Healthy lives, healthy souls
2
Healthy lives, healthy souls Wholesale budget cuts to youth services in recent years have led to a lack of sporting activities to enable young people to develop and maintain a healthy lifestyle. e opportunity for the Church to fill this gap, engaging and sharing the gospel with their local community, is significant. S ince April 2015 Ruth Graveling has been employed full-time as the Sports Minister at St Thomas Church, Norwich. She comments “I am passionate about sport, as are many others. Sport is such a good universal language that breaks down barriers and provides a platform for sharing the Good News of Jesus, and our aim is to make a relevant and positive link between community and church.” Under the banner of ‘The Sports Factory’ the church offers a variety of sporting activities that reach largely unchurched individuals. Ruth and her team visit Multi-Use Games Areas weekly in their neighbourhood where they strike up conversation with young people through games of football and basketball. They have actively built relationships with local schools where they offer sports coaching in PE lessons and sometimes lead school assemblies. An extension of this term-time work is hosting holiday clubs for primary-age children; they involve youngsters in playing different sports and integrate a brief talk on faith. For the wider community, weekly social sport sessions include football and a Pilates session led to a soundtrack of worship music. Encouraging others to use sports as a mission tool too, Ruth heads up ‘The Sports Academy’, currently training nine people to become qualified sports instructors. The 10-month course delivers teaching and practical experience on engaging in evangelism and discipleship as part of growing ministry through the medium of sport. Ruth explains: “It’s about promoting good values of community, teamwork and social interaction. These are all a necessary part of sport but also apply to how we live life as a community of Christians.” ENYP (Equipping, Nurturing Young People) is another organisation using sport as part of their youth outreach across the city. At 180° – a fortnightly youth club in West Earlham – one of the three activities offered each session is a sport, ranging from dodgeball to indoor hockey. The sports activity is run by Sports and Community Outreach Worker Tom Woods, who also coaches the ENYP Under-16s football team, mainly made up of young people from the Heartsease area of the city. They train fortnightly and play seven-a-side Saturday games against other church groups from across Norfolk and Norwich as part of the Norfolk Christian Football League (NCFL). 26
Transcript of Healthy lives, healthy souls
Healthy lives, healthy soulsWholesale budget cuts to youth services in recent years have led to a lack of sporting activities to enable young people to develop and maintain a healthy lifestyle. The opportunity for the Church to fill this gap, engaging and sharing the gospel with their local community, is significant.
Since April 2015 Ruth Graveling has been employed full-time as the Sports Minister at St Thomas Church, Norwich. She comments
“I am passionate about sport, as are many others. Sport is such a good universal language that breaks down barriers and provides a platform for sharing the Good News of Jesus, and our aim is to make a relevant and positive link between community and church.”
Under the banner of ‘The Sports Factory’ the church offers a variety of sporting activities that reach largely unchurched individuals. Ruth and her team visit Multi-Use Games Areas weekly in their neighbourhood where they strike up conversation with young people through games of football and basketball. They have actively built relationships with local schools where they offer sports coaching in PE lessons and sometimes lead school assemblies. An extension of this term-time work is hosting holiday clubs for primary-age children; they involve youngsters in playing different sports and integrate a brief talk on faith. For the wider community, weekly social sport sessions include football and a Pilates session led to a soundtrack of worship music.
Encouraging others to use sports as a mission tool too, Ruth heads up ‘The Sports Academy’,
currently training nine people to become qualified sports instructors. The 10-month course delivers teaching and practical experience on engaging in evangelism and discipleship as part of growing ministry through the medium of sport. Ruth explains: “It’s about promoting good values of community, teamwork and social interaction. These are all a necessary part of sport but also apply to how we live life as a community of Christians.”
ENYP (Equipping, Nurturing Young People) is another organisation using sport as part of their youth outreach across the city. At 180° – a fortnightly youth club in West Earlham – one of the three activities offered each session is a sport, ranging from dodgeball to indoor hockey. The sports activity is run by Sports and Community Outreach Worker Tom Woods, who also coaches the ENYP Under-16s football team, mainly made up of young people from the Heartsease area of the city. They
train fortnightly and play seven-a-side Saturday games against other church groups from across Norfolk and Norwich as part of the Norfolk Christian Football League (NCFL).
26
Tom explains how important sport can be as a tool for evangelism: “It can be hard, whether you’re a Christian or not, to show compassion on the football field. Managers and players can make mistakes but it’s good for the young people to see positive values on the playing field which can provoke conversations about faith.”
Tim Stapleford from Holy Trinity Norwich was involved in setting up the NCFL Youth League in 1995 which now includes 350 boys and girls competing in teams from Under-10s to Under-18s, following which many join the two-division adult league.
Saturday morning is seen as a good time for playing football in the busyness of family life and members are attracted to NCFL by the friendly yet competitive nature of the matches. In 2009, keen to serve and engage with his immediate and diverse local community through sport, Tim started organising mid-week football sessions for young people at Jenny Lind Park.
The local area had struggled with anti-social behaviour and with young people being drawn into the gang culture. Co-ordinated by Tim, a strong team of up to 20 volunteers from several local churches, including Holy Trinity, Elim Pentecostal, Chapelfield Methodist and St Stephens, have worked hard for the past seven years to deliver holistic youth work. Many local youngsters are now engaged in supervised sports activities – particularly football, which takes place in the park on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
Current development of the old post office across the road now also provides a church-run resource for adults during the day and an additional space for young people to meet outside of school time, offering indoor social/youth club activities such as arts, crafts and IT opportunities.
With the care and support of leaders, participants are encouraged to improve personal skills, develop positive social relationships, and over time take on responsibilities to make their own contribution to the project. The work is ongoing, but with the removal of police
dispersal orders and greatly increased numbers of young families and residents using the park, the work of this award-winning sports initiative is being recognised for improving health and wellbeing for all individuals within the community. Tim’s heart was to see the local church having a positive impact on the local community. He says: “Churches are excellently placed to build this sports-centred work together and send out a message to their local community of:
Church unity; the joy of physical exercise; and an example of selfless love reflected in the life of Jesus.”
Sometimes rural outreach can take on a different form to urban outreach but Ang Fox, Director of North Breckland Youth For Christ (NBYFC), explains how sport is without borders. “Wherever you are there will be people that are drawn to sports and we’ve found sport connects with some young people that we struggle to reach with conventional clubs. Sometimes Church gets focused on delivering in a set way, but it’s good to recognise that people aren’t all the same.”
For the past four years NBYFC have welcomed visits from the National YFC Nomad team who have delivered the Christian message through sports sessions in local schools as well as at NBYFC’s Youth Cafés. In June, Nomad will be returning for three days, running a programme of sports sessions using their football cage alongside tennis coaching and activities, run by Matt Ashpole from the NBYFC team.
“The leaders are passionate about sport and their faith,” says Ang. “They are very good at connecting with the young people and are servant-hearted in sharing their skills and the gospel. Sport is one way of sowing seeds of faith and finding a way to value and invest in individuals who perhaps wouldn’t engage with any other form of Christian outreach.”
If you are interested in finding out about more about Christian Sports Ministry visit: www.christiansinsport.org.uk or to be put in touch with any of the projects featured please contact [email protected]
27
