Breakaway Outreach UK Sports Mission Trips: London, Belfast, Glasgow

In the UK, Breakaway partnerships are reaching youth for Christ, multiplying Gospel movements, and serving church planting initiatives. We have sports mission trips available for American coaches and church mission teams to serve in London, Belfast, and Glasgow in 2025.

Interested in a mission trip? Fill out the Breakaway Outreach mission trip inquiry form here.

Church leaders: Email us for a free mission kit with info about how your church can partner with the Breakaway global missions network.

Want to support evangelistic efforts to reach youth in the UK? DONATE

Religious Decline in the UK

Religious statistics made headlines when the results of Census 2021 revealed that, for the first time, fewer than half of people in England and Wales describe themselves as Christian. Moreover, the British Social Attitudes Survey reveals that 65% of 18-24-year-olds say they belong to no religion, and only 18% say they are Christians.

Apathy to the message of the Bible and its teaching is undoubtedly growing across the country. Yet sports ministry has proven to be effective in reaching gospel-destitute young people with the Good News of Jesus, and offering them pathways to discipleship.

Having produced some of the world’s finest and most notorious Christian leaders, the UK has a long and tumultuous history with Christianity. Undoubtedly, it has played a vital role in shaping the region into what it is today. However, its influential foothold is slipping—beginning with the younger generation.

• Currently, 37% of the United Kingdom’s population of 64 million identify as non-religious, and in the young adult population, that number is as high as 70% per a British Social Attitudes 2018 survey.
• According to Operation World, England is experiencing the ninth slowest rate of church growth of any country in the world. Many churches are in a state of decline and are considering closing their doors as secularism, postmodernism, and Islam replace historic Christianity.
• Those who identify as “Christian” are now a minority (46.2%), down from 59.3% a decade earlier, while Islam adherents have grown from 4.9 percent of the population to 6.5 percent.
• 59% of young people in the UK never attend religious services, and nearly two-thirds of young people in the UK never pray, according to The Guardian (‘Christianity as default is gone’: the rise of a non-Christian Europe)
• The greatest relative increase of any religious affiliation has been for Shamanism. 8,000 people in the UK identified as Shamanist in 2021, compared with just 650 in 2011. Shamanism itself is defined on its UK website as “not a religion, more an authentic expression of mankind’s spirituality.”
• 75% of churches in the UK have no “youth provision at all” (*no youth groups, no youth workers, resources, etc.)

UK Drowning in Spiritual Darkness

During the 19^th century, hundreds of missionaries carried the gospel from England to nearly every corner of the globe as a great religious awakening began to expand. Today, however, the nation that once stood as a lighthouse of truth is drowning in spiritual darkness. Yet amidst such spiritual destitution, God is on the move through “American Sports Camps” in the UK. Sports camps are being used to help plant new churches, revitalize churches in atrition, develop youth ministries, and strengthen disciple-making communities.

Missional Focus

Our missional focus in the UK is to help the local church and community leaders engage disconnected youth with fresh expressions of the Gospel and make disciples of Jesus among their young population.

Ways you can be praying for Breakaway partnerships in the UK:

• For churches and church plants endeavoring to reach young people
• For youth camps and sports ministries to engage youth with the gospel
• For God to raise up a new generation of passionate Christ-followers and youth leaders
• For spiritual growth “next steps” to be implemented alongside of sports camps

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