‘Organised pandemonium’

WITH the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham this month, the nation’s eyes will again turn to the achievements of its athletics stars. Yet we know that as a country we are getting more sedentary, with increasing health problems associated with inactivity.

Meanwhile, it’s a common lament among the churches that children’s biblical knowledge is dropping as fewer either go to church or are exposed to the Bible in school.

About ten years ago, a pair of Church of England lay people based in York, Johnny Wooldridge and Ian Mayhew, came up with an initiative that addresses both problems:

Sweaty Church.

“They wanted something that was going to engage with families but neither of them particularly liked crafts,” says the Rev Glyn Diggins, vicar of St Michael’s Church, Malton in Yorkshire, and the National Development Manager for Sweaty Church.

“So they struck on the idea of something along similar lines to Messy Church but instead based on physical activity.”

Sweaty Church works on the principle of circuit training, where small groups move round a series of exercise stations, each with a different activity. Except here each exercise is associated with a learning outcome, tied to a theme based on a biblical story introduced at the start.

The learning outcomes can be discussed after each activity or together at the end.

Glyn describes it as ‘organised pandemonium’.

“It’s very adaptable, very active, very high-energy,” he says. “It’s primarily designed for Key Stage 2 (ages 7-11) but through experience we’ve found it works extremely well at engaging whole families.

In a church environment it’s a great way of getting people introduced to the Bible who don’t necessarily have an engagement with it, or alternatively to have a completely different way of engaging with scripture.”

Glyn has been running Sweaty Church in his local primary school for six years.

“I knew I wanted to do something that was going to be physically active but I wasn’t going to be able to run it in my local churches because of the configuration of the buildings. So I contacted Johnny and Ian and said I’m really interested in bringing Sweaty Church to Malton but I want to do it in a local primary school.

“The school is not a church school but they were very open to working with the church. I’m really blessed because they allow it to take place during the curriculum timetable, but it could be done as an after school club.

“I have a group of older children that act as station leaders, and a further group that acts as team leaders. So when you have a larger group of up to 40, they can be broken into groups of eight and then can be further broken into teams of four in the groups.

“The thing about sweaty church is it’s overtly competitive. We don’t shy away from competition because that’s what the kids want to do. We talk about competing appropriately, we talk about losing appropriately and winning appropriately, but we very much encourage competition – they might be racing each other, they might be doing an activity against each other.”

So they’re doing really fun activities but they’ve got something to learn about the theme as a result of it.

He emphasises though that Sweaty Church is ‘not just a thrash around for the sake of it’.

“For instance, I’ve got one based on fear and pressure, and the biblical story I link it to is David and Goliath. So for that we might have a target-based activity, throwing javelins or beanbags or whatever, and at the end of it you can have a discussion about what did you do, did you just start hoicking this stuff or did you think about what you’re doing, take your time and take aim?

“And then you can say well, if you look at David he spent years looking after flocks of sheep and goats, he was in training for what was going on before he ended up facing Goliath. So you can start talking about training, preparation, discipleship things like that, and how going through that prepares you for the unknown that’s going to come up.

“Another one that’s very popular is human buzzwire, where we get the group to link together and the player has to take a big hoop over them all without them separating their hands and without touching any part of their body, and the hoops get smaller and smaller so when you get to a small one and there’s a 6’2” dad that’s entertaining.

“And when they get to the end of it, they dive into a ball pool with lots of passages of scripture in it (from psalms and proverbs), all about encouragement in times of difficulty. And the learning outcome from that one is when you find yourself in difficult situations the bible’s a really good source of information and encouragement.

“So they’re doing really fun activities but they’ve got something to learn about the theme as a result of it.”

Sweaty Church materials are available through Scripture Union, and Glyn is happy to speak to anybody interested in setting one up. “We’ve been very giving in the way that people use it, in that we familiarise them with the concept and then say ‘off you go, you’re on your own, shout if you need any help’.”

While Glyn admits that there’s ‘not a cohesive network’ of Sweaty Churches, a number of churches in Scotland have set something up. (See the Big Question, pages 10-11).

One Scottish church which has started up a group is Fullarton Parish Church in Irvine.

The minister, the Rev Neil Urquhart, says: “It was a natural progression of doing sports and physical activities together as an expression of worship. The response was very positive – lots of families and kids who don’t regularly attend church services attended.”

Neil adds that they are hoping to develop the Sweaty Church into a new worshipping community: “Presently, we are using cycling, walking, jogging and wild swimming as a form of sweaty church, trying to attract pre-churched friends, family, colleagues, etc into a sweaty church community, as a new expression of church and potential new church plant.”

Glyn can be contacted on 01653 690974 or glyn.diggins@btinternet.com