APPLETON, Wis. — You can learn a lot from a magazine article.

Pastor Dennis Episcopo, a New Jersey guy through and through, was only here a couple of weeks as the spiritual leader of Alliance Church when someone handed him a Sports Illustrated from 1986. In it was a multi-page spread titled: “America at Play: Sports in Appleton, Wisconsin.”

Now he knew Jesus liked to be with the people and, based on what he saw and read in Sports Illustrated, he figured the people of the Fox Cities would be at sports and rec events.

“So I said to myself, 'If we’re going to develop a ministry here that’s going to meet people where they are, we’ve got to develop a sports and rec ministry,'” Episcopo said. “It’s not going to be preachy. It’s not going to be bait-and-switch. You come here and we’ll hammer you with the gospel."

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“No, it’s going to be a place that people can come to and experience recreation and sports at a high level, a good level. And yet, when they have a problem, they know where to park their car. They know where to hang their coat when they come in, and we’re here for them. That was the vision. And I shared that with the board.”

Sports ministry was not exactly a thing in the Upper Midwest, and Episcopo’s vision was met with a lot of furrowed brows.

But they green-lighted it, and Episcopo had a couple from the church go around the country to research and study the concept. And that’s when Ryan Borowicz, who played basketball at UW-Green Bay under Dick Bennett, entered the picture.

Borowicz’s wife had met Episcopo at a small conference and he shared his vision of Alliance Church with her.

“She came home and told me about that,” said Borowicz. “I literally drove up the next day with no appointment or anything and just showed up with my resume and just said, ‘Hey, I’d love to have that job.’

“And I think he’s a hard guy — there are a couple of gatekeepers there. But I just kind of waited. I waited for a long time in the lobby and just was like, ‘OK, I’m just gonna stay here.’ That was my only reason for driving up there and eventually he had a minute. So I went and talked to him and I just kind of got in at the right time and we hit it off pretty well.”

Borowicz had played professionally in Australia for a team owned by a church.

“They used it as a way to administer and connect to the community,” he said. “So, I kind of knew that it would be a good way to connect to the community in a way that most churches don’t think of.”

Alliance eventually built outdoor basketball courts, a soccer field and a gym.

“These big churches down south, they do sports programs,” he said. “But it’s just all for the people in the church. And ours was literally the opposite.

“When you’re talking about an outreach ministry, to me, you’re talking like someone’s first touch. Maybe they’d never gone to church. They had a bad experience at church as a kid, they had zero interest. And now you’re standing there at a basketball league and there’s the guy gives a little 30-second devotional and equates to whatever was talked about on Sunday at church, and it’s a Sunday night league.

(Courtesy: Green Bay Press-Gazette)

“Now, he threw it into 30 seconds and it had something to do with basketball. To me, that’s a great first touch for someone. And to me, that’s successful outreach. It’s not about, ‘OK, now we need you guys to show up on Sunday morning and start giving to the church.’ Like, that’s ridiculous. I never worried about any of that. Now, you’re manipulating people, you know what I mean?”

Borowicz has since left Alliance to start his own business involving basketball. Episcopo is now Pastor Emeritus at Alliance and while his sports ministry has been ongoing for 25 years now, he said it’s still a work in progress.

“To be perfectly frank with you, I think we’re still explaining it to people,” he said. “I still think there’s a whole bunch of people that just think it’s a gymnasium and we do sports. They don’t understand. It’s more strategic than that. We’re trying to reach out to a group of people that wouldn’t necessarily come to church. So it requires us to keep casting the vision over and over again.”

But he’s happy he has the opportunity to do it.

“That Sports Illustrated article, I’m pretty convinced we would not have a sports ministry here today if it wasn’t for that article,” he said. “That did it.”

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