One of our ministry responsibilities within Athletes in Action is to give leadership and oversight to the annual Ultimate Training Camp here in Ft Collins hosted at CSU. For the past 40 years college and Olympic athletes from all over the country have come to Ft Collins to learn what it means to compete from a Biblical perspective and teach athletes how God, Life and Sport come together.
At this camp we emphasize 5 spiritual principles for athletes to engage in sport:
Audience of One (Who or what do you worship?)
Inside Game (What motivates you?)
Holy Sweat / Wholly Surrender (How do I grow Spiritually?)
Hurtin for Certain (How do I deal with hard times?)
Victory Beyond Competition (How do I live for God’s Kingdom?)
These principles help athletes not only think differently about sport and Jesus but challenges them to think about their lives utilizing an entirely new operating system. We teach athletes these principles in a classroom environment, help them process the application of each principle in the filed of competition and culminate the teachings with a 20 hour competitive experience called “THE SPECIAL”.
The Special consists of various competitions and starts at 5pm on Wednesday and ends around 11:30 Thursday morning (Some time is given for athletes to rest in the middle). This camp changed my life and I love watching it impact the lives of athletes across the nation. What made this year’s camp special for me was that I was able to see 3 local athletes compete at camp. I have known each of them for a number of years and their parents were probably sick of hearing me talk about UTC over the years.
Each of these three young men came to camp, learned the principles, experienced The Special and made significant friendships with athletes from across the nation.
Below is a snapshot of what we saw at camp this past summer:
UTC campers this year: 175
First time commitments to Jesus: 48
Recommitments to Jesus: 122
Not ready to commit 5