unchurched to talk about their relationship with God?

The approach I'm trying is a new blog: www.GodMeetsBall.blogspot.com. I'm using sports to create a weekly parable for a spiritual application. I was thrilled that the first "fringe church member guy" that I shared it with immediately thanked me and shared the blog with other family members!

There are several ways we can have a conversation about this:

1. Is it too cheesy and cliche to just tack God onto the end of sports conversations? (Please be honest, I'll tweak it if I need to!!)

2. I would love to find some other guys who would write posts on the blog for me. I struggle to do one a week. If your church can find some guys in your men's ministry or you just know members who would like to comment on sports from a Christian perspective, please have them contact me.

3. What other niche's could this work with. I could definitely see someone a lot cooler than I hosting a site dedicated to finding spiritual lessons in pop music, lyrics, performer statements and lifestyles.  Similarly with movies.

Well, this is my attempt at missional blogging. I hope it encourages you!

[James Nored]

Peter, I love this approach. Very missional. My site is more about connecting people who are interested in reaching out to others. It is not a site that I would normally direct non-Christians to. So, in a way, your site is much more missional than mine.

I find that there are a lot of people who don't go to church, but listen to Christian radio and even watch Christian TV. So there is definitely an audience for what you are attempting to do, I believe.