Communicating on the Playing Field - Part 2

Here is Part 2 of my book review of Communicating on the Playing Field:

As great as this charge to spread the Gospel sounds, many who develop the passion to witness find themselves paralyzed by fear once they give it a shot. After a door is shut in their face or they feel as if they did not present the message effectively, they tend to want to give up and go back to the sidelines. This leads to another point that Solc makes in this book. In general, many Christians have forgotten the power of the Holy Spirit. They know that He lives inside of them after their conversion, and they might remember that it was Him who convicted them of their sin. Yet they somehow forget that He is still active in their lives and in the lives of those around them. Just as He originally convicted them of their sin, He continues to convict others of their sins as well. So when a Christian witnesses to an unbeliever, they can trust that the Holy Spirit is working in the life of that person as well, trying to draw them to God. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit is also with that Christian. He provides Christians with the confidence and boldness to proclaim the Gospel, and if a Christian ever finds themselves fearful of witnessing, they can turn to Him for the strength they need.


Personally, I think this is one reason why I have failed to witness to others in the past. As Solc said, I feel like out of the three members of the Trinity, I think the least about the Holy Spirit. It is not that I do not trust Him or believe in Him. It is more that we are always more focused on the Father and Son in general. As a result, I tend to forget about the power that He can give me in witnessing. My goal is to grow in the Holy Spirit and learn to depend on Him more each day. Yes, the Holy Spirit is God, but it is the Holy Spirit who lives in me. How can I lead others to learn to trust in the Holy Spirit in their evangelistic encounters if I have not first rediscovered that truth?

Finally, Solc ends the book with some practical suggestions on how to do sports evangelism. The last chapter lists practical ways of promoting a ministry of this nature in a church. Maybe a church has never been involved in sports ministry or run a sports clinic before. Solc provides those people with ways in which they can begin to promote the idea and even begin the first steps in starting a program such as this in their church. He then takes it one step further by showing how a clinic might look. He outlines potential schedules that could be used. Most importantly, he stresses the importance of working the Gospel into these plans and the event itself. A church might reach hundreds of people through sports ministries, but if they neglect to share the Gospel with these people, then what is the point? Solc understands that churches might not know where to start or how to organize one of these events, so the step-by-step suggestions are very helpful.

In the future, I hope to be working in a local church. While I do not know how far into the future that might be or where that might be, sports clinics are one form of ministry that I can be thinking about even now. No matter where I go in this country, Sports is going to be just as loved there as it is here. Therefore, this idea can be one practical way in which I can think about how to reach the lost in whatever town or city I might find myself living in. While I should be open to using other avenues to reach the lost, the ideas and schedules listed in the final chapter of this book will prove to be very helpful in the future.

This book covers a lot of various topics but does so in a very cohesive manner. Although Solc looks only at sports evangelism, he does so by grounding it all in the Gospel and our call to spread the good news. The book is not only a listing of practical ideas for today’s churches. Instead, it also looks at the culture that we find ourselves living in today, it looks at the basics of the gospel, it looks at the job that Christians are called to do, and it looks at how Christianity can be tied into the Sports world. Ultimately, Solc brings all these topics together and shows how Christians can live out their faith in this ever changing world. Coming from a sports background himself, Solc has a passion for this type of ministry, but most importantly it is clear that he has a passion for the Gospel to be spread throughout all the nations. He brings these two together quite effectively in Communicating on the Playing Field.

Matt