For some it’s the most important meal of the day, for most, breakfast is rarely the meal they invite others to share. But, in September, two players at the University of Birmingham football club chose to think outside the box during pre-season; this is their story.

Elijah is a physio student playing in the first team and Sam is studying liberal arts & natural sciences and playing in the fifth team. Now in their second year, they lead the Birmingham University Christians in Sport group.

Elijah: “I’ve been in the club for a year, Sam has joined as a club ‘fresher’ this year. When I joined, even as part of the first team, the drinking culture was pretty intense. I texted the social secretary after seeing the shopping list for the first social, I said: ‘I want to be there at the socials and get to know people, but I want to honour God in the way I drink – so set me a new shopping list.’ And so I was there drinking soda, water, milk. I gained a reputation for it which opened up conversations about my faith. No one even gave me stick for it, and a few said they’d rather do what I was doing!

It’s led to me having an influence I think. There's times when the conversation is one I'm not wanting to get involved in at all, but I feel a responsibility to shift the culture of the football club and to steer conversations rather than just not get involved. That was a motivator to think about creating a place to have conversations away from nights out and the influence of alcohol.”

Sam: “Playing with different squads is brilliant because we can help bring all the players together when our training and travelling commitments are different. We’re living with other Christians this year, and from the outset we wanted to be really intentional not to let this be an escape, but to use this space to welcome others to hear about Jesus. Together we’ve both been challenged and encouraged by our Church’s teaching on hospitality and sharing the gospel, so come pre-season we felt compelled to try and open up our house to the football club.”

This intentionality led Sam and Elijah to begin inviting teammates to their house after training for breakfast.

Sam: “We’d both been away at UCCF’s Forum conference, and as soon as we got back, we planned the breakfasts. We stuck an initial message in the group chat saying we had no ulterior motive but to serve the team and make space to socialise without downing loads of alcohol. Nearly 40 players came to the first breakfast. During the morning, we stood up just to say we’re both Christians and we we’d love to serve the rest of the boys, then Elijah said grace, and they all clapped afterwards!”

Elijah: “Everyone said they enjoyed it so much, they were asking us why we were doing it and how much we were expecting them to pay for the breakfast! Sam and I chatted and agreed we’d try to give a consistent answer to these questions, we’d say the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. When we ran the next breakfast the following week, people were asking us to say grace before they ate.”

After two weeks running breakfasts after training, Sam and Elijah decided to send a message out saying the next breakfast would include more time to look at the Bible and have discussion, with Duncan Leese from the Christians in Sport student team joining.

Sam: “It was encouraging to see loads of people committing on the WhatsApp group. Sadly a few didn’t make it because of the way training was split up, but we had 25 guys there and the response was great. Even months later people are still talking to me about it.”

Sam and Elijah have been encouraged in responses this term since running the breakfasts and sharing the good news of Jesus.

Elijah: “A couple of lads stayed after breakfast to chat to Duncan. One lad didn’t seem to have any questions at the time but he’s started to come to church with me. He can see the difference following Jesus makes, and where that’s lacking in his life and he’s hungry for change. I’m praying he’ll continue coming to church with me as he works that out.”

Sam: “One boy in my team came to church and even invited another friend who isn’t a Christian, so that’s two guys who came in my first two weeks in the club. Another guy came to the breakfasts saying he was a Christian, but he hadn’t yet been in a context where sport and faith were put together. It’s been encouraging to see him start coming to the university group meetings and begin to see how significant sport is as a place where he can live for Jesus and share Him with others. It’s been really exciting: I think opening our house has played a big part in that.”

Christians in Sport have been working with university students for over 40 years, supporting and training them to connect sport and faith, and share Jesus with teammates. Against a backdrop of increasing willingness in young adults to engage in conversations around faith, our prayer is that many students would come to hear and respond to Jesus through the faithful witness of Christian teammates at university.