During the annual end-of-year-recital season, the pressure to perform is inevitably great. And the question for followers of Jesus may often be: 'I know I am supposed to play for God and His glory - but what does that actually mean, and especially so when I'm feeling the pressure?'
Christians in Sport (CiS) is a ministry that seeks to equip Christians in how to shine as ambassadors for Christ in the world of sport, and therefore also to help them reach out to non-believers in that world with the glorious gospel of grace. In other words, it's a little bit like what the UCCF Leadership Network is doing generally in areas of study, and what the UCCF Music Network is doing particularly in the area of music.
CiS have been around since the 1970s and have done a lot of thinking in this area. Their tagline is 'pray, play, say' - i.e. pray for yourselves and your teammates, play for God's glory, say/tell the gospel to teammates. It's very easily appropriated to the world of music where you might substitute the word 'teammate' with 'desk partner' etc.
One of the resources for Christians that CiS administer is www.prayplaysay.com and the link below is particularly to do with performing under pressure. There's a short video interviewing a badminton player who expresses well the pressure that both we ourselves and others put on us to perform, and how that can crowd our thinking when we're mid-performance, followed by a short video expounding 1 Peter 5:6-7, a useful couple of verses to chew on when thinking about performing for the Lord and His glory. Do check it out, whether or not you have a recital coming up, and hopefully it will be useful to you as you think about how to perform for God's glory. The link is:
