KANSAS CITY – The world is coming to Kansas City this summer for the largest sporting event on the planet. As many as 1 million visitors from around the globe may flood into the city for the FIFA World Cup in June and July, and Missouri Baptists are preparing to share the love of Jesus with them.
The World Cup is soccer’s premier competition, involving “dream teams” of the best players from each country’s best soccer clubs. Overall, 48 national teams will compete in the World Cup in 16 cities across the US, Canada, and Mexico, with an estimated total viewership of 6 billion people.
By comparison, the combined total global viewership of the last NFL Super Bowl, MLB World Series, NBA finals series, NCAA men’s finals series and NHL Stanley Cup series was approximately 323 million.
For the World Cup, Kansas City will host six games featuring 12 different national teams. In addition, four of those teams will use the city as their home base from mid-May into July.
‘Unfathomable’ impact
Pastor Nic Wilson of First Baptist Church, Peculiar, Mo., who is leading the Blue River-Kansas City Baptist Association (BRKC) ministry efforts surrounding the WORLD Cup, said the event is not just a soccer tournament.
“It is a divine opportunity to spread the Gospel … not just in Kansas City, but literally across the world for decades to come,” Wilson said. “… It’s almost unfathomable the scale of what’s happening” in terms of foreign missions opportunities.
He said FIFA, the soccer organization governing the World Cup, “and community officials are communicating to us that we should expect anywhere from 650,000 to 1 million extra people to come through Kansas City this summer.”
“Out of that … the large majority – 75-80 percent – are going to be people from outside the United States.”
Wilson also explained that some of the incoming visitors come from countries where missions work is difficult or prohibited.
“There are countries coming to the United States … that are places we can’t actively send missionaries to,” Wilson said. “Algeria. Tunisia. Iran is coming (to the U.S.).”
“They want to hear about America. They’re open to what Americans do. They want to see the culture. This opens a massive door for the Gospel.”
To meet this evangelism challenge, multiple Missouri Baptist agencies are coordinating to meet the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of fans, teams and other visitors.
Wilson said evangelism efforts will be centered around game days, which in Kansas City are June 10, 20, 25, 27 and July 3 and 11. However, those efforts are not necessarily centered on Arrowhead Stadium, where the games will be played, for various reasons, including security restrictions.
But plenty of evangelism opportunities abound away from that venue through watch parties, FIFA events, organizational soccer themed tie-ins and other activities throughout the metro area.
Preparation begins
Missouri Baptists are planning various evangelistic strategies and activities to meet the influx of visitors. (Interested individuals and churches can visit here.)
Wilson said local associations are the best place to start building a mission trip strategy. And he is excited about the opportunity for churches to hold an international mission trip without leaving their state.
“I was talking to a team that’s getting ready to go to Africa,” Wilson said. “They’re going to spend 10 days in Africa … and to get over there and back it’s costing them almost $4,000 a person.” He added that most Missouri Baptist churches could get to Kansas City on a tank of gas.
Area churches will be opening their buildings to house visiting mission teams, and the local association is hoping for more than 2,000 volunteers to hold more than 1 million Gospel conversations throughout the tournament.
“Our hope and our goal … is that there are countries transformed because people in Missouri went outside and shared the Gospel with people that were in their community for a soccer game,” Wilson said.
Wilson urged people to “start praying. Pray for people to come. Pray for gospel opportunities. Pray for church unity. Pray for resources. Pray that everything runs smoothly. Pray.”
He also said churches should prepare for a crowd.
“We are telling people in all the churches we work with that if they are doing a VBS, if they do camps, to expect double the turnout than they would normally get,” Wilson said.
The World Cup, Wilson added, gives Missouri Baptists “an amazing opportunity to do Gospel evangelism work in our own backyard. As Missouri Baptists we feel burdened for this opportunity the Lord has placed in front of us.
“I want to see nations and people groups transformed because people in Missouri have shared the Gospel.”
This article originally appeared in The Pathway.
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