Is The Christian Athlete Different Than The Assist?

Is my new book different from The Assist?

It’s a question a number of people have asked—so here’s the answer.

The Christian Athlete: Glorifying God in Sports is the 2nd edition of The Assist. It’s updated, expanded, revised, and obviously, renamed. For those who already own The Assist, here are a few reasons I recommend upgrading to the latest version.

New chapters

The Christian Athlete has two new chapters (On Mental Health and On Riding the Bench). There wasn’t much conversation around the topic of mental health when I wrote The Assist back in 2018. With what’s happening around the world right now, more specifically, the tragic news of Stanford soccer team captain, Kate Meyer, the conversation around mental health needs to more attention.

I had numerous people offer feedback from The Assist that they wished I wrote a chapter about not seeing playing time.

Also, the first three chapters of The Assist (On Glory, On God, and On Athletes) have been condensed to one chapter in The Christian Athlete. And the forward is gone too. Sorry, Ed Uszynski. 

Expanded chapters

Despite the condensing of existing chapters and deleting forward from Ed, The Christian Athlete comes in at 60 pages longer than The Assist. Yes, part of that is the additional chapters—but a large part is expanding on existing chapters to be more theologically grounded and adding clarity to the topics. 

For example, in the chapter on the athletic platform, I spend almost 1200 words answering the question “Should athletes use their platform in pursuit of justice?” 

Study questions

For the last three years, I received emails on a weekly basis asking if I have study questions for the book that I can send. I am pleased to announce that The Christian Athlete includes discussion/reflection questions at the end of every chapter. Additionally, I have included a separate set of questions after each chapter for coaches/parents. 

Appendix

The Christian Athlete has an appendix dedicated to helping athletes craft their testimony using their experience as an athlete along the way. I partnered with Navigators ministry to help three different groups write their story: those who placed their faith in Christ as an adult, those who placed their faith in Christ when they were younger, but later recommited their life to God, and finally, those who placed their faith in Christ when they were younger and have experienced steady growth since that time. 

I also offer to give feedback to anyone who uses the testimony worksheet and wants to email me what they came up with.

Clear Gospel presentation

The Christian Athlete also has a clear gospel presentation with a prompt to make the decision for Christ.

Two professional edits

Before the Covid pandemic, I had a contract in place for this book with Zondervan publishing. They took it through a content edit and then, because of Covid, had to back out of the deal. 

A couple months later, David C Cook picked up the project and obviously it went through their editing process too.

All that to say, this baby has been edited like crazy. I’m confident the tone and theology are better than the first edition.

Why rename it?

To be clear, I LOVE the title of The Assist. That was probably the hardest decision in this whole process. At the end of the day, I chose to be clear over being creative and clever. When athletes are looking for a book on sports and faith, they will not type in “the assist” into google. They will type in “books for Christian athletes.” And when they do, hopefully The Christian Athlete will be waiting.

Discipleship resource

What I have told most people is that The Christian Athlete is a better discipleship resource than The Assist. With the gospel presentation, testimony worksheet, and discussion questions after each chapter, it’s created to be read in community with teammates and/or coaches.

It’s also worth nothing that The Assist is not in print anymore. Unless you feel like finding a copy somewhere on ebay.

There you go. April 5th is the official release day! Until then, preorder through Amazon.