Cru is celebrating its 75th birthday this month, and Athletes in Action is celebrating 60 years! What started with one couple (Bill and Vonette Bright) at UCLA in 1951 has resulted in disciples being made of all nations and the gospel going to every corner of the world. Celebrate with us!

Over the summer there were many new spiritual births as people met Jesus through the World Cup Project. AIA’s vision is building movements of multiplying disciples everywhere in and through sports. The World Cup tournament gave us the opportunity to do that on a global scale, and God moved far beyond what we could dream or imagine! (Ephesians 3:20) We prayed for the opportunity to equip 10,000 local leaders in 100 countries with training, tools and resources to host World Cup outreaches to share the gospel, develop leaders and to grow local ministry.

Trainings resulted in 120,590 local leaders being trained in 140 countries which resulted in the gospel being shared 2,727,498 times with 252,599 people placing their faith in Jesus! The World Cup kits included Jesus Loves You soccer balls, gospel wristbands, Bibles and training booklets with tools to start spiritual conversations and to share the gospel. Outreaches took place in countries all over the world with local leaders who already knew the language, the culture, and the people who attended. In Goredema, Zimbabwe, a 6-team soccer tournament brought 450 people from 9 villages together, including 11 traditional village headmen (a very difficult group to gather together). This tournament directly led to the formation of a small Christian community where fellowship and discipleship could continue long after the outreach event. Through the World Cup Project, 502 leaders in Zimbabwe were trained, the gospel was shared more than 40,000 times, and 9,755 Zimbabweans made decisions to follow Jesus. This has led to 84 new missional communities and 92 new churches being started. One leader who was trained in Zimbabwe said that the contents of his training bag represented “the hope of nations.”

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Please review our prayer page and support needs and lift our ministry to the Lord. Click on the following: October 2026 Hard Copy.