A delegation of more than 40 church leaders from 12 of the nations where major sports events will be taking place over the next few years met this week in London to learn from the valuable lessons learned by More Than Gold over the past three years. It included a dozen from Brazil who are getting ready for the World Cup in two years time and the Olympics two years
later. The week-long in-depth briefing included representatives of churches, missions and Christian sports organizations from Brazil, Scotland, Canada, USA, Korea and Russia. The representatives visited churches in action and were briefed on areas ranging from running community festivals, sports outreach, mission teams, social action and prayer to finance, operations and communications. The Brazilians have already been in the UK for some months receiving hands-on experience in running community festivals. Carla Mendes, one of the More Than Gold Brazil team, said ‘We breathe sport in Brazil. It’s in our DNA. So we are already starting to train people how to use sport to engage with their community and are encouraging more than 10,000 churches to work together for 2014.’
Pray: for increased international Christian contributions into sporting events to grow from seeds sown by More Than Gold and other Christian agencies. (1Cor.3:6)