Have you ever run a marathon? Numbers indicate that barely one percent of the population has attempted it, and many less have actually finished one. Yet, we are all endurance runners in the marathon of life.

When calamity slams into us along the way, as it did literally to Chris Gillespie, 52, we don’t usually respond by celebrating that God may be trying to get our attention. Yet, 24 years after an accident that nearly crippled him, Gillespie continues to celebrate the day God got his attention, altered his life and “made me who I am.”

Out of his trial he became the founder and executive director of TEAM 413 — GRACERUNNER Ministries.

A life-changing day

He begins the story with a wry chuckle, “I’m the only person you’ve ever met who’s been hit by a flying pingpong table.”

On April 30, 1986, Gillespie left work from his job as the head athletic trainer at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala., a little earlier than usual. He looked forward to being able to take a long run and have time for reflection.

“Little did I know that, on this day, my life would be changed forever,” he said in his book, “GRACERUNNER.”

He’d taken a different course, but ran an unusually fast pace that day. Returning, he found himself running along a busy highway during rush hour. Gillespie was only a few hundred yards from the university’s entrance when he was suddenly struck from behind and propelled 30 feet. The unusual object that hit him like a missile turned out to be an unrestrained sheet of plywood — a pingpong table — whizzing off the back of a pickup truck.

“My sacrum (large bone at the base of the spine) had been crushed. I had lost nerves. I had significant muscle and other soft tissue damage,” he said. “I had tremendous swelling and eventually turned black and blue from the top of my shoulders to the bottom of my feet. This injury would affect me for the rest of my life. I was very fortunate to be alive.”

God challenged him by Gillespie’s own maxim: “Never allow your circumstances to dictate your character, but rather allow your character to show through in your circumstances so that you can be a better witness for our Savior, and so that God will be glorified in ALL things.”

God not only got his attention, but during his lengthy hospital stay and rehabilitation, He planted in Gillespie’s heart and mind the vision for a unique ministry of evangelism — a way to reach out with the love of Jesus Christ to marathon runners and others who are running to avoid the calamities of life overtaking them.

TEAM 413 is born

“We are all running from or to something,” Gillespie said. “We may be running from mid-life or to lose weight; we may be running from a bad relationship or to gain affirmation. People run from being minimized or discouraged, or they run to prove something.”

It was a strange vision for a ministry because of Gillespie’s medical diagnosis.

“I was told that I would be lucky to walk normally again, and running was most likely out of the question forever. In my wildest dreams, I could not envision running again,” he said.

But Gillespie dwelt on the verse that would come to embody the ministry of TEAM 413 — Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Now, he and his wife, Kiki, along with hundreds of other “team” members the world over, wear T-shirts with that verse emblazoned on the back as a testimony to God’s grace.

“It’s a unique opportunity to spread their faith in a nonthreatening way,” Gillespie said.

TEAM 413 has a presence at marathons around the country. They set up booths where they share compassion, encouragement and the Gospel with scores of people who stop by to ask about the shirts and why they are wearing them.

Gillespie, quoting another team member, said, “Let me tell you about my shirt; but more importantly, let me tell you about my heart.”

That’s what TEAM 413

members do; they share their hearts, their saving faith in Jesus Christ and try to encourage people running life’s marathon in any way they can. Gillespie thinks of it as paying forward what God has done for him on the cross and in allowing him to walk and even run again. Others he meets buy a shirt to wear or a copy of his book to share, and in that way, they pay their faith forward, too.

“God can use anything as a ministry that honors Him,” Gillespie said. “If God gives you a passion, He gives it to allow you to share it for His glory and not to hide it. If it’s a sport, music, art, whatever; he gave you that passion because he wanted you to share it. If you’re not using your passion to glorify Him, maybe you’re not doing what He commanded you to do to enhance His kingdom.”

Mark Knutson, race director for both the Fargo and Illinois marathons, said, “Chris Gillespie is doing what God has asked all of us to do — spread the Word using what gifts and talents we have. 

Every time he runs by someone while wearing a TEAM 413 shirt, he is solidifying his role as ‘God’s Personal Running Messenger,’ reminding us that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.”

Impacting lives

Gillespie said of the TEAM 413 ministry, “We don’t have any concept of the seeds that have truly been planted.”

But the stories of a faithfulharvest continue to come in.

One woman found courage in the shirt’s printed message to witness to her rebellious daughter. A few weeks later that young lady made a public profession of faith in Christ. Soon after, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and went home to meet the Lord at the age of 17. Her mother phoned Gillespie and said, “Whatever you do, please don’t stop! Please don’t stop!”

Another woman appeared at the TEAM 413 booth at the end of a marathon. “She wore that faraway look in her eyes,” Gillespie said in “GRACERUNNER.”

“From what I could gather from my brief encounter with her, she was homeless, she was cold and she was very lonely — a face in the crowd. 

She kept insisting that she’d run that marathon and wanted ‘one of those silver things’.”

Gillespie eventually realized that it wasn’t a medal the woman wanted but one of the Mylar blankets wrapped around the shoulders of each of the finishers. She wanted to be warm, and she wanted the chance to fit in. Gillespie wrapped his own Mylar blanket around her feeble shoulders. That day he was Jesus to her.

Dick Beardsley, president of the Dick Beardsley Foundation, is a longtime associate of Gillespie’s. He also wrote the foreward to “GRACERUNNER.” Gillespie knows Beardsley as an encourager and supporter of the ministry. Endurance athletes know him as a world- class marathoner and two-time Olympic qualifier who has held the Grandma’s Marathon course record since 1981. He’s seen TEAM 413 in action.

“At just about any running event I’ve been to, I see people wearing the TEAM 413 T-shirts,” Beardsley said. “Chris has a great message,”

He said Gillespie and his wife, Kiki, are passionate about the ministry.

“I saw them at an event in Springfield, Mo.,” Beardsley said. “It’s hot out, and they’re at it all daylong, telling people about the mission. He tries to go to as many events as he can.”

Gillespie still suffers both from the long-term effects of his accident and from another health condition called dysautonomia, which he said, ironically, is relieved by running. Some people wonder if he wishes he could go back and take away the moment he was struck by the pingpong table.

“I wouldn’t change it for anything. It’s made me who I am in so many ways. (God) was preparing me to understand pain and preparing me for my ministry,” he said.

“Christians often say that God won’t place more on you than you can handle, but I can’t find that in the Bible. There are things you can’t get through if you don’t use His strength to get through them. 

There’s no possible way you can get through those calamities. You can’t handle them until you depend on God and you have that person who is there with you to help you, to lift you up.”

TEAM 413 offers a printed copy of a prayer that encourages those struggling with life’s trials to keep moving forward, to avoid focusing on the calamities of life, to finish strong. The final lines of the prayer conclude, “One more breath, one more step, one more mile, Finish Line! I can do all things through YOU who strengthens me.”