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From the Church Times, 31st May 2002.
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Close your service books — it’s time for kick-off
The Revd John Hartley, Vicar of St Luke's Eccleshill, advertising his new service time (Photo: Sam Atkins)
If you hadn't shouted 'GOAL!', he'd never have noticed you'd brought your pocket TV (Cartoon: Noel Ford) |
by Hazel Southam
THERE IS growing evidence that World Cup fever will strike churches this weekend. Churches of many denominations have joined a scheme to show England’s matches on big screens in churches and church halls.
The spur was the kick-off time of England’s first match, against Sweden; 10.30 a.m. on Sunday. Many churches around the country have reverted to pre-video mode and rearranged their service times.
On Monday, Dr Carey gave them his blessing, saying: “Worship comes first, of course; but this comes round only every four years, and we can afford to be flexible.”
Other churches have gone one step further, and plan to use the World Cup to attract people to church, in a scheme promoted by the Evangelical Alliance and Christians in Sport. The numbers taking part are not known, but the organisers count them in the hundreds.
One example is St Andrew’s, Hertford. It is charging £1 for entry to a big-screen showing in the church hall. Colin Harding, a Sunday-school teacher, has organised the event with 13-15-year-olds in mind, who cannot watch the game in pubs.
“I will give a five-minute talk before the match, tailored to the football fan. . . The message will be that, at the end of the day, it’s just a game, and that there’s a bigger picture,” he said.
St Andrew’s, Skegby, in Nottinghamshire, will be erecting a screen in church, and the usual 10.30 a.m. service will be held an hour earlier so the game can be shown.
St Luke’s in Eccleshill, Bradford, has taken a different approach. It is moving its usual 10.30 a.m. service to 3 p.m., to allow football fans to watch the England/Sweden match at home first.
The afternoon service will have a World Cup theme tune. The Vicar, the Revd John Hartley, has written a hymn to the Match of the Day theme tune, and his sermon is entitled “Make Jesus the centre-forward of your life”.
He has also invited people to attend the service wearing a football strip, or in red, white and blue to mark the Golden Jubilee.
Mr Hartley said: “We wanted to release people from the dilemma of whether to watch the football or come to church, and we also wanted to do something creative.”
The UK director of the Evangelical Alliance, the Revd John Smith, said that the big-screen scheme “opens up the church to people in local communities. . . We are not encouraging people to come and get preached at.
“I hope that won’t happen. But I hope that people will find that Christians are friendly and interested in them, and that it gives them a chance to discuss values.”
Mr Smith said that, although churches would not be in direct competition with pubs that will be screening the matches, “it is an opportunity to regain ground from the pubs, and earn the right to be at the heart of the community.”
His words were echoed by Bryan Mason, national co-ordinator for Church Sports Ministry at Christians in Sports.
He said: “The Church has to go out to people who like sport, whatever sport that is. People have to see that there isn’t a secular/Christian divide.
“There must be churches who don’t know that the World Cup is on. But since the European Cup in 1996 churches have really got hold of this idea [screening matches]. We are trying to get the Christian community involved with the World Cup because it is so important.”
One church that will be showing all the England matches and the World Cup final is Christ Church in Orpington, Kent. The church began screening big games in its church hall during Euro 2000, as there is no local pub where people could watch the matches.
“We got about 65 people for the England-Germany game,” said the church’s youth worker, Dave Bailey. “Most of them were people who would not normally come to church. The atmosphere was really good. There wasn’t any trouble, or anything like that.
“It’s a family atmosphere where a dad brings a few beers and his children, and they all watch the match together. There’s no evangelistic element to it at all. It would be sick if we said: ‘You can only come to the matches if you come to our services.’”
The Revd Richard Thomas, from the diocese of Oxford, said that many churches in the Oxford area had expressed an interest in showing the matches.
“The Church has been the centre of community life since the Middle Ages,” he said. “And I think that increasingly churches will use modern technology like this to become the centre of community life again.”
A spokesman for the Football Association welcomed the plan.
“We are always happy for as many people as possible to see the England team in action. Clearly, the World Cup is a huge occasion, and lots of people are endeavouring to see the matches while going about their daily lives.”