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FCA In Action > FCA 101: All Ability

FCA 101: All Ability

Published on February 20, 2025

FCA

This article appears in the Fall 2024 issue of the FCA Donor Publication. The FCA publication is a gift from our FCA staff to all donors giving $50 or more annually. For more information about giving, visit here.

To reach every coach and athlete, FCA features eight sports environments, which are defined as a grouping of coaches and athletes with similar cultures and competitions. One of these is All Ability.

All Ability features the inclusion of all categories of people with disabilities while emphasizing the biblical message of “In God, we are all able.” All Ability Sports encourages everyone with disabilities to participate in athletics. “The All Ability Sports environment encompasses a very broad part of the contemporary sports world, from elite Paralympic sports, through a vast range of adaptive sports clubs and leagues, to recreational special and additional needs sporting activities,” said Steve Jones, FCA’s EVP of All Ability Sports. “As we seek to fulfill our FCA mission to lead every coach and athlete into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ and His church, the appointment of FCA All Ability Directors will constitute strategic and catalytic investments for the Kingdom of God.”

The focus of All Ability is building discipleship relationships with All Ability coaches and athletes and inviting them to lead and serve others in their spheres of influence. Additionally, All Ability seeks to:

  • encourage and empower Christian All Ability athletes and coaches to serve according to their giftings as Huddle leaders, speakers at events and camps, FCA Ambassadors, ministry leaders and potential future All Ability sports staff members; and
  • celebrate the work of God in the lives of All Ability athletes and coaches, encouraging them to tell their Christian testimonies and stories through video and/or audio media to help cast vision, encourage FCA staff, and share in various forums.

Jones and a team of dedicated staff have immersed themselves in the All Ability world to understand how to better equip ministry leaders and volunteers to be inclusive for those with disabilities. This includes utilizing FCA resources that offer audio Bibles for visually impaired/blind athletes; Braille or audio copies of The FOUR, The CORE, 360 Coach; and adding subtitles and deaf-signing windows to videos and media resources. For those with intellectual disabilities or reduced cognitive abilities, they utilize modified English Bibles or picture Bibles.

As FCA passionately pursues this sports environment, here are a few examples of All Ability ministry happening around the world:

  • In April, the Washington, D.C., FCA team launched “All In,” an FCA ministry for individuals with intellectual disabilities. Each month, athletes between the ages of 12 and 34 gather at the DC Dream Center for basketball, Bible study, discussion and pizza. There is also a Huddle for parents. D.C. staff hope to establish an “All In” Huddle at River Terrace Education Campus, a school that exclusively serves individuals with intellectual disabilities from third grade to adulthood.
  • D.C. FCA is also stepping into deaf ministry at Gallaudet University, the only liberal arts college in the world devoted to the deaf and hard of hearing. At Gallaudet, which has 1,300 students and an NCAA Division III athletic program, three student-athletes have agreed to lead a deaf Huddle in the fall of 2024. The Huddle will be in American Sign Language and feature testimonies and teaching from others in the deaf community. These efforts have been collaborative with staff from across the Mid-Atlantic Region.
  • Northern Colorado FCA Character Coach Shane Sorrentino leads Huddles and coaches All Ability athletes. Sorrentino has Down Syndrome and feels joy and purpose when he shares the Word of God during practices and with his All Ability volunteers. (To read more about Sorrentino’s story, go to: https://www.fca.org/fca-in-action/2024/03/20/redefining-all-ability.)
  • In Hungary, FCA leader Terry Lingenhoel started a blind baseball club in an effort to expand baseball ministry to the blind community. In September, the team participated in the World Blind Baseball International Cup in London, and Lingenhoel hopes to build deeper relationships with the wider blind baseball community.

FCA’s Sports Environments:

  • Action
  • All Ability
  • Campus
  • Club
  • League
  • Motorsports
  • Outdoors
  • Pro and Elite

To learn more about how your local FCA is engaging the eight sport environments or to get involved, contact your local area representative. Find them at here.

