Texas Baptists Evangelism Team to equip churches for “Sharing Christ at the Cup” this summer

On March 28, the Texas Baptists Evangelism Team is hosting a “Sharing Christ at the Cup” event at First Baptist Arlington to train individuals on how to share the gospel during the FIFA World Cup, which will feature multiple matches in Dallas and Houston this summer.

Attendees will hear from Julio Guarneri, executive director of Texas Baptists, Oza Jones, director of Evangelism at Texas Baptists, Rolando Rodriguez, director of Texas Baptists en Español, David Balyeat, pastor of GrandView Church in Mesquite, Anthony Ferguson, pastor of 11th Street Baptist Church in Upland, California, where they will “learn the climate and culture of World Cup” and receive practical tools during the three-hour training. 

Jones said the training will offer “a menu of [evangelism] options.” Ferguson will share his evangelism strategy called “The Yellow Card Initiative.” Balyeat will share a curriculum that outlines “doing soccer clinics at your church.” 

Forgotten Ministries, with which the Texas Baptists Evangelism Team partnered for an evangelism event prior to the 2025 Texas Baptists Annual Meeting in Abilene, will also be sharing their “Grill Walk” strategy.

Jones said once attendees hear each evangelism strategy, they will be able to “register for another training” that dives deeper into each the strategy church has selected.

“There'll be some personal evangelism training. There'll be some relational evangelism training. The main thing is giving churches an opportunity to choose different outreach strategies that tie in with the World Cup, but that will go beyond the World Cup also, to help them [with outreach],” said Jones. 

Jones said he would like to see First Baptist Arlington, which is “only a few blocks from Cowboy Stadium, where the games will be played,” to host outreaches during the games. 

“What we want to do with First Baptist Arlington is make them almost like if we're ambassadors, First Baptist Arlington will become the embassy. We want people from across Texas to get the dates lined up exactly when we're going to do what [outreach] and… deploy, if you will, some parishioners, members from their churches to come to Arlington because that's where it's going down,” explained Jones. 

Jones said the idea is that churches, regardless of their location, would see the five weeks of games as an opportunity to “witness to so many people just in our communities.” 

“[You] may not witness to anybody from out of town or out of the country. This may just be an opportunity [in your community],” said Jones. “All we know is there's going to be a lot of people everywhere, and the buzz is going to be soccer everywhere.”

Jones said the FIFA World Cup coming to Dallas is “an opportunity of a lifetime where the world is coming to us.” He said actively sharing the gospel during that time “can be so fruitful.”

“I think it's a great opportunity that we need to seize and pause and say, ‘The Lord is sending people our way. Let's go get them.’ Let's saturate our cities and our communities with Jesus for these five weeks,” said Jones.

The “Sharing Christ at the Cup” event will be taught in both English and Spanish. The event is not affiliated with or endorsed by FIFA, but will take place during the five weeks of the FIFA World Cup.

Click here to register for the training.