Premiership-Level Pastoral Care

Former footballer Phil Mitchell joins Drew with an insight into sports chaplaincy, a hugely important way in which Christians can bring loving pastoral care to people who take part in all sorts of sports at all sorts of levels.

Produced by Commission Christian Radio

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Welcome to Faith, Hope and Sport. I'm Drew Gibson, and I want to help you find out more about how sport and the Christian faith can live together. From grassroots players right to the very top. Today I'm having a chat with Phil Mitchell. Until recently, Phil was head of the Irish section of Sports Chaplaincy UK and Ireland, and this programme was recorded while he was still in that post. Philip Mitchell, welcome to Faith, Hope and Sport. It's great to have you here with us. Tell us a little bit about yourself so we can get to know you a bit better.

SPEAKER_03 1:05

Well, I I guess I'm an East Bell Fast man, that's where I grew up. Very grateful for the family that I came from. Great mum and dad. Lost them quite early in life, but probably made me even more grateful as the years went on for the great parents I had and two great brothers. So yeah, I grew up in the East and I was chasing the ball like uh like most other kids. But yeah, it was uh it was a fun time growing up.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Did you ever move elsewhere, outside the province, for example, or have you always lived in the province?

SPEAKER_03 1:33

No, I did. I lived in England for a couple of years when I was uh playing for Upswich Town and then um I was in uh US for a while coaching as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

So Well that leads quite naturally into the second question I wanted to ask you, Phil. What about sport in your life? Tell me about sport.

SPEAKER_03 1:47

Well, I suppose like anybody growing any kid growing up in the 60s and 70s, I was born in 68, it was a great distraction from all that was growing around us with the troubles, and uh and there's a a million young men and women can say that same story.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

So I guess I guess it was also a distraction from school, as it was for me.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

It certainly was. I was went to a rugby playing school, so the playground was a wonderful place, and I tried to get in early in the morning so we could play before school started, and break time and lunchtime were uh wonderful interruptions to the supposedly serious business of academics.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

But to come back to what you just mentioned there, those were difficult days in the province and sport was a distraction from that?

SPEAKER_03 2:25

Yeah, it was a brilliant distraction. And truthfully, as much as we were all watching what happened on our television screens, I remembered as a happy childhood out in the street, you know, the summer days where it was tennis and golf and cricket and all those sports and athletics, and we loved all that, and you know, the winter was a serious business of team sport, and obviously for me that was football. Well, tell us a bit more about your football. I suppose like every kid you play and you you know the school teams I played on, you know, you recognise you're maybe you're you're one of the better players, and and then you get into boys' club football, and it's a bit more challenging because there's lots of good players there. But I suppose you when you get up around maybe 14-15, you know, you start to think, hmm, I've got a little bit of ability here and I'll give it a go and keep going. And you you're just trying to push forward as far as you can. So I obviously had the privilege of then a man called Billy Nixon, um who's a famous Ords player, had been recommended to him by a guy who was scouting for Ords at the time. And so it was the start of a you know an Irish League career then, going there at I guess it was maybe sixteen at the time, I know.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

And you said a minute or two ago that you went to England, did you play in England?

SPEAKER_03 3:28

Yes, so the journey was really from Ords to I my father passed away when I was eighteen. You know, it was a hammer blow to the family. Um that was a a really sad loss for all of us. And you you contemplate that point, Drew, I'm are you are you gonna keep going? Because a big part of it was just actually, you know, coming home at nighttime and sharing with him all the stories and of the day, as he did with us about his golf, and we came to see us as much as he can. The two brothers were obviously in the middle of it all too. So I went to Dunmurray Wreck then because I I kind of just needed to find somewhere else to play. There was a man who recommended me to the team down there. Um they had a good side and I managed to walk in there a really good side. Jimmy Callagher, a famous Linfield player, his dad was was in that team and played alongside me, and and off the back of that then um played for the Northern Ireland Amateur League team against Scotland, and then Linfield sent me off the back of that. So it was a start of a journey back into the senior football. So it was only six months at the Marine Rec. But there were there were an important six months, and some good men around me who helped me, and it was a time of kind of it was a good place to be as you were kind of still grieving and coming to terms with your dad's loss. There was lots of men in the team, you know, I was only 17 or 18, um, and then it was two years at Linfield, and obviously it was a brilliant experience, and um, and then uh and then I went to England and signed for Ipswich town.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Okay. And so you stayed at uh at Ipswich for a while and then back to the province?

