Drawing Wider Circles: New Athlete Ministry Offers Expansive, Inclusive Faith Communities

This article was originally written for Good Faith Media by Kelsey Davis.

We found ourselves wedged between a row of books and a large window. My father and I stood in the aisle of a prominent chain bookstore. He intentionally selected books from the shelf, curating selections on world religions and Christian theology.

I was 17 years old and had just told my parents I wanted to be baptized at a local non-denominational church. My father’s response was one of surprise, concern and care.

My family did not raise me in church. My parents had a 1967 Volkswagen Van in the driveway, loved The Grateful Dead and embodied much of the cultural values from the 1960s and 1970s in which they were raised. They loved freedom and peace, challenged injustice and were skeptical of institutional authorities.

When I came out to my parents at 16 years old, confessing that I had a girlfriend, they celebrated and supported me with full embrace. My first girlfriend took me to church for the first time. So, at 17 years old, I wanted to be baptized, and my father wondered what had happened to me. He took me to the local bookstore to make sure I had thought this through.

It was the early 2000s and Gene Robinson had just been consecrated in The Episcopal Church as the first openly gay bishop, sending a much-needed shockwave through Protestantism and blazing a trail for the rest of our LGBTQ+ family. The non-denominational world had hit its stride with “love the sinner, hate the sin” as the response to those of us who did not fit the cisgender, heteronormative standards of Christian living and purity culture.

Needless to say, my father, who was not a Christian, cared for my well-being by making sure I understood the magnitude of what I was stepping into–a Christianity that would love me to a point and then ask me to change or renounce the fundamental way that God had designed me to love. He stood with me in that bookstore aisle and handed me a lifeline that would form and reform my spiritual life, theology, vocation and ministry for the rest of my life.

My father handed me books on world religions. He then asked me to promise that I would respect all religions, faiths, and meaning-making systems, never seeking to convert anyone but to listen and respect the wisdom of each. 

Handing me Christian theology books, he asked me to remember that God is love, each of us should do what we can to make sense of the mysteries of the universe, and that if he, as my father, loved me unconditionally, then God as my Father loved me unconditionally, too. And he promised me that as I stepped into Christianity, he would be with me to explore questions and any pushback I would get as a new, young queer Christian woman.

He told me that it would be a long road for me as a queer Christian and that the church wasn’t ready. Because they weren’t ready, he promised to always be with me, to remind me that I was loved, how and who I loved was good, and that I’d always belong to God, no matter what Christians had to say.

My dad set the framework for a vocational call to ordained ministry.

I have a deep love for interfaith and ecumenical collaboration. I believe God is love, and who you are and how you are made are sourced from an Original Goodness. I take sin seriously, though my understanding of what sin is and isn’t has evolved over years of wrestling, formation and sitting at the feet of wise elders.

I believe in God’s forgiveness and the possibility of reconciliation and healing. I believe faith and action are mutually inclusive and must be held together, as the prophet Micah has reminded us that God calls us to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly” (Micah 6:8).

And after 20 years of living within Christianity, I have found that I still have more questions than answers. As an Episcopal priest, part of my call is to nourish all of God’s people from the depths of God’s grace.

I also have a special place in my heart for those of us who find ourselves at the edges of Christianity. We are people who courageously deconstruct harmful theologies and want to faithfully construct a faith system that is liberating, life-giving and loving. This informs my whole life, including my work with Christian Athlete Circles.

I started playing sports when I was five years old. I worked my way through recreational leagues, club soccer, the US Youth National Team, Division 1 college soccer, and eventually into professional soccer.

Being an athlete is a great gift and a significant challenge. In a world centered around the commodification of bodies, high-pressure environments, and ruthless schedules, it is extremely difficult to train and perform at a high level while simultaneously attempting to live a life that is centered and intentional. 

Additionally, as a Christian, it is hard, if not impossible, to attend Sunday services or weekly bible study meetings due to the rigorous schedules athletes must navigate.

Throughout my athletic career, I attempted to build community through sports ministries that met for bible study in locker rooms, on the road and over coffee. These ministries are global powerhouses that offer Christian athletes a sense of community and faith formation at all levels of sport. However, they don’t affirm or bless LGBTQ+ athlete identity.

As a Christian athlete, there was never a time when I felt I could fully belong and present my identities as an athlete, queer woman, and Christian. I always had to tuck some part of myself away to fit in and not be singled out in the name of “loving the sinner, hating the sin” or “praying away the gay.” Because of this, my faith formation was stunted.

I longed for a community where I could be free to be loved, to belong and to be refined by faith. I wanted the Christian calling to repent and return to Loving God. I wanted to be compelled to ask for forgiveness for the ways I had wronged others and not loved with my whole heart, not for the way I was made to love. 

Georgia McKee and I met in 2020 through St. Augustine’s Episcopal Chapel in Nashville. Both of us were former athletes, Christians and in the LGBTQ+ family, giving us a shared dream of a sports ministry that would pattern itself after the life of Jesus, centered on belonging, prayer, formation and action.

Christian Athlete Circles was birthed in 2021 and is sustained through the prayers, generosity and wisdom of so many. We seek to make good on the wisdom of our patron saint, The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, a civil rights activist, lawyer and Episcopal priest. Murray once said, “When my brothers try to draw a circle to exclude me, I shall draw a wider circle to include them.”

Christian athletes deserve a faith community that will walk with them as they seek to deepen and engage their faith, make meaning of society, ritualize their joys and griefs, celebrate their belovedness, discover their voice and engage in activism.

We want to take the Bible seriously in study, to follow the Way of Love. We want to be part of the Jesus movement. We seek to learn spiritual practices, to build loving and joyful communities, and to do it with other athletes and athlete allies who understand the complexity of athletic life.

At CAC, we hope to offer the radical hospitality of God and invite others into the work of offering Christian spaces where everyone can be loved, blessed, and truly belong.