"Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing."
More Than Champions
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More Than Champions Stuart Weir, Harper Collins 1993 236 Pages) ISBN 0551 02771-1
More than Champions is a book on sport and Christianity with good stories, wise comment and more than a few glances at the way Christianity and sport are mixing in America. There is a church in California which has a gymnasium, eight floodlit tennis-courts, a swimming-pool, a basketball court, sauna, steamroom and jacuzzi. Most professional sports teams have a match day chapel service as part of the routine. And then there are quotes like the boxer, Floyd Patterson's, "I just hit him again and the Lord did the rest".
But there is a moderate side to the mixture of Christianity and sport both across the Atlantic and worldwide. Stuart Weir is a good advocate for the movement he co-directs, Christians in Sport. It is encouraging that Christians in the world of sport will be getting the sane advice this book offers on a range of subjects like Sunday play, coping with failure and tempations, competing and winning.
Sports ministry is in its infancy and this book is a very helpful introduction. Christians who are sportspeople will be helped to think Christianly about their sport and their behaviour and role in it and will be better able to understand the challenge and pressures faced by top sportspeople. And churches would do well to think about sports ministry, not maybe to the extent of building a gymnasium but certainly of celebrating sport as part of God's creation and using it genuinely as a meeting ground. Henry Corbett, Church Times, 27 August 1993
It is encouraging that Christians in the world of sport will be getting the sane advice this book offers on a range of subjects like Sunday play, coping with failure, temptations, competing and winning. Church Times
A finely researched book, exposing for scrutiny the many facets of sporting prowess from praying to win to Sunday sport. Baptist Times
A fascinating and excellently researched book, which I read in one sitting. The ethical questions poaed by the grey areas of sport were handled sensitively. Sally Jones
A comprehensive guide to the problems faced by sportspeople in general and Christians in particular. Woman alive
FROM a laissez-faire attitude to win at all costs and then, as a Christian, to believing he could glorify God wherever he finished, Kriss Akabusi’s foreword spells out the I’easoning behind Stuart Weir’s hard work.
It is a finely researched book, exposing for scrutiny the many facets of sporting prowess from playing to win to Sunday Sport. As a director of Christians in Sport, Mr Weir has managed to pack plenty of examples into the work to give it value to those keen to debate the many sides.
Of particular interest are the Sunday arguments. Missing the World Championships and the Europa Cup in 1991, Britain’s leading triple jumper Jonathan Edwards had plenty of media attention as he explained that not competing on a Sunday “is just a way of showing that God is first in my life and not my athletics”.
When he recanted the following year, he reasoned it out just as carefully-demonstrating the awesome problems facing sportsmen and women as the sporting calendar identifies Sunday more and more as an ordinary working day.
But that’s only one of the book’s themes. For those not involved in sport and those who are, it will be a worthwhile read. David Hall
- Church of England Newspaper (
971 kbs ) - Woman Alive ( 473 kbs )