Scott Lehman has always been passionate about golf, beginning at age 8 with a shortened Northwestern 7-iron on a backyard course with six buried clay flowerpots.
Scott Lehman, founder and president of In His Grip Ministry, drives off the tee at Grove Park Inn Resort and Spa in Asheville, N.C., during the first day of the LifeWay-sponsored Pastor’s Masters Golf Retreat.Later, as a golf teaching professional and sports apparel salesman, Lehman was caught up in the pursuit of wealth, travel, and hiding financial difficulties from Leslie, his wife of two years.
Leslie saw their lives drifting apart and told Lehman she couldn’t continue in the marriage. Lehman looked for answers in a shopping mall.
“There was a Christian bookstore. I had never been in a Christian bookstore before,” he said. “I turned in and found a little book called ‘In His Grip’ (by Jim Sheard and Wally Armstrong). It was a golf devotional book. I never knew they existed. I bought it, looked inside and didn’t know that there were scriptures in there. I asked Leslie if we had a Bible and she said, ‘On the bookshelf. You will have to dust it off.’
“In golf, the most important key fundamental is the grip and how your hands are placed on the club,” Lehman said. “The book started to talk about that the key fundamental in life is living a lifestyle ‘in his grip.’ God began to open my heart to his message.”
Lehman said as he began to read God’s word, he was drawn to Proverbs 3:5-6, which is now his life verse. “I just knew God was calling me out,” he said. A few months later, Lehman gave his life to Christ.
Passion for ministry
Now nearly 10 years later, Lehman’s passions include describing how Jesus Christ drastically changed his life and brought new focus on his marriage. His passion for ministry and golf resulted in the foundation of In His Grip Golf Association. The ministry teaches churches how to use golf as an evangelistic tool to share the gospel on the fairways.
Lehman started the ministry nine years ago in his local church, Heritage Wesleyan in Rock Island, Ill., for parachurch fundraising and evangelism. It evolved to the current model, which consists of leadership training workshops, where four members of a church learn how to run an In His Grip Invitational (a one-day church member/guest golf tournament) and how to implement a yearlong golf ministry.
“We need to reach golfers, which is one of our core values,” Lehman said. “We believe we have to teach them to grow in the image of Christ through scripture passages at every hole, small group Bible studies, and golf retreats. But then we send them to fulfill the Great Commission. Our ‘reach, teach and send’ has really resonated in the churches of not leaving people stranded once they are reached.”
Engaging the unengaged
Bill Linduff, the recreation director at First Baptist Church of Lilburn, Ga., first heard about Lehman’s ministry last fall during the inaugural LifeWay-sponsored Pastor’s Masters Golf Retreat at LifeWay Glorieta Conference Center. Linduff said his church was looking for ways to use golf as a ministry tool.
After going to a training session in January, Linduff and the church staff went to work. They hold a yearly church golf event, and said that using the In His Grip model gave the church more of an outreach focus.
“Every church can do it,” Linduff said. “We really heard Scott’s heart. If you have a golf course, this is a useful way to reach men. We want guys to come and see that they can have a great time with a bunch of ‘church’ guys.”
Lehman said that last year, in what was the first full year of In His Grip, six churches signed up. This year, 18 more from all different denominations will host IHG Invitationals. Lehman said his vision for the next 10 years is to have 1,000 churches with In His Grip established as the golf ministry.
“Right now, the tournaments are averaging 100 guys. That would be 100,000 golfers impacted with the message of Jesus Christ,” he said, describing how In His Grip builds bridges across denominations to reach out to the golf community.
The Golfer’s Bible
Last year, Lehman was introduced to representatives from B&H Publishing Group, the publishing arm of LifeWay Christian Resources, who were interested in producing The Golfer’s Bible (to go along with other Holman Christian Standard version special devotional Bibles). The resulting devotionals came from a 2006 book Lehman co-wrote with Sheard called “The Master’s Grip.”
“My first question was, ‘Who is B&H?'” Lehman quipped. “And to see a golfer’s Bible now a year after that introduction – it is just God pulling it together. It is very humbling to be a part of a golf devotional book, since it has such a deep meaning for the start of my personal walk with Jesus.”
For now, the ministry is geared toward men because the majority of golfers are male, but Lehman is quick to say his vision goes much wider. “Most importantly, if you reach the men, more than 90 percent of the time the family will follow.
“Men are saying, ‘I don’t see myself working in the nursery. I want to serve the church, but I don’t see myself singing in the choir,'” Lehman said. “They love to golf. They can build a ministry around their passion for golf. My question to them is, ‘Who gave you the passion for golf?’ God gave me my passion. How do we use that passion to glorify God?”