Learning About Life From Sport

This is the season when we are inundated with sporting events. Here in the UK many in the population are literally addicted to sport. Everywhere you look in the media you find pictures of sporting celebrities and stories relating to all aspects of their lives. The World Cup has dominated television coverage, as has Wimbledon, not to mention the Tour de France or the upcoming celebrations of the Commonwealth Games. All of this is evidence that Sport continues to have a great attraction and influence on many people. Sanctuary First this month is going to be devoted to reflecting on the significance of sport in our lives. We’ve chosen four themes to help us focus on spiritual lesson we can learn from the world of sport. We are grateful to those who have prepared the prayers and the scripture readings and it is our hope that we will all be inspired to run the race of life that is set before us with patience and endurance. Here are some of the questions we will be asking and reflecting upon in our prayers this month. What is the positive contribution that sport makes to our lives? What does it mean to be “a good sport”? What does it really mean to win? Should we try to win at all costs? This of course leads us to reflect upon the lessons we can learn from losing. Is it possible to lose well? Finally we thought is would be interesting to have prayers written around the meaning and purpose of competition. Is competition a godly pursuit? Should we strive to be better than another? What about the original meaning of the word, compete? Week 1 - Good Sports Week 2 Winning Week 3 Losing Week 4 Competition We hope you will enjoy the reflections and the sermon podcasts this month. We wish you all an enjoyable summer of sport, learning to play the life game by knowing the game plan God has for all of our lives. We are especially grateful to Neil Urquhart who helped to shape our thinking for this month by supplying the theme titles.