We have seen that Christians in Sport staff members Graham Daniels and Jules Wilkinson are part of the chaplaincy team at the Commonwealth Games in Australia. But what kind of issues do chaplains help top-level athletes deal with? Here, Graham shares how they are helping them see the full picture of their identity.
You're only as good as your last game. Ideas like this abound in sport, particularly at elite level where athletes are so easily defined by their performances and results. The question of an athlete's identity is never far away from this and something we're really keen to help Christians think through.
As chaplains at the Commonwealth Games, it is a great privilege to open the Bible with elite sportspeople and help them see how their faith and sport can fit together.
One of the first places we go to is the start of one of Paul's letters such as 2 Thessalonians 1 v 1. Paul simply greets followers of Jesus by reminding them they are in God our Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. I ask: 'do you see this?' If we've turned to Christ, this means that God is our Father and Jesus is our Lord. God is our Heavenly Father: He loves us, He's for us, He wants what's best for us as His children.
It's driving home for the athlete that whether you win the gold medal or go out in the first round, if you have turned to and trusted in Christ, then God is your Father and you are loved regardless of whether you win or lose. You just are! You are loved because you're His child. Your identity is not defined to God by whether you are best or worst in your sport.
That's the bedrock of faith, but there is more to say.
We have a Lord who is our leader, our master, our head coach and He has a vocation in which He will lead us. This means that we are under the lordship of Christ as our leader. We tell the athlete that the One who made hundreds of millions of galaxies made your fast-twitch fibres, your hand-eye co-ordination, made you capable of being an athlete who is in this Commonwealth Games village. God made you able to do it. This is where you will live out the lordship of Christ this week. This is the specific situation in which coaches and athletes work out the life of discipleship as a follower of Jesus.
It's not esoteric, it's not vague. It's very, very specific. That awareness of the unconditional love of God the Father and the lordship of Jesus Christ lead you to understand your vocation. It's no mistake that the God who loves you unconditionally also made you an athlete. That's where He will work out your vocation with you.
It's awesome to be looking at God's word with athletes here at the Commonwealth Games and we will continue to do this with elite sportspeople all year round as we carry out our vision of reaching the world of sport for Christ.
Graham Daniels is a chaplain with Christians in Sport. Along with Jules Wilkinson, he is supporting elite athletes at the Commonwealth Games, praying with them and meeting for Bible studies. You can follow him on Twitter @DannoCiS.
You can hear more from Graham Daniels on Christians in Sport's Commonwealth Games podcast.