SPEAKER_03 4:44

Yes, came back and signed for Port of Down. They were probably the best team in the country at that stage. And um I was only there for a year, uh, and then I I went to Lisburn Distillery, and it was kind of the upward curve of my career was you know, obviously losing my dad in the middle, but you know, Linfield Ipswich ported down, and you know, the I think the great joke at the time was um that uh I went to see my doctor and and he said you should give off football, so I signed for signed for Lisburn distillery. But that's that's very unkind because Lisburn Distillery had Billy Hamilton as our manager, and um he signed probably uh a number of players of which I was one who would seemingly you know have not quite made the mark that you know maybe a year or two earlier everyone had hoped for. But those players are going to be all together collectively at a little point-to-proof. Um so we uh we had a wonderful time there and we won the Gold Cup. We we went close in the league one year against Linfield. Billy often says he saved my career, you know. Uh but that was they were good days, and then and then I went on to play for Glenshorn after that. And you spent some time in the States as well. I was the States just coaching. I w I went there um so that was probably another away from home trip that was after my playing days and after my working days with Umbro. Um so I was there for uh about 18 months, you know, there with my family and uh Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

So well tell us then, Phil, a bit about faith in your life.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

Yeah it's the most important part of my journey. It is the central core piece of um of who I am and it's this relationship with Jesus. And I probably pondered at sort of ten or eleven years of age, am I am I a Christian or um does going to church make me a Christian? And I was kind of you know Did you grow up in a Christian family? I did grow up in a Christian family. Um my well, I I grew up in a Christian family in the sense that it was a family of churchgoers. So we went to church, we went to the boys' brigade, we went to Sunday school. My mum and dad were, I would say, at that particular point on their journey, uh had a nominal faith and they um certainly believed in God, but probably, you know, I I guess I was the the first one in the family who really put my flag in the sand and said, you know, I'm gonna follow Jesus. Here I was 14 uh I went on a journey. A little Sunday school teacher was kind of uh a man who was not a man you ever thought was gonna be maybe leading people to the Lord, but he was a he he he knew the gospel and he um his knowledge um and his heart were what um struck me. I asked him some questions and he set me up on a little journey and had some good boys brigade officers who helped me in that journey and you know I realized going to church didn't make you a Christian any more than going to McDonald's made you a hamburger as as Keith Green famously said. So that was uh that was the start of um I just knelt in my bed and you know, asked God to forgive my sins and asked him in my life. And I kind of I think the the parallel with sport and faith through was that I actually when I think back now, I understood there was parallel values in there. I understood to want to be a professional footballer, which I did at 14 years of age, was you know you needed to be courageous, you needed to uh persevere, you were gonna need some character in there, you were striving for consistency. So all of those things were things I thought, you know, if I'm gonna be a Christian, I also need to need to be courageous. I'm also gonna need to try and be consistent, I'm also gonna need to make sure I persevere. So I suppose that helped in a way to maybe help me have an understanding of both in some ways, because those values were the same. I needed all of those and look back now, and you know, I I wouldn't have never articulated the way I'm articulating it now, but but when I look back now, there was some shared values that that maybe helped me then to push forward in my faith.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

Well, did you ever find any tension between your faith and your sport? Did your sport test your faith? Did your faith mean that you didn't do some things or did do some things in the sporting context that you wouldn't have done differently otherwise?

SPEAKER_03 8:37

There probably was a tension, Drew, that that you you weren't maybe entirely aware of. I don't we didn't have the conflict necessarily of Sunday sports, so that wasn't particularly an issue. You know, you you were trying to live out a Christian life in front of the people who were around you and and sometimes didn't do that so well. But my faith was you know, my my relationship with Jesus was always the most important thing for me. I don't think I ever in my career ever elevated sport above that. I think increasingly as my journey went on, I became more and more the highs became less high, the lows became less lows because I was at the centre of my life with Jesus. So the tension maybe became less and less. I was living my Christian faith out in a sporting environment. But when you're younger it's harder. It's much harder. Um because you're kind of still trying to, you know, find your own football skin in in an adult environment. Once you go into adult football, and I was quite lightly made up, so you're you know, you needed some good men around you to kind of help with that, to help you with it with the talent you have. So yeah, I I would say I was blessed as well that there were some Christian footballers in a lot of the dressing rooms it was in, big brothers. I guess I became a big brother then the one or two then on my journey as well. So thank God for them. I think God always places people in your life at particular times that you you're not necessarily a war of the time, but you're thankful for. So yeah, football's a tough game, you know, sport's a tough game. There are there are as much as people think sport is um it is wonderful. There are all the competitive juices that come with sport, it's good for your physical health, it's good for your mental health, it's good for all those things. There's all the social, your social battery gets well hit with that because of the people you're around you. But it's um it's also a place where the higher up your letter go, it's like performances and results are everything, you know.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

