Olympic Games ministry: immediate impact and long-lasting commitment

GREECE — As athletes strove to set new records during the Olympic Games last year, the Greek Bible Society was setting a record of its own. For the first time, it was able to involve all the country’s Christian denominations in working together on a distribution project that covered not only the places where the Olympic competitions took place but the whole of mainland Greece and its principal islands.
Distribution outside a Protestant church in Athens, Greece, during the Olympic Games in 2004 of a special Olympic New Testament and the multilingual Portion The Apostle Paul in Greece, both supplied by the Greek Bible Society. Photo: Greek Bible Society (GRE04DJ-11.JPG)

From early July, volunteers from churches large and small came forward to ensure that as many people as possible had the opportunity to receive a free copy of a special Portion entitled The Apostle Paul in Greece. Based on Acts 16, which describes Paul’s travels in Greece, the Portion contains 11 languages and could therefore be offered to both local people and those who were visiting Greece for the Games. Opportunity 21 funding allowed the Bible Society to make available 50,000 copies to both the public and the athletes who gathered for the Games.

Sports themes

And this Portion was just one of the publications with which the Bible Society sought to bring God’s Word into the heart of society at this special time in the country’s history. It also produced a special Olympic New Testament in Today’s Greek featuring specially illustrated pages highlighting sports themes, along with a similar edition in English based on the Good News translation and a Portion based on the Gospel of Luke. With these resources at their disposal, the chaplains who worked in the Olympic Village were well equipped to minister to the athletes who sought their support.

One of the chaplains was the Rev David Tyndall, National Ministry Co-ordinator with Sports and Leisure Ministries Australia. He reports that there were “many evangelistic opportunities” and tells in particular of an encounter he had at the Religious Services Centre, where the teams of chaplains held three services each day.

“During the Sydney Olympics I was involved with the Nigerian team when the fiancée of one of the team members was killed. I sought to build on that relationship in Athens. One day one of the Nigerian team officials came into the Religious Services Centre and said, ‘David, I want some New Testaments’. I asked him how many. ‘Five?’ I said hopefully. Then, more daringly, ‘Ten?’ ‘Two cartons, please’, he replied. ‘I want to distribute them to our whole team’. So together we carried 160 New Testaments back to his team’s accommodation. What a thrill to see God’s Word being put into the hands of sports people!”

Momentum

Although the Games themselves soon came to an end, the Bible Society is determined not to lose the momentum it gained during this period. It has been looking for other opportunities to distribute The Apostle Paul in Greece, including, most recently, to delegates attending the World Council of Churches’ Conference on World Mission and Evangelism in Athens in May. Another Games-related venture was the Bible Expo, and this is also continuing long past the Games themselves. This exhibition, which is designed to introduce visitors, especially young people, to the history of the Bible and the impact of God’s Word in contemporary life, opened in Volos, where some of the competitions were staged, on July 27. It remained there until October and since then it has been moving around Greece in response to requests from local congregations. (WR 393/4 - 06.05) [3 photos]