NEWS > RUGBY REVIVAL

Rugby Revival

April 13, 2010

Our plea at New Life Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has been that God would give our campus a spiritual heartbeat. However, I did not expect Him to begin resuscitation on the University of Michigan Women’s Rugby Team. In the last two years, a prayer that one girl would get saved became a hope that her whole team would be transformed, and is now the vision that the entire Midwest rugby community would be affected!

As a senior at UM in 2007, I co-led a Bible study with several friends, one of whom joined the women’s club rugby team. One of her new teammates, a freshman named Rachel (not actual name), began coming to the group. She “liked being around people who believed in something,” although she wasn’t a Christian.

For this reason, we were surprised the next fall when Rachel invited her teammates to Bible study. By winter, four girls came regularly and masks started to come off. Michigan is a liberal campus, and rugby a liberal sport, so it was amazing to see them engage and wrestle with ideas like absolute truth. Yet in the midst of doubts, they were pursuing personal relationships with God for the first time.

On road trips and at rugby parties these four would talk about what they were learning. Because of their deeper friendship they began to play better together on the rugby pitch, something their other teammates noticed. Rachel continued to invite teammates to come regardless of their beliefs, saying, “I’m not a Christian either, and they let me come!”

By the end of the 2008 school year, ten of the 21 rugby players were attending Bible study. Girls who had never set foot in a church were coming to New Life with the group, some remarking, “If these are what church people are like, I want to know more of them.” Many of them were bonding on such a heart level that at post-game socials they would sit around – sober – enjoying each other and engaging about real things. At this point, other rugby teams started to notice that the Michigan girls were different and began asking questions.

This past summer, Rachel accepted Christ. Now there are ten girls faithfully attending Bible study, two of whom are interning with GCM this summer. Who expects to hear someone say the biggest turning point in her faith was joining a rugby team? Our promise verse at New Life this year is Isaiah 49:19, “Even the most desolate parts of your abandoned land will soon be crowded with your people.” God has made this a reality in ways we barely dared hope for. In a culture of relativism, students truly do “just want something real.” Please pray that greater things are still to be done here!