Now Available on Amazon
Understanding and Engaging Youth Sports as a Mission Field
by Jordan Elder
Youth sports in America have quietly become a $40-billion industry, and for millions of Christian families, weekends at the ballfield now shape more of their time, money, and identity than almost anything else in their lives — including church. Playing for Something More is a field guide for parents, coaches, and pastors trying to make sense of that shift, written by a pastor who has spent years both coaching inside travel-ball culture and pastoring the families living inside it.
The book traces how youth sports grew from neighborhood pickup games into today’s high-pressure, high-cost machine, then turns from diagnosis to practice: six biblical postures — freedom, gentleness, prayer, hospitality, sabbath, and humility — that Christian families can actually live out on the sidelines and in the car rides home. Each short chapter closes with a head, heart, and hands reflection, making it equally suited to a quiet read between tournaments or a season-long study with other sports families at your church.
The aim isn’t to get families out of youth sports. It’s to help the millions who are already there play, coach, and cheer as salt and light — turning the ball field into a mission field.
Available now as a paperback on Amazon.