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Sports are wildly popular in Africa, but using athletic competition as a platform from which to spread the gospel is only recently catching on. The 8th All African Games in Abuja, Nigeria, supplied a venue for evangelism to athletes from Africa’s 54 countries.

Abuja is near Nigeria’s region under Islamic sharia law, which has provoked violence. Some feared religious conflict at the games. Christians maintained a sensitive outreach. Organizers provided a chapel and mosque. Ceremonies at the October 4-18, 2003, games featured Christians and Muslims prayers.

Spearheading Abuja 2003 evangelism was “More Than Gold,” an American-based outreach that works with local churches at multi-sport and multi-national events such as the Olympics and Commonwealth Games. More Than Gold team members were drivers, journalists, referees and game officials. Their presence let athletes know that “finding God through Jesus Christ is more important than winning gold.”

Serving with local organizers and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), More Than Gold operated from the games’ housing village. Other outreaches visited the venues and training centers.

Heading operations were pastor and veteran Nigerian sportsman and administrator Paul Bankole, and Bernie Bitters of the South African-based Sports Outreach Africa.

Judging from More Than Gold’s pocket guide comment cards, the group generated great interest in Christ. These guides contained game and gospel information plus Christian athlete testimonies. Not even Bankole expected the deluge of requests after the competition. Those who accepted Christ were advised to join a Bible-teaching church in their homelands.

Daily after-dinner concerts and dance dramas outside the chapel complemented Sunday services. Christian films were shown daily at the international zone. A More Than Gold squad helped wheelchair-bound athletes who couldn’t climb the stairs to the dining halls. It also arranged free transport to a Christian-managed bank to help athletes exchange money at the best rate. Impressed by the group’s hospitality, delegates often asked who they were.

“When we told them we belong to More Than Gold, they usually wondered what could be more than gold. We used such opportunities to witness to them and invite them to the chapel and dance drama during which not less than 200 persons publicly accepted Christ,” Bankole said.

Other Christian groups at Abuja included the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship and Nigeria’s Bible Society, which organized athlete receptions and distributed free Bibles, respectively.

The international Christian sports organization 2K Plus had Christian radio reporters who covered the games and interacted with athletes, officials and volunteers, sharing their testimonies on the place of faith in their sports careers.

“It was very amazing to see athletes open their lives to reporters and share testimonies of how being a Christian has helped them excel,” said South Africa-based, 2k Plus Nigerian member Solomon Ashon.

Bankole welcomes the change in church attitudes that sports are the idle pastime of unbelievers. “For too long the church has been waiting for people to come to church,” he said. “It is time for the church to go where the people are.”

Lekan Otufodunrin is a Lagos, Nigeria-based freelance journalist and national coordinator of Journalists for Christ.