Forming character, not just fitness: a Christian’s call in PE

Being a Christian involved in sport has always been somewhat of a tightrope to walk.

In “The Sporting Spirit,” George Orwell famously said “Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.” Before coming to Christ (and even sometimes after it), I always viewed my sport as somewhat of a battlefield, and my opponent merely an obstacle between myself and the thing I genuinely wanted – to win. The flip side of this is Ephesians 4:2, “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” And as such, it can feel that the two worlds that I passionately live in cannot co-exist.

Teaching also has its moments of feeling like a battlefield, where a work-force of educators have a massive heart for the young people of their community, but the paucity of time in the school day creates a real strain on the opportunity for intentional relationships to  build between learners and educators, which in its own right can create tensions in the classroom.

Additionally, there has been a shift in the landscape of school sport, where participation has taken precedence over the importance of competition, and therefore, sport has become a watered-down version of itself.

With all these things in mind, knitting together my competitive sporting nature, my desire to work with young people and my heart to love and serve God has often felt like being torn in three opposite directions. I have also heard it said that “Your calling in God is where the things that break your heart the most meet what you’re most passionate about.” I have always had compassion for the youth of our nation who experience the most desperate circumstances, and sport has always been the thing I have been most enthusiastic about. Therefore, I have always felt a calling to work in Sports Ministry through KICK, with a desire to share God’s love with young people, through sport, in the educational environment, and to see genuine change in their lives. This calling has created the challenge for me to ask myself “If I were to be the only Christian teacher these learners ever met, what would I want them to walk away having learned from me?”

Three years ago, I was fortunate enough to lead a Year 9 Football team to the Borough Championship final, which they deservedly won. The following year, the PE department led a Football Tour to Spain, in which that same team, now in Year 10, came away with another trophy. Despite their sporting success, my message to that team in their leavers assembly was this - “I have never cared whether I could teach you to kick a ball any better, I just care that you are becoming people of good character, and it’s been a pleasure to be a part of that journey”.

You see, despite our successes, we had many bumps in the road. In many fixtures, I had to leave key players behind to serve detentions for poor conduct around the school.

Players were pulled off the pitch in key moments for ill-discipline. We had many silent minibus journeys back to school after I had had to have very firm (but fair) words with the team for the way they had disrespected the opposition’s teacher who was volunteering to referee the game. But in each of these moments, these learners began to understand that my heart was not for their results but for who they were becoming as people.

1 Timothy 4:8 says, “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come”. I loved being on the training pitch with this group of learners. I loved watching the way they developed a style of play as I shared my football philosophy with them – but I loved it even more as they began to win games with integrity and lose games with grace. When we lost the Year 10 Borough Championship Final due to some dubious refereeing, despite the overwhelming disappointment and urge to complain about being cheated, many of the boys took the opportunity to reflect inwardly on what they could have done better, rather than blaming the external factors. This was a sign to me that through their suffering, they were developing perseverance, and through that they were developing good character, and therefore, a Hope for the future (Romans 5:3-4).

Working for a Sports Ministry, there has often been the thought that the only way to communicate the Gospel is through “sermonettes” – five-minute chats linking the message of the Bible to something associated with sport. And while this can be an effective way of delivering the message, it can also feel “crowbarred” into a lesson that is already jam packed, or “tacked on” to the end of a lesson as an after-thought, neither of which give God his true place, which should be both the focal point of our lives, and to carry His presence in everything we do (1 Corinthians 10:31).

With these thoughts in mind, the concept of “Embedded Christian Values” came about. At KICK, we settled upon using the Fruits of the Spirit (plus Integrity, Hope, Perseverance and Forgiveness) as our monthly values. We also said that for a value to be embedded in our lessons, it must be applied to behaviour moments within the lesson. For example, a learner whose team goes 3-0 down in a game and decides to give up would be challenged on the values of Hope and Perseverance. We live in Hope that things will get better, and we Persevere through trials, even if the outcome is not necessarily what we hope for.

Using Sport as a microcosm for life can mean that young people can experience a testing circumstance and then use an applied value in a safe space as a means for developing their character. Merely teaching a value through a story in a rushed five-minute “God-slot” would not have the same impact as giving a young person the opportunity to learn a value in a real-life moment of trial. The hope for us as Sports Ministers would be that the young person who learned about our values in their PE lesson could then use what they have learned in their lives, whether it is a testing circumstance in their school work, their lives at home or out in the world.

Embedded Christian Values can also be used as a Behaviour Management Strategy, challenging the learners to focus on the impact of their actions on others, rather than the actions themselves.

By teaching learners Biblical Values in these moments (and modelling these values in our own behaviours and reactions too), we are giving our young people an opportunity to build a framework that will support them for the rest of their lives and in testing times.

So while the world may look at Sport as war, and while Educators may feel heart-rich but time-poor for their learners – there is a unifying middle-ground in which Sports Ministers are working in educational environments and sharing the love of God through Embedded Christian Values in the hope of transformational change that could serve a young person for a lifetime.