Chattanooga Sports Ministries
Chattanooga Sports Ministries began as an experiment in inspiring young adults to coach, mentor, and involve themselves with kids in the inner city of Chattanooga.
Challenges and opportunities showed up from the beginning. We looked around and discovered that Chattanooga’s public schools did not have an adequate soccer league for inner city children. We also realized that sports were one of the key components in helping girls not get pregnant in their teen years. An epidemic of childhood obesity and Type II Diabetes in the urban community was also hard to ignore.
Weighing all the options, CSM finally began in 2006 as a summer soccer league for inner city girls. We took the financial risk of hiring coaches full time for the summer. We teamed with a health clinic to get the players physicals. Another organization gave our players health education, encouragement in sexual abstinence, and motivation to stay in school. Through the years, we’ve seen CSM make a profound and positive difference in the lives of many girls.
Six years later, we’ve expanded CSM’s Summer Soccer League to minister to both boys and girls, teaching them sports and life skills both on and off the field. We’re keeping our eyes open for how CSM can expand in the future, but right now we’re focused on how we can give 130 boys and girls one of the most memorable summers ever – because there’s no place like home field.
Chattanooga Sports Ministries (CSM) seeks to transform the communities of at-risk youth through athletic engagement, training in life skills and the formation of intentional, Gospel-centered, cross-cultural mentoring relationships.
