Book Description

Communicating on the Playing Field is a book about reaching out to people around us through sports. The popularity of sports is a bridge builder to 95% of people living in our world. We, as Christians, long to communicate with all nations, but find it difficult to do it through traditional means. As the cultures of our world change, so we must discover effective ways to relate to the secular people. The playing field doesn't present cultural, social, political and religious barriers. It is an open field that is available to Christian athletes and spectators. Since Christ asks us to go and make disciples, sports can help us penetrate our world. This book provides a general introduction to the concept and practice of sports evangelism springing from a biblical and theological platform. It demonstrates many opportunities of doing sports evangelism in the contemporary culture at home and abroad.Dr. Josef Solc is a native of the Czech Republic. He represented his home country in tennis and ice hockey. He wanted to study in a seminary in Prague, but the communist government told him it was more beneficial for their society if he continued playing professional ice hockey than becoming a pastor. During the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Solc left his home and began his studies in Switzerland, then in Oklahoma and Texas culminating in Ph.D. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. There he became a pastor at Hulen Street Baptist Church where he developed a strong evangelistic ministry by using sports. After seventeen years of pastoral ministry, Solc began teaching evangelism and missions at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina.Professor Solc lives with his wife Joy in Raleigh, North Carolina. He continues teaching and doing sports evangelism at SEBTS.