THE General Synod voted on the Wednesday to recognise the mission potential of sport and well-being initiatives. It called on dioceses to develop a coherent and resourced strategy for developing them.
Mark Balcar gave a presentation concerning the Church of England’s National Sport and Wellbeing project (NSWP) 2020-23 (News, 31 January), within the pilot dioceses of Birmingham, Blackburn, Ely, Gloucester, Guildford, London (Kensington area), Norwich, and Rochester, before the Bishop of Derby, the Rt Revd Libby Lane, introduced the talk on her motion.
Bishop Lane said that the eight dioceses reflected a wealthy number of lived experience, demographic, and approaches to sport and well-being. “Sport is a component of our national and native identities,” she said. “It’s a big contributor to our economy. It enhances physical and mental health. It can foster a way of cohesion and community. It offers a positive, meaningful outlet for sometimes excluded and disadvantaged groups.”
One of the findings of a study commissioned by the diocese of London had demonstrated that church-based sports and physical activities featured above-average engagement by women and girls, and intergenerational engagement. Sport England estimated that 55 per cent of 16- to 25-year-olds engaged in sport weekly, and that 88 per cent of youngsters aged five to fifteen played sports usually.
“What a possibility to supply this potentially fruitful technique to engage children and young people precisely on the time after we as a Church are in search of and struggling to achieve those self-same children,” the Bishop said.
Professor Helen King (Oxford) was concerned concerning the focus being more on sports ministry than on well-being. “We’ve got strategic goals,” she said, “but what really worries me is we haven’t got any theology. I’d urge a re-set from sports to well-being, perhaps from a deal with children and young people — which is all of the Vision and Strategy stuff — to adults, and to something driven not by the rhetoric of management and success measured by numbers, but on a wealthy theology.”
In a maiden speech, the Bishop of Birmingham, Dr Michael Volland, said that he had been the Principal of Ridley Hall when it initiated a sports and well-being ministry training pathway. “The undeniable fact that 40 people studied on the sports-ministry programme in a comparatively short time frame — ten to degree level — is testament to the depth and quality of Professor Andrew Parker’s leadership in the sector,” he said. The report “provides compelling evidence for the strategic opportunity provided to the Church by sports and well-being ministry”.
Christopher Townsend (Ely) moved an amendment to encourage physical activity more generally, and promote health and well-being in a wider sense, as a technique to “express a theological conviction to take care of the entire person — body, mind and soul, whoever you’re, whatever your age and whatever your ability”. He wanted the motion to “harness the complete potential of support of sports and well-being ministry, to deal with challenges to construct partnerships and collaborations, to ascertain pathways to financial and leadership sustainability, and to embed sport and well-being ministry into wider planning for kids and young people, for schools, community outreach, Fresh Expressions”. He concluded: “Sports and well-being ministry isn’t a silver bullet, but, in our current context, it’s a worthwhile tool within the toolbox. Let’s benefit from it.”
Sandra Turner (Chelmsford) said: “Jesus has the ability to vary lives for ever; so sport, well-being, and Jesus is a win-win.”
Alianore Smith (Southwark) invited members to work with, and alongside, sports chaplains who were “acknowledged throughout the sporting environment and by national Government bodies in sport, comparable to the Premier Football League and the Professional Footballers Association” — all of which had legal arrangements in place to make sure adherence to standards of coaching and accountability.
The debate on the amendment was adjourned until the next day.
Paul Waddell (Southwark), a football coach, told stories of young Christians who had come to faith through sports. “In my squad, I had middle-class high earners playing alongside working-class school dropouts, white and Global Majority Heritage players mixing around a love and a shared culture. It’s vital those things are held inside a wider strategy. There is nice ad hoc work being done across the country, but there’s a lot untapped potential. Let’s give this whole motion a bit more teeth. Run with it. Take it very seriously.”
Canon Barnabas de Berry (Canterbury), each a Vicar and Chaplain to Kent County Cricket Club, said: “It means I get to minister to some of the significant communities in my parish. Sport offers huge advantages to those participating in wellness, and the community that sports can generate could possibly be a fantastic vehicle for our mission . . . I feel this amendment recognises that sports clubs are existing communities that we’re called to minister to.”
Mr Townsend’s amendment was carried.
The Revd Jago Wynne (Southwark), Rector of Holy Trinity, Clapham, said, on Zoom, that the district had the best percentage of individuals of their twenties and thirties in the entire country. “That is the age demographic that’s least reached by us because the Church of England. We have 16 different sports groups, over 90 per cent of whom are of their twenties and thirties. Over 60 per cent aren’t currently a part of the Church. We put our money where our mouth is, and employed a sports minister. Imagine . . . if we support this motion with more funds and more strategic considering.”
Dr Rachel Jepson (Birmingham) has a black belt in karate. “The karate club I belong to serves a various suburb of Birmingham, where many individuals’s lives echo the narratives we heard in our previous debate about working-class people,” she said: “all of the more reason why my plea is for churches to be open to welcoming clubs like mine to satisfy and train in our church halls — not because clubs like this are seen as an income stream, but because we’re constructing and sustaining the very communities wherein the Church maintains a Christian presence.”
She continued: “My club has stopped using the church because we couldn’t afford the drastic increase in hiring costs — sadly breaking the link between Northfields and non-churchpeople and the local church. Let’s make this ministry price while, and convey concerning the vital changes in our attitude and behavior, too.”
Alison Coulter (Winchester), as a member of the Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board, said that it could welcome and look favourably on bids.
The Revd Dr Charlie Bell (Southwark) opposed the motion. “I even have to confess that I find the concept of evangelism by stealth slightly distasteful, and I’m very concerned that that’s what this motion looks to do,” he said. “It appears like we’re talking when it comes to ‘any team will do’. . . Sport is a type of play whose purpose is itself play for play’s sake — an end in itself, not a way to evangelism. Instrumentalising play as a type of evangelism, in my opinion, isn’t a psychologically secure or healthy thing to do.”
The motion as amended was carried.
- recognise the mission potential for churches of sport and wellbeing ministry to achieve people in every demographic, to generate opportunities to introduce people to the Christian faith, and to rework lives and communities;
- call upon all dioceses, in partnership with church schools and Christian organisations already lively on this field to develop a coherent and resourced mission strategy for sports and wellbeing ministry; and
- ask the Archbishops’ Council to contemplate what steps must be taken at a national level to facilitate and coordinate diocesan development of sport and wellbeing ministry and ask the Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board to look favourably on diocesan bids for such ministry.
- recognise the mission potential for churches of sport and wellbeing ministry to achieve people in every demographic, to generate opportunities to introduce people to the Christian faith, and to rework lives and communities;
- call upon all dioceses, in partnership with church schools and Christian organisations already lively on this field to develop a coherent and resourced mission strategy for sports and wellbeing ministry; and
- ask the Archbishops’ Council to contemplate what steps must be taken at a national level to facilitate and coordinate diocesan development of sport and wellbeing ministry and ask the Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board to look favourably on diocesan bids for such ministry.