Yes. And I think increasingly there's a problem in in some sport. I'm not quite sure how big a problem it is in Irish sport, but certainly internationally at the top level. The influence of money and big business and profit just seems to me to distort sport.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

Yeah, well, of course the group the grip purists, if you think of the Olympic Games, you know, and Baron Pierre de Corbetton, the famous Olympic Games founder, said, you know, it's not the winning that that matters, it's it's it's taking part is what really matters. But yeah, I don't think uh you're gonna get away with that in the Manchester City or Liverpool drivers, don't you? It's a noble idea. And I think it was something that probably people at that time were living it out. We don't know in that generation. I think people were as competitive as ever as well. But yeah certainly sport at the top end, there's a big business part to it as well, which you can decry all of that, but we also have to realise that that's also benefited lots of sports as well. So um and lots of sports are very grateful for the people who pump money in.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

At the minute the Club World Cup is going on in the States and it seems to be hugely driven by money and profit, and there's a huge amount of money involved. And some of the crowds watching the game have been big, but some of them have just had a crowd of about two and a half thousand in a stadium that seats twenty-five, thirty, forty thousand. So that's all driven by money.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

My concerns are are actually more for the players, because the calendar now, the football calendar at the very top end of sport, certainly in particular football, is um there's hardly any breaks. Players are being asked to play at high level 50 weeks a year. And it's that's not sustainable, it's not realistic. And as much as people say there's big squads now and people don't play every week, you you you need to get away from sport. You need to step outside the performance bubble to get on with other things in your life in order to refresh yourself to come back in. And the danger is players, you know, players are not machines, they're human beings, you know. Um the danger is that there's injury, dangers in there. There's also where people actually go, I may not want to play this anymore. It's actually just become now, it's just it's nonstop. It's like, you know, every single year. And and of course performance levels can drop as well.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

So now we're we're drifting into an area, Phil, that I I'd like us to talk about uh a bit more. You mentioned just briefly a minute or two ago that you worked for Umbro for a while. That's not what you work at now. That's not your employment now. You are head of Sports Chaplain. Sports Chaplaincy Ireland. Okay. Tell us a bit about sports chaplaincy in general, Mammy, and Sports Chaplaincy Ireland in particular.

SPEAKER_03 12:57

Well, Sports Chaplaincy, its roots are really founded in football, I would say, and particularly in England. Um there were probably a few small clubs who had pioneered the idea of champlaincy, but primarily it was John Boyers, who was uh chaplain at Watford Football Club, who had offered his services. Graeme Taylor, then Watford manager, who of course I'm going to be manager of Astonville in England, had had put a an advert in the Watford Observer to say, if you've got some skills, come and use them at your club. And uh John went down and said, What do you think about me being your champlain? And Graham said, Okay, let's give it a go. He was aware of a guy at older shop called Mike Pusey, who had been uh a champlain there, and so Graeme was quite astute, and I think they both came from the Grimsby area, so there was actually another little natural connection, so I think God was connecting the dots there. But anyway, they that was uh I suppose that was where it was properly paniered. John then started to tell other friends about it, you know, that this is a good idea, the idea of actually being a champlain to a football club. And of course a lot of football clubs in England, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Southampton, Portsmouth, I think maybe as well. There's a lot of them where their founders were were ministers and pastors. So John started all of that journey, it grew in England. He moved up north and became chaplain of Manchester United then for 25 years, I think, um, under Sur Alex. And it then started to grow, you know, a lot of the other clubs adopted it. And and of course then it then it came to Ireland. John was really the first man who came here and said, you know, what do you think about sports chaplains? He found a number of godly, wise men who said, I I I like this I and we we would like to make ourselves available and be used by God in these sporting arenas. And thank God for those men who who did that. So people like Bill Lavery at Linfield, Andrew Thompson at Ulster Rugby, Stephen Baxter became actually a uh someone who was knocking doors and starting to plant seeds. Ozzy Macaulay was a was a really wonderful person who probably helped to keep all that together. That he he knew people in sport, he knew Christian men and women who were who would be a good fit for it. So so thank God for those men that that John came and that those men seen what God might be doing and uh the possibility of providing pastoral care and spiritual care in uh their clubs.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

So when was the organisation itself actually formed? That was all happening informally, I assume?

SPEAKER_03 15:06

Yeah, I think I'm not entirely sure of all the dates. I think 1991 was whenever SCORE was formed. That was it, it was then called SCORESTU was the acronym for Sports Champlaincy. I'm not sure where the ORE was, and then it became Sports Champlaincy UK, and then a number of years after that. So that was by ninety one. So John was kind of pioneered a good while before that, before it became actually an organisation itself or a ministry. You've mentioned football having chaplains.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Any other sports have chaplains these days?

