UK Mission Trips: Sports Ministry +
Join us as we partner with communities in the UK for multiplying sports evangelism, discipleship, and various outreach initiatives for marginalized youth.
The Spiritual Need in the UK
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 19th 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. Breakaway has been a catalyst for multiplying sports ministries and sustained youth outreach in Northern Ireland and England.
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 chaplaincy and volunteer training for ministries that are serving marginalized and at-risk youth
- 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
Fill out our Mission Trip Inquiry Form.
