Seasonal Teams


Our seasonal teams, more commonly referred to as Standing Teams, are fixed rosters that visit prisons, play games, and minister together – much like any church or rec league softball team. The difference being that these teams never play a home game and have a very different purpose than winning the trophy!

Each team minsters locally and conduct a fixed-length, seasonal schedule – softball in the summer, volleyball in the fall, soccer in the fall/winter and basketball in winter. The Saints Prison Ministry currently operate the following Standing Teams:

  • Men’s softball based in southern NJ, eastern PA, north and middle, GA, central IL, and northwestern WV
  • Men’s basketball out of the southern NJ office
  • Men’s soccer out of the southern NJ office
  • Women’s softball in GA
  • Women’s volleyball in the greater Philadelphia region

SPM defines a local region as “any prison within a 3-hour drive of the team’s meeting location”. Therefore, the basketball or soccer team operating out of our Hainesport, NJ office is available to minister in prisons in all of DE, most of MD, all of NJ, eastern PA, and southern NY. The same principle can be applied to whichever team you might be interested in joining.

Participation with one of our Standing Teams requires an individual to immediately adopt a unique mindset…our teams have no “players”. Everyone on the roster of a Standing Team is a “missionary-athlete”; a very intentional moniker to clarify both our purpose and our model. As a missionary-athlete, each team member is expected to recognize that the prison system is a mission field, at times it might even be considered an unreached people group.

Missionary-athletes are aware that the days are long, and the schedule might change as the day unfolds. Games may get canceled (even after arrival), games might get added during the day, departure times are early and return times are late…but a genuine faith that God is in total control of the day makes the changes easy to embrace. The upside is that the blessings and rewards of using your God-given talents in His service are greater than you might ever imagine!

For more information on our Standing Teams, or to begin the process of becoming a missionary-athlete, please contact Jimmy Cochran, Director of Team Operations at jcochran@saintsprisonministry.org