In The Zone
March 5, 2008 – 12:14 pm | by bryanIf you're new here, and you're into sports and/or the Christian faith, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I stumbled onto this today and couldn’t believe I had never heard of it.
It’s an organization called “In the Zone”, whose mission (”To help men discover and maximize their Godly potential.”) lines up with just about every other Christian Men’s organization ever formed. While there “Who We Are” page mentions nothing about sports, most of the folks who are involved have some sort of sports background. In fact, their banner image on their website has rotating quotes from Roger Staubach, Lou Holtz, Mike Ditka (picture circa 1985), Mark Richt, Loren Roberts, Tom Osborne, and Spencer Tillman.
Founded by Dr. Joe Pettigrew and Kyle Rote Jr. (who was an outstanding soccer player and now owns a successful sports agency), In the Zone held 5 Events in the Southern U.S. in 2007, but has yet to schedule any dates for 2008. They are partners with teh Fellowship of Christian Athletes, among others.
I found the organization through this article, which lists sports personalities that were expected to appear at some of the events held last year. Among them were NFL players Mike Minter and Patrick Ramsey, ESPN personalities Chris Mortenson and Mike Gottfried, and Illinois football coach Ron Zook. The article quotes Mortenson as saying:
“When I first heard about In The Zone, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear more - commitments scare me. I’m glad I got over the fear – there’s no question God quickened my heart and opened my eyes to a great opportunity. We get to talk about our real Christian life in a sports-like setting? That’s too good to be true for a guy like me. Sign me up.”
Raise your hand if you had any idea that Chris Mortenson was a Christian. Yeah, I had no idea either.
If you’ve ever been to one of these events, or know anything about the organization, I’d love to hear more about it. One thing’s for sure though, they need a new video on their front page. Those NFL clips are over ten years old. The Buccaneers in those Orange uniforms? Yikes.
UPDATE: Reader Tim Ellsworth pointed me to an article he wrote in 2006 about Mortenson’s conversion. It’s a great little piece. Thanks Tim!
Tags: Chris Mortenson, In the Zone
3 Responses to “In The Zone”
By Geof F. Morris on Mar 5, 2008 | Reply
I didn’t know that Mort was, but in seeing how he goes about his job and generally treats people, I’m not terribly surprised, Bry. I think that you can see whether or not people truly have faith by how they act in life—and that’s why I tend to ignore the professions of faith, because that’s true with me, too. I can tell you how good of a Christian I am, but if my actions don’t line up, well … what?
By Kevin Bussey on Mar 5, 2008 | Reply
I knew Mort was. I used to live in Atlanta and his son was the QB at a Christian school. Mike Minter is on staff at my former associates new church.