Every Sunday night, the gym at Cary First Baptist Church in North Carolina resounds with the echoes of dribbling basketballs and the howls of grown men as another pro basketball player slam-dunks the ball with impressive might.
The men pour in every week from Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and beyond to play pickup basketball. They’ve come for an open court, community, and some friendly competition, but few expect to hear the gospel clearly explained before tip-off. Even fewer imagine their lives will change forever.
Yet that is exactly what is happening inside a church gym that has become an unlikely mission field.
For the last two and a half years, hundreds of men have surrendered their lives to Christ in a ministry no one saw coming, especially Mark Page, Worship Pastor and Interim Youth Pastor at Cary First and chaplain for the Raleigh Firebirds basketball team. But baptisms have now become the norm as men find freedom from sin, hope for trauma they’ve endured, and discipleship that reaches far beyond just their spiritual lives.
“They think they’re coming to play ball,” Page shared, “but they’re really coming to meet Jesus.”
An Unlikely Mission Field, A Willing Missionary
When Page first arrived in Cary from serving with his family in Vermont as a church-planting resident with Send Network, he could not have expected the ministry God would place before him. At first, the move made little sense.
Called as an evangelist at age 17 with a heart for urban ministry and a missionary mindset, the pieces all came together when he saw the church’s gym filled with men in need of the gospel.
“Matt Courtney, my partner in the ministry and lay leader at the church, had been opening the gym, and I said, ‘Man, why don’t we leverage this for the Lord?’ And so we started sharing the gospel,” Page said.
The first night he did, 30 men came to Christ. And it’s only continued since.
“Immediately, I started weeping because 10 years before, God had given me a vision for an inner-city ministry that multiplies gospel impact to the nations, but stateside,” Page recounted. “And I start seeing it right in front of me in Cary, North Carolina.”
The Door to the Gospel Is Basketball
Those who show up at the gym aren’t just basketball players. They’re men who are deeply wounded, broken from enduring abuse of all kinds, and carrying the weight of trauma, addiction, and destructive generational cycles.
Page shared, “About 90 percent of the men who walk through the door have no daddy and have been abused. These are some of the most broken dudes you’ve ever met in your life.”
God has given Page compassion for these players and eyes to see beyond their athleticism to their deep spiritual need.
“I think they’re starving to death for spiritual health and hope,” he shared.
Page and his team at Cary First know how to answer that need through the gospel. Before every game, they gather everyone at center court. Page shares a message. Sometimes he talks about leadership. Other times, he talks about purpose. Every time, he talks about Jesus, often using the 3 Circles evangelism tool.
“We’re gospel explicit,” he said. “We’re preaching the gospel.”
And the response has been tremendous. In one two-week period alone, 25 men prayed to receive Christ through the ministry. This is among the hundreds who have come to faith since Page began, not to mention the 86 Cary High School football team members who came to faith in 2025.
As Page continued to witness God powerfully saving men, he felt led to begin Gospel Hoops Network (GHN), “a global network of Christian athletes, coaches, organizations, and churches working together to speak Jesus into the hoops space.”
Viral clips of pro basketball players at the Cary First gym gain views online from other men who then show up the next week to get a chance to compete against these pro ballers. And when they arrive, they get not only basketball but the gospel.
“I’ve seen God change people’s mindsets and moods within the Gospel Hoops Network,” Tyriq “Riqco” Burrus, one basketball player, shared. “Seen it go from a rough day outside of the hoops, and you can come in to the gym with joy in knowing you can receive the Word and good basketball and become a brotherhood!”
Reese McDonald, pro basketball player and GHN representative, recently had the opportunity to baptize his friend, DeShawn Patterson, who is also a pro and plays at the church gym.
McDonald shared, “Gospel Hoops Network is becoming another outlet God is using to win souls for His kingdom, and if I’m one of the vessels to help spearhead that, then to God be the glory.”
Other players, such as Jarius Taylor, described the brotherhood he has gained through the GHN community, saying, “This is family.”
Page also recently began the Come to Jesus Podcast, where players are lining up to share their testimonies of coming to faith in Christ with the world.
“There’s a list of guys I’ll never get through that want to get on there, that came to me,” Page shared, “And they say, ‘I want to tell my story.’”
The gospel is going forth, and basketball is the door to this spiritual awakening in the urban hoops community.
The Gospel Changes More than Eternity
What makes the ministry remarkable is not simply the number of professions of faith but the depth of transformation that follows. On the other side of salvation and baptism is discipleship. And Page has a specific vision for discipleship.
Through a framework he calls Project Bridge, Page builds bridges from brokenness to purpose for people in broken and forgotten places. He helps them discover who God wants them to become as men, starting with the basketball community at Cary First.
