Church, Mission & Football

How often would you use Church, Mission and Football in the same sentence? KARL BARTH once advised preachers to read the Bible and the news together. His point was a principle of interpretation: God's story should always be related to the world's stories. This is the way in which the gospel remains relevant but also "definitive", as all the stories of the world are found to be encompassed by God's redeeming narrative.

Footballing events such as the World Cup create a great 'hook' bring the community together and Football World cup 2022 has presented us with this amazing opportunity to keep the Gospel relevant by opening the doors of the church to the community who otherwise might never see the church relevant to them.

After all our mission statement, focuses on loving God, making disciples and transforming communities'. You don't have to love football to recognise what it does well, in bringing people together, allowing them to participate, offering them shared purpose and even a kind of spirituality. Therefore, as a church, we need to grab this opportunity to keep the Gospel relevant and demonstrate that the church is not a power structure with no entry point for the outsider! 

A striking feature of the England games in the run up to this world cup in 2018 as well as 2022 has been how many people want to watch them in community — in fan-zones, in pubs, and on packed sofas. Lives more commonly lived on individual devices have re-encountered the collective experience of joy, sorrow, and a greater whole. There are few better words for this than "religion": what brings people together. But, of course, this national religion cannot save - it can only inspire. The Church has an alternative saving story that offers much the same experience, and more. We would love you to be part of that story here in Busbridge.

World Cup 2022 is a missional opportunity and as a church we have decided to do exactly that as well as offer people a warm space and that is why we have signed up to the warm space initiative with the Waverley council. Therefore, during the England games not only can members of the community watch, enjoy & support the national football team, we will also offer free warm drinks and snacks in a warm family friendly atmosphere, bringing the community together!

However, yes - you guessed it, to offer all of that we need your support because this isn't a job just for one or two individuals. If we are to show the church as welcoming place, then we need a few teams.

Set up Team - To ensure that the church is suitably set to accommodate both the young and old to enjoy the atmosphere and the community. This will involve arranging and rearranged the chairs before and after the games.

Hospitality – Part of the Warm space initiative, we have to offer free warm drinks, so we need a team to offer hot drinks for the adults and some cold drinks for the children.

Welcomers & Prayer Ministry – as part of our outreach we need to have a couple of people at every game to offer a warm, welcome & may be possibly prayer ministry to anyone who might come to watch the game.

Friends, we are proposing to stream the Group 'B' games, the semi-finals and the final and if England progresses as we hope they will, then there might be additional games, but we will cross that bridge when we get to it.  However, to make this missional opportunity come to fruition, I'm reaching out to every member of the church, with this plea, would you please help with any one of the above (we only need a minimum of 2 or 3 people per team for the duration of each game)

If you would like to be part of this amazing opportunity, please drop me a line on patrick.samuels@bhcgodalming.org and which team you would like to serve with.

Look forward to hearing from you soon

Kind regards and Blessings

Patrick