The Gospel Coalition Celebrates Pickleball

The Gospel Coalition has a history of “How do you do, fellow kids?” Moreover, they have a history of taking cultural phenomena and stretching it to have a biblical application or gospel message. For instance, The Gospel Coalition compared Jesus to the effeminate Bruno from Disney’s Encanto. Or The Gospel Coalition fawned over Taylor Swift in what was easily their gayest article of 2023. So when they write an article that’s a tribute to pickleball it’s reasonably suspect because the less athletic version of tennis is gaining a lot of traction in today’s culture.

For the uninitiated, pickleball is a relatively new sport that was invented in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington. The game was created by a man named Joel Pritchard, who was a congressman at the time, along with his friend Bill Bell, and their families. 

The origin of the name “pickleball” is somewhat disputed, but it is generally believed to have been named after Joel Pritchard’s dog, Pickles, who would often chase after the ball during games. 

The game was initially played with a badminton court, a lowered net, and paddles made from plywood. Over time, the game evolved and the equipment improved, with paddles made from composite materials and specialized pickleballs replacing the original equipment. 

Today, pickleball is a popular sport played by millions of people around the world, with its own governing body, the USA Pickleball Association, and official rules and regulations. It is played on a court similar in size to a badminton court, with a net lower than a tennis net, and can be played as singles or doubles. The game combines elements of tennis, badminton, and ping-pong, and is enjoyed by people of all ages and skill levels.

Dee Brestin wrote her first column for The Gospel Coalition titled, “How I Learned to Share My Faith on the Pickleball Court.”

I don’t live in a field fertile for evangelism. My earthly home is Door County, the beautiful Wisconsin peninsula that juts into Lake Michigan. Our year-round population is mostly white, wealthy, and elderly (all negative predictors for evangelism).

Yet the white bobbing heads remind me of fields white unto harvest. I’m helping to plant a home church with the Evangelical Free Church. Half our congregation is made up of people we met at pickleball.

This is rather impressive, although to whom is being white a negative predictor for Evangelism? The article then proceeds to give a brief overview of pickleball and then a personal anecdote with a climactic conclusion.

Their friendship grew deeper. We invited him and his wife over for meals and then to a series our church was doing with the ministry of Alpha. Both put their trust in Christ and began coming to church.

It’s rare to find an article from The Gospel Coalition that is encouraging, but when one is found it’s newsworthy.