Olympic Commentary on the Church

I wonder how many people are experiencing a downer this week at the end of the 2012 Olympics. I think most people in the United Kingdom enjoyed these Olympics more than any other in their lifetime. Unquestionably it provided the majority of the water-cooler moments from the last two weeks. As I was watching there were some things that occurred to me that we might do well to pay attention to in the church. Some were patterns and some were principles but all of them have left me pondering.

1. Winning cheers highlight worship capacity Whether it was Mo Farah, Chris Hoy, or the athlete you had never heard of before that you stayed up late to see if they won a medal in a sport that you will never watch again we love to cheer for our team. We were totally absorbed when the German came round the last corner ahead of Chris Hoy, when the Ethiopian seemed set to overtake Farah on the home straight of the 5000m on our feet, screaming at our televisions, arms raised, fists pumping, victories were celebrated with dances and hugs. So here's the deal for worship this Sunday- it ought to exceed that. It is tragic if the manner in which we demonstrate our response to the victories of some athletes exceed how we celebrate the victories that Christ has won.

There is a discrepancy in our heads if we think that Olympic victories were anything other than intergalactically trivial in comparison to the eternal conquest, rule and triumph Jesus secured on the cross. You now have a new barometer of your worship capacity- if you celebrated Hoy's victory with arms raised and a tear in your eye but worship Jesus in church on Sunday with your hands in your pocket thinking about your to-do list for the afternoon something needs to change.

You might be thinking 'wow what a killjoy' but the reality is that the joy you found in the Olympics is empty and temporary.Rather than kill your joy my prayer is that it would release your joy from the constraints of prideful reserve and concerns about your public reputation. In Scotland we have bred a church of cultural Michals who sneer at anyone who they deem excessive in worship. Last word on this: excessive means that our worship ought to exceed the praise we lavish on anything else- does my worship of Jesus do this?

We have time Simply this- how easy was it to schedule time, free up time, invite friends round for time watching the Olympics? How many of you persevered with the Olympic closing ceremony, which Twitter told me was dire by the way)? If it's so easy to schedule time for these things how does that reflect on our time with the Lord, the investment you make in gathering friends to encourage and pray for and with one another. You have more time than you think. To borrow a quote about social media from John Piper, 'One of the great uses of the Olympics will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time.'

Aggregation of marginal gains From a leadership perspective I was particularly drawn to what happened in the Velodrome. The continued capacity of the British cycle team to dominate despite increased demands and detrimental changes which seemed designed to hamper their dominance was incredible. Their success comes from a philosphy called 'aggregation of marginal gains.' It is that sustained progress and success does not come from making large strides in one area but looking to make small accumulations across a number of different areas. For them it is small things like, how much lighter can they make the paint for the frames of the bike, aerodynamic helmets, diet and physiology down to the sort of pillow the athlete sleeps on. It is a commitment to excellence, review and regularly asking 'is there a better way?' There are things for us to learn from this in the church. To have a dissatisfaction with resting on whatever laurels we may have and pressing on for excellence for the glory of God.

Humility gains favour There was a notable appetite in the media and public sphere for the humility with which the British athletes carried themselves. Humility necessarily adorns the Gospel and also serves to advance the Gospel.We should not lose sight that a humble attitude gains favour and after all we have, as someone once said, 'much to be humble about.'