THE CHURCH
Fight Church in Las Vegas, Nevada
THE CHALLENGE
The combat sports community needed a chaplaincy.
ONE BIG IDEA
Start a ministry to participants in this fast-growing sport.
God made us to be creative, and Pastor Joshua Boyd exemplifies this reality. In 2007, leaving behind a youth pastorate, he and his family moved from Indiana to Las Vegas to plant a church with the Assemblies of God. For a variety of reasons, that didn’t work out as they planned.
After a year Boyd found himself working in a grocery store instead of a church, reevaluating God’s call and his purpose in ministry.
“My wife and I were hoping to do something a little outside of the box, something a little bit crazy,” he says. Not realizing how prophetic the “crazy” part was, they started holding small group meetings in their home.
Meanwhile, a perk of Boyd’s job included receiving free tickets from the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), a Las Vegas-based mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company. He went to the events and then realized he regularly was bumping into MMA fighters and coaches around town. Some were even customers in his store. Slowly the light began to dawn.
“Here was a people group that wasn’t being served by any form of chaplaincy like many major sports have,” explains Boyd. “And they needed care just like anyone else.”
Fight Church, a chaplaincy program serving the MMA community, was thus born with the mission of using the platform of sports chaplaincy to build a bridge between the combat sports community and the local church.
A few years later Boyd was invited to rejoin the staff of Life Christian Church, the church he had helped plant and now serves as lead pastor. It had taken 10 years, but God’s outside-the-box plan had come full circle.
“Several people from the church now volunteer with Fight Church at MMA events,” Boyd notes, adding that in addition to a variety of behind-the-scenes support, volunteers “are there to do whatever needs to be done, but primarily to love and serve the people.”
While some people might look askance at MMA as too violent or too far on the fringe, these are the very reasons Boyd and his team minister to the MMA community.
“They are people created in the image of God who need to hear the gospel,” he emphasizes. “They need Jesus.”
It’s not unusual at an MMA event for coaches, fighters and other personnel to spot a Fight Church T-shirt in the crowd and open up to that person. “Sometimes they just need someone to talk to. They go through tough life stuff just like the rest of us. They’ll even ask for prayer,” Boyd observes.
Some MMA fighters are already believers. Boyd has seen them warming up with contemporary Christian music blasting from a boom box. These fighters appreciate the encouragement Fight Church volunteers offer.
While some in the sport will visit Life Christian Church, that’s not the driver for the ministry. “We are happy to refer people to other churches closer to their homes in the area,” he says. “Many are just passing through as they follow the various MMA events.”
According to Boyd, more than 300 martial arts studios and gyms operate in Vegas. Some of the bigger names in the sport are headquartered in the city, and Vegas-based events broadcast globally.
In addition to ministering at these live events, Fight Church visits local gyms, meets one-on-one with fighters, and interacts with fight community members online. The Fight Church team pays attention to social media posts by the fighters and others involved in the sport, and they proactively reach out when someone shares about a hardship they are experiencing.
When asked about how they pray for the MMA fighters before a match, Boyd explains, “I am actually very careful when I pray.”
Instead of praying for a win, he prays for the Lord to reward the fighter for their hard work, dedication and hours of training.
“I always pray for their safety,” he adds, explaining that while the fighters want to win, they don’t want to injure anyone. The point is to use skill and strategy to “put the hurt” on an opponent so that they quit. “But,” Boyd clarifies, “there’s a big difference between ‘hurt’ and injury.”
Fight Church provides a free weekly jujitsu class at Life Christian Church that draws youth from the area. They also partner with several other churches in the area.
Richard Martin, a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary and a Fight Church volunteer chaplain, says, “One impact of a ministry is seeing who partners with your vision. We have amazing people, nonprofits and churches serving alongside Fight Church. Those serving are just as impacted as those being served.”