“What the gospel does, what the Bible does,” explained Page, “it gives us the tools that we need to be successful in every way.”
Page invests in men to give them a healthy, expansive vision for flourishing manhood. Conversations that begin around basketball often lead to discussions about marriage, fatherhood, finances, business ownership, and spiritual growth.
“I’m walking with these guys through this process, and they’re starting businesses. They’re having life change,” Page shared. “Because everybody needs Jesus, and every man needs to become the leader that can lead his family, his community, and his church.”
The program is built on the foundation of knowing Christ. And for Page and GHN, it begins on the basketball court.
A Church that Embraces the Mission
Most churches would struggle to know how to support an influx of men from dramatically different backgrounds, but Cary First has witnessed the powerful work of God in saving hundreds of men, and they are praising God for all that’s happening in the gym.
“Sports are more than games—they are opportunities for God to reveal His love, build meaningful connections, and draw people to Christ,” said Cary First Executive Pastor Myron Burris. “Through the influence of sports, lives have been changed, and the gospel is spreading in incredible ways.”
For Dr. Pat Kilby, Lead Pastor at Cary First, basketball has always been close to his heart and utilized for ministry. Having played himself as a college student at A-B Tech in Asheville, he naturally passed on his love for the game to those under his influence, including during his time in the U.S. Air Force, his 30+ years of ministry, and to his own four children. His son, Cory, followed in his footsteps by playing the game at the college level. Cory played forward at Mercer University from 2015 to 2019.
“Our purpose at Cary First is to demonstrate the love and share the good news of Jesus—every day, everywhere, with everyone,” Dr. Kilby shared. “When we recognized that young men in our community had a huge passion for basketball, we connected our purpose statement to the sport of basketball and began providing opportunities for people in our community to play basketball in our gym.”
He continued, “As a result, through prayer, the power of the Holy Spirit, and a team of committed followers of Christ, God has been opening doors to share good news conversations, and we have seen many young people come to faith in Christ.”
An increasing number of Cary First members are making their way over to the gym to witness and offer themselves to the ministry. They are thrilled about how God is using their facility as a conduit of salvation for so many men they might not have otherwise encountered.
“Our church is ecstatic about this. They’re celebrating, crying about all that God is doing,” Page shared.
The church has also reached out to basketball players beyond those in their closest proximity. They recently served the Raleigh Firebirds, a semi-professional basketball team for which Page serves as chaplain, by providing a delicious hot meal before a game. After everyone had eaten, Page shared the gospel, and every player who did not already know Christ responded to the invitation to follow Jesus.
“I challenged them to come to Jesus. The entire men’s basketball team was there. Every man who didn’t have Jesus prayed to receive Jesus right there on the spot,” Page shared. “Our FBC Cary team was so excited.”
Kilby gives God glory for how He has been powerfully at work through the ministry taking place in the church gym.
“When churches connect their purpose with an opportunity to provide ministry in their communities, God will open doors to advance His kingdom through the local church,” he said.
The Secret Behind the Story: A Willing Church and Prayer
Page recognizes how special this moment is. But he’s not the only one.
“Everyone I talk to is like, ‘What in the world is going on at the First Baptist Church?’ The inner city is flowing here. It’s such a God thing,” Page said.
He senses that God is up to something with this community of urban men.
“God is interrupting their lives because He’s trying to do a work in their community. And I feel like He has invited us to be a part of that,” Page shared. “I feel like the Holy Spirit is telling me to raise an army of spiritual leaders out of a place that nobody expected.”
And Page takes that call seriously. His time spent training as a church-planting missionary with Send Network is now bearing fruit in Cary, North Carolina, among a group of men he couldn’t have planned.
When asked what he thinks accounts for such a powerful movement of God, Page credits two things: a church that was willing to trust God to leverage its gym for ministry and prayer.
Page has felt much freedom in the Lord to run with this ministry and attributes that to the leadership of Dr. Kilby, whose love for the Lord and for the game has allowed Page to follow the Holy Spirit’s lead to boldly make Jesus known.
Page also credits God’s faithfulness to hear His people pray. Alongside the army of prayer warriors interceding for these urban basketball players is Page’s increased prayer life.
“The one thing I can say about this season of ministry is my prayer for the Lord was, ‘Lord, teach me to pray,’” Page said. “I have spent more hours than ever in my life in the prayer room. I have been with the Lord. And everything I’m seeing has flowed from that.”
In a church gym in Cary, basketball may open the door. But God is the One changing lives. And every Sunday night, as another group of men walks through those gym doors, the story continues.
“The pump has been primed by the Lord,” Page concluded. “It’s literally not hard. It’s like reaping.”
Discover evangelism tools to help you share the gospel, such as 3 Circles, Page’s preferred method, and more at nambevangelism.com