Baller 21

Cultivating Sports Culture // Intro

by Chris Harvey on 02/05/09

Cultivating Sports Culture is the vision for a Sports Organization / Non-profit that I’m establishing, a foundation that was inspired from reading the book Total Truth, and was the title of an essay I wrote for the “Make History Now” contest.

But first let me take you back to the start.

As I have spent a significant amount of time analyzing who I am (gifts, passions, dreams, calling, worldview) and how that plays itself out in life, I have been captivated by this question: What role does the Christian worldview play in the sports culture?

Seriously. What does that look like? Is it solely about having the right attitude in our athletic activities or more? Is the athletic realm worthy to be engaged or just a side note to the more serious things in life? Does the sports culture matter to God?

In short, the sports culture does matter and is worthy of engagement because people matter and people are captivity by sports and recreational activities.

The task, then, is in understanding why people are so captivated and how we should continue to cultivate the sports culture.

By cultivating, I mean, to improve, to refine, to develop, and to create.
In regards to sports culture, I mean, the game and the player.

In the book of Genesis, we are called to develop the social world: build families, schools, churches, etc. And the natural world: plant crops, build bridges, design computers, compose music, etc.

We are designed to serve by being creative with the talents and gifts given to us. Our creative natures and works are a reflection of being made in the image of the most creative Being of all time.

We should celebrate the creativity and great works of our culture because they reflect God’s own creativity.

Nancey Pearcey, in Total Truth, who has encouraged much of my thinking on this topic, suggests that when areas of culture and worldviews do go wrong, offer an alternative, have an answer to the questions and cravings of the culture, and move beyond criticizing culture to creating culture.

With that thought in mind, I began to refine a vision for cultivating sports culture in an essay I wrote.

The premise was this: Sports speak a universal language and are an outlet of freedom, a platform for creativity, a channel that feeds a hunger for self-perfection in our human spirit (Thoughts inspired by Michael Novak, The Joy of Sports ).
Sports can also have negative outcomes on individual’s and society. The point is not that we should disengage from athletics altogether, but seek to improve our current athletic systems and develop a better way.

Thus, cultivating sports culture and the idea of establishing a sports organization / non-profit was born.

The vision is in seeing that athletics thrive in the cities of the world, developing a strategic plan to refine athletic systems, aspiring to generate social change in and through athletics, and encouraging life development.

The next step is defining reality. What are we doing well and what needs to improve in the sports culture? Is there a better way?

And then, lastly, filling in more details of what this actually looks like in the athletic realm.