 

-FCA-

FCA In Action > FCA 101: All Ability

FCA 101: All Ability

Published on February 20, 2025

FCA

This article appears in the Fall 2024 issue of the FCA Donor Publication. The FCA publication is a gift from our FCA staff to all donors giving $50 or more annually. For more information about giving, visit here.

To reach every coach and athlete, FCA features eight sports environments, which are defined as a grouping of coaches and athletes with similar cultures and competitions. One of these is All Ability.

All Ability features the inclusion of all categories of people with disabilities while emphasizing the biblical message of “In God, we are all able.” All Ability Sports encourages everyone with disabilities to participate in athletics. “The All Ability Sports environment encompasses a very broad part of the contemporary sports world, from elite Paralympic sports, through a vast range of adaptive sports clubs and leagues, to recreational special and additional needs sporting activities,” said Steve Jones, FCA’s EVP of All Ability Sports. “As we seek to fulfill our FCA mission to lead every coach and athlete into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ and His church, the appointment of FCA All Ability Directors will constitute strategic and catalytic investments for the Kingdom of God.”

The focus of All Ability is building discipleship relationships with All Ability coaches and athletes and inviting them to lead and serve others in their spheres of influence. Additionally, All Ability seeks to:

  • encourage and empower Christian All Ability athletes and coaches to serve according to their giftings as Huddle leaders, speakers at events and camps, FCA Ambassadors, ministry leaders and potential future All Ability sports staff members; and
  • celebrate the work of God in the lives of All Ability athletes and coaches, encouraging them to tell their Christian testimonies and stories through video and/or audio media to help cast vision, encourage FCA staff, and share in various forums.

Jones and a team of dedicated staff have immersed themselves in the All Ability world to understand how to better equip ministry leaders and volunteers to be inclusive for those with disabilities. This includes utilizing FCA resources that offer audio Bibles for visually impaired/blind athletes; Braille or audio copies of The FOUR, The CORE, 360 Coach; and adding subtitles and deaf-signing windows to videos and media resources. For those with intellectual disabilities or reduced cognitive abilities, they utilize modified English Bibles or picture Bibles.

As FCA passionately pursues this sports environment, here are a few examples of All Ability ministry happening around the world:

  • In April, the Washington, D.C., FCA team launched “All In,” an FCA ministry for individuals with intellectual disabilities. Each month, athletes between the ages of 12 and 34 gather at the DC Dream Center for basketball, Bible study, discussion and pizza. There is also a Huddle for parents. D.C. staff hope to establish an “All In” Huddle at River Terrace Education Campus, a school that exclusively serves individuals with intellectual disabilities from third grade to adulthood.
  • D.C. FCA is also stepping into deaf ministry at Gallaudet University, the only liberal arts college in the world devoted to the deaf and hard of hearing. At Gallaudet, which has 1,300 students and an NCAA Division III athletic program, three student-athletes have agreed to lead a deaf Huddle in the fall of 2024. The Huddle will be in American Sign Language and feature testimonies and teaching from others in the deaf community. These efforts have been collaborative with staff from across the Mid-Atlantic Region.
  • Northern Colorado FCA Character Coach Shane Sorrentino leads Huddles and coaches All Ability athletes. Sorrentino has Down Syndrome and feels joy and purpose when he shares the Word of God during practices and with his All Ability volunteers. (To read more about Sorrentino’s story, go to: https://www.fca.org/fca-in-action/2024/03/20/redefining-all-ability.)
  • In Hungary, FCA leader Terry Lingenhoel started a blind baseball club in an effort to expand baseball ministry to the blind community. In September, the team participated in the World Blind Baseball International Cup in London, and Lingenhoel hopes to build deeper relationships with the wider blind baseball community.

FCA’s Sports Environments:

  • Action
  • All Ability
  • Campus
  • Club
  • League
  • Motorsports
  • Outdoors
  • Pro and Elite

To learn more about how your local FCA is engaging the eight sport environments or to get involved, contact your local area representative. Find them at here.

 

-FCA-

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