2010 and beyond: an African perspective.
Moss Ntlha TEASA General Secretary
Introduction
This conference is an important intervention for us church folk looking to make theological sense of the games people play!
We salute SATS and SASCOL for collaborating to mount this initiative and trust that it will cascade this process of theological reflection and missional action throughout the length and breadth of the churches that have come together to form SASCOL: The Evangelical Alliance of South Africa and The South African Council of Churches.
We are also thankful for a gift of ministry among us from international bodies like International Sports Coalition, Ambassadors in Sports and others who have pioneered this ministry toward the sporting community. We have learned a lot and trust that the sense of ecumenical community of faith, sharing of ministry gifts from different parts of the body, is something we can take up in our journey of faith. It can only make us a stronger Church in South Africa, if we freely shared ministry gifts, rather than be limited to the ways of our divided past.
2010 World Cup is a terrific missional opportunity. “Do you not say, four months more and then the harvest? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for the harvest.” These words of our Lord are appropriate, and inspire us to discern the moment and determine the wisest way to optimise it.
Africa hosts the World cup for the first time, and we may not have another opportunity to do so anytime soon. So this conference helps the Church in its preparation to host and serve this vital global event.
Let us remember that this is:
· An African, rather than merely South African opportunity that we embrace with gratitude and stewardship for the continent.
· An important landmark in the journey beyond a past marked by restriction, oppression and lack of freedom. When FIFA awarded the 2010 World Cup to South Africa, the picture of Madiba receiving was an appropriate one. For it signalled a new day culturally and politically. African dignity was reaffirmed after decades and centuries of marginalisation and abuse. Those who have nursed, prayed for and worked for the possibility of an African renewal have reason to feel encouraged to work harder for the goal of transformation, which Africa desperately needs. Hopefully, the Church will find it missiologically important to accompany Africans in this journey, because in the end, Africa will find itself only when it does so in Christ.
· A transformational opportunity: Sports can unite nations in ways that little else can. As a nation, we South Africans are low on social capital and social cohesion, that sense of society and the common good in which, with the spirit of UBUNTU, we can treat one another with dignity and respect. Without this social capital, crime, ethnicity, cynicism, racism and xenophobia will be rampant. So we receive with gratitude the gift of internationalism that the global sporting community brings us. We need all the help we can to heal our national psyche. We have an opportunity in 2010 to rise to the challenge of hospitality and service. Could it be that the Lord is persistent with us that we do not avoid the challenge of finding one another as a reconciled rainbow nation, fit to host the world cup? Last year saw an outbreak of xenophobia that points to a spiritual deficit in our communal life. Could it be that Lord is teaching us something about internationalism and global solidarity? That as a nation so recently delivered from the demons of social divisions and strife, we cannot afford so quickly to return thither?
It would therefore be a tragedy if we did not take advantage of such a high potential event and as churches appropriate for ourselves what the Lord is saying, and in turn bear witness to a nation struggling to find itself.
The Theological challenge
Four themes have emerged for me as I have listened to different speakers, processes and interactions at this conference.
A paradigm shift
Theologically, it is true to say that the theological paradigm of much of the Church in Africa is one of conservatism. We still need convincing that sport is okay as a ministry focus. This in spite of the fact that the majority of the people on this continent is youth and play sport.
We have created a chasm between church and people. This conference has helped to point the way to how that might be bridged.
Our theological dualism is holding us back from affirming that faith can be both playful and serious, both competitive and communal. So this conference has helped to underscore the theological importance of Sport as a ministry in the church.
We have been given a language of engagement with the culture that likes to play. In doing so, it has mooted the possibility of Church engagement not only with sport, but with a range of other endeavours in culture, politics, law, media, business...to mention a few.
Listening to Alex Rebeiro the other day in his talk on chaplaincy among big ticket sports personalities, I couldn’t help but see the parallels with engaging the political and business elites in our communities.
Indeed this calls for theological imagination on the part of the Church in Africa as we frame a language to both proclaim Christ to a playful culture as well as disciple people in a culture that idolises celebrities, and makes them role models, with or without their permission.
That said, we would fail in our duty to be true and authentic to ourselves and the Africa we serve if we do not also take seriously the responsibility to contextualise what we learn from others in order to make it applicable in Africa. I am wary of transplanting models of mission from elsewhere without taking time to listen to the questions that people ask. If we do this we will not connect in the deepest sense possible with where people are at. They struggles with pressing challenges to hope again, believe again and to love again in an age of HIV/AIDS, poverty and other social ills that shape the African terrain.
Sports and the sangomisation of life
We have also heard at this conference how Christian discipleship among sportsmen and women must contend with the reality of sangomas, who presumably will give teams a competitive edge. The trend in South Africa today is that this is increasingly being mainstreamed, in business, politics, sports, culture, schools and even in the church. The baby of Christian faith is being thrown out with the bath water of apartheid, under the guise of reclaiming African personhood.
We have learned through leading Christian sports personalities how, by taking a courageous and often costly, stand against this issue, the Lord’s name is glorified. This shows the way that we might go about to de – sangomising our national life!.
Leadership development through life coaching
One of SASCOl’s services and offerings to the churches is a coaching programme that connects local churches with sporting teams in transformational coaching relationships. ( See ubabalo e Afrika website)
As the world is treated to a spectacular festival of soccer in 2010, the dream is to see a continent celebrating a renaissance of leadership
After the World Cup 2010 , the church has the possibility to be a capacitated and engaging presence across the continent. Engaging not only sports, but adapting the same skills to contextualise ministries across many frontiers..
Models of engagement.
Most helpfully, the conference has also helped us to see what practical roles that churches can play with regard to serving the World Cup. I have been inspired by the models of ministry shared by different leaders involved with sports ministries. This will greatly encourage the work that churches do on the ground. The SASCOL and Ubabalo websites provide plenty of resources in this regard.
In conclusion:
The great commission enjoins us to go to all the world. This may be looked at geographically or in terms of all disciplines of human endeavour ( the market place is our the parish)
A few months after the world cup 2010 will be history, The Lausanne Congress of World Evangelisation will gather in Cape Town, to remind us that the whole church, must take the whole gospel to the whole church. This conference is an important contribution to that agenda.
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