DAVID ADAMS speaks with Graham Daniels, director of UK-based Christians in Sport, about the organisation’s new campaign to encourage Christian sportspeople in a time of coronavirus lockdowns…
When UK charity Christians in Sport held an online sports quiz night recently as part of a bid to continue connections with people during coronavirus lockdowns, organisers were stunned when, instead of the anticipated 60 to 100 participants, they had a couple of thousand log on.
“We had 350 teams join the quiz online,” says Graham Daniels, general director of the organisation, noting that thousands more took part later on. “We were astonished…We had people from every continent join in.”
Game over? Christians in Sport is asking Christians to continue to engage with those they play sport with during the COVID-19 lockdown. PICTURE: Peter Glaser/Unsplash
The online quizzes, which take 90 minutes, are part of a new campaign called PraySTAYSay.
With athletes all over the world – from football players to golfers, rowers to runners – no longer able to take part in sporting events, the campaign aims to encourage Christian sportspeople to keep investing in the lives of those they play alongside or compete against despite the fact they’re not able to play any sport together.
Graham Daniels, general director of Christians in Sport. PICTURE: Supplied.
“We had 350 teams join the quiz online…We were astonished.”
– Graham Daniels, general director of Christians in Sport, talking about the success of a recent online quiz.
Daniels says the name of the new campaign is a twist on “Pray Play Say” – a catchphrase those within Christians in Sport have traditionally used to explain their work. Its three words each capture a key part of the organisation’s hopes for the athletes they work with: ‘Pray’ a reminder for Christian sportspeople to pray for their team-mates and opponents; ‘Play’, a reminder for them to compete in a way that honours Christ; and the final word, ‘Say’, a reminder to share the Good News of Christ with those around them.
“So with the COVID situation and the lockdown, for a season we decided that we would change ‘play’ to ‘stay’…”explains Daniels.
While the call to pray continues with online prayer meetings, the new addition – stay – stands for staying at home in the lockdown but is also a call for Christians to continue to stay in their lives of those they play sport with.
“When all the fun of juggling toilet rolls on Instagram has disappeared and you’re five or six weeks in, will you be the person who…will stay in touch with your friends and really care? Will you invest?” asks Daniels.
And, through the sports quizzes (the next of which is being held on Friday night, UK time), the call to ‘say’ – sharing the Christian message – has also continued online with space given in the middle of each quiz for the Gospel message to be shared. The organisation has also been running a series of webinars to help people engage with the campaign.
Christians in Sport, which was founded more than 40 years ago at St Aldate’s Church in Oxford, works among elite and professional sports people, coaches and officials in the UK as well as alongside partner agencies throughout around the world. And, with 10 million people taking part in various sports across the UK, they also provide resources for Christians of all denominations to share their faith in the amateur sporting arenas they are a part of.
The organisation employs some 40 to 50 staff who who work directly with just under 600 elite athletes in fields ranging from football and tennis through to athletics and golf. The staff – and a pool of volunteers – also run Bible studies for Christian sportspeople at sporting colleges across Europe and run camps for young people.
“Christians in Sport is an organisation which pretty much does what it says on the tin…” says Daniels, who also serves as a director of Cambridge United Football Club and who first encountered the organisation himself while a young professional soccer player playing for Cambridge United back in the early 1980s.
He adds that one of the key tenets underpinning the way the organisation works with athletes is to ensure they are aware that the gift of God’s grace is freely given and doesn’t need to be earned.
“Certainly at the elite level, of course, it’s a glamorous world in many ways but it’s also a very transient world and a substantial issue for the elite athletes is that their identity…is so wrapped up with their capacity to perform and be in the public eye because of it.
“So it’s absolutely incumbent, particularly in the work with elite athletes, that [the Christians in Sport worker]…is being as clear as crystal that the Gospel of grace is about a free gift and that, though you may be a very good sports[person], you are more than that – you are loved in the eyes of God regardless of your performance…That’s the beauty of the work really.”
The Big Online Sports Quiz run by Christians in Sport. PICTURE: Supplied.
It’s also key, says Daniels, that when the athlete is no longer touring, they’re able to connect in with a local church.
“That’s our goal for them always when they leave athletics or soccer or rugby or tennis or cricket; that they’re embedded in a local church and belong to a local community of Christians…”
One of the other goals of the organisation is to address what Daniels calls the “idolatry” in sport by ensuring elite sports people – whose fame can mean they’re recognised where-ever they go – are not treated differently in churches than other people.
“We’re constantly aiming to re-establish…and grow the network of church leaders who really get this – that the idolatory of sport makes it very, very difficult for a person to be liberated, to enjoy the free grace of Christ,” he says.
“And so when they go to church, the last thing we want is for them to become the ‘poster woman’ or ‘poster boy’ of that organisation. We really push against that and that’s why Christians in Sport never uses anybody who’s currently in the public eye as an elite sportsperson or coach – we never use them, ever, to talk about our work. I think that’s really critical if we’re to be Gospel-centred.”
