Olympics pre-story
Sarah Jane Alley coordinates the United Kingdom and IrelandTerritory’s involvement in the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics. (Photo: Shairon Paterson)
While Olympic athletes will go for gold at the London games later this month, Sarah-Jane Alley and her team will be going for More Than Gold – the official title of a Christian-wide campaign based on 1 Peter 1:7 ... faith more precious than gold.
The 31-year-old daughter of AustraliaEasternTerritory officers Majors Kelvin and Julie Alley, Sarah-Jane was specifically selected by the United Kingdom and Ireland (UKI) Territory to coordinate The Salvation Army’s involvement at the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics.
More Than Gold has been around since the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The organisers encourage individual churches around the world to celebrate international sporting events by staging activities in their own communities and inviting members of the public to participate.
Involvement can mean anything from staging junior sports clinics to community fun days, handing out water bottles and providing music during the torch relay, showing Olympic events on a big screen or providing ongoing sports competitions.
Christians are also encouraged to open their homes to the families of overseas athletes while a major event like an Olympic Games is in progress.
Sarah-Jane and her team have been working with Salvation Army corps and centres throughout the UKITerritory for the past two years. Activities, including sports-based and general community events, are already happening. Sarah-Jane is hopeful corps and centres will keep the programs going even when the Olympics is over.
“The Olympic Games is the biggest sporting event in the world. Everyone watches it and talks about it while it is on,” she says.
“It gives us a perfect opportunity for both mission and service, and is a great starting point for new relationships. It provides us with a tremendous opportunity to share the message of Jesus with millions of people who will be competing, attending and viewing on television – even just talking about the event.
“Sport is just so relevant in the UK today. Eight out of 10 people either watch, play or read about sport every week. That’s more than 40 million people who don’t know Jesus; who don’t go to church, but are interested in sport.
“That’s a massive number of people and why it’s important to continue beyond 2012. That [2012] is really only the beginning; just the catalyst to engage with our communities and have a go at doing something in that environment where people are celebrating and wanting to be involved in the hype around the Games.
“The church has a really big opportunity to start something that they can see going beyond 2012.”
Edited extract re-printed courtesy of Pipeline
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