SPEAKER_03 15:34

Yeah, I mean this there's no sport that we wouldn't be willing to find a chaplain for, you know, it could be anything from tiddlywinks to boxing, you know. So yeah, I mean across Ireland we have chaplains in predominantly a lot of the team sports, so hockey, cricket, we're in a couple of GA clubs now as well, boxing, golf, gotta get us after the surfers out in Bondoran, and we're seeing some gyms now, so some of those places where there's a community of people as well. Basketball. So yeah, it's great, it's growing, and and you know, there's some shinty up in Scotland as well, it's become something that's very synonymous with sports championship. Our friends in Wales have done some great work with again in around athletics and disability sport, which again we've had the privilege of jumping on the work that they've done and um been able to serve the disability sport community. So yeah, it's a massive community, and because we are sports chaplaincy, we're naturally we're we keep ourselves open to serve everybody who's involved. If I'm right, uh motorcycle racing has chaplains and and horse racing across the water has chaplains. Correct, yeah, exactly. So horse racing is phenomenal uh work being done over there in all the the stables and uh and on the race courses as well. So yeah, so it's it's uh Mark Tompkins, I think, is the top guy at New Market Racing course, and he's he speaks very highly of the work that's been done of uh by the chaplain. It's all behind the scenes stuff, but the people who are at that level see it. And of course in Northern Ireland uh with motorcycling, I mean our our longest-standing chaplain, I think, probably here, um maybe alongside Andrew Thompson is uh is John Kirkpatrick, who's done a phenomenal job with the the Northwest 200, and actually just he's been actually chaplain of the Motorcycle Union of Ireland, so it's not just the North West, it's the other events as well. So it's the Cookstown, it's RMOI. And John's been a brilliant encourager for any of our chaplains starting out because he's he's seen the long game in it all. He's seen that um he was there to provide care for people, to get alongside people, and of course that's a sport where naturally there's been some tragedies that you you wouldn't necessarily get in some of the other sports. So he's he's been well equipped for lots of different things. But I think that John's pioneered well the idea of getting alongside people, going to where they're at, meeting them where they're at, listening to them where they're at, taking an interest in their lives, and through all of that he's he's a gospel man who's able to point Jesus as he goes along.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

And that maybe leads us into thinking about what actually a chaplain does. What do they do? Do they have an official role? Is a chaplain paid by a club, for example?

SPEAKER_03 18:00

No. The chaplain is a volunteer. I mean the role of a chaplain, we always say that the chaplain is providing an additional layer of support to the club, an additional layer of support, pastoral care and spiritual care, because we would never go in arrogantly and say what we'll take care of all of that, because there will always be people in the club, whether it's the chairman or the manager or the or the physio or the kit man or or or someone in the club that a player may say that's who I would go to in the event of needing some encouragement or support or advice. But all of those people are somewhat inside the performance bubble, and the beauty that a chaplain is they're outside of that, and therefore the reality is for every sports person, whether you're playing in the amateur an amateur sport or whether you're playing in professional sport, you sometimes need to step outside the performance bubble to talk to someone else. And when you're at a club, you sometimes won't go to those other people because staying inside the performance bubble is actually the thing that's keeping you going. But you need to talk to somebody else about the other things in your life. So a chaplain, it's a relational role. It's not we're not the fourth emergency service, we're not there on crisis management all the time. And you know, I've said to all the clubs when they appoint our chaplain, I say, make this relational, make this natural, treat the chaplain as a volunteer. You know, let him say, just come when you can. We realise you're a volunteer, but come training, come to games, come to your social get-togethers, so that you can get to know us better, we can get to know you better. When a chaplain takes on the role, people can be cynical and they might say, All right, what's his real motive here? And the chaplain will say at the start of the saying, the reason I'm here, as odd as this might seem, as I'm here, I'm here because I care about you. And that's that's a starting point. For anybody who's a player, if you want to be a cynic in there, you say, Okay, he's curious about us. You have to back that up by going. You have to back it up by your actions, by taking time to listen to people, not speaking at people. The second thing is about encouragement. I think encouragement's in short supply in in sports clubs, we we think is maybe there's more encouragement what we think. People feel that their emotional experience in life is so tied to performance and results and the whole record of how they're doing that the encouragement seems to come when all of those things are going well. So sometimes the chaplain being there who will whether they're winning, losing, drawing, injured, suspended, not playing well, on the transfer list, out on loan, whatever, there's a consistency about the Chaplain's approach, consistency of encouragement, the consistency of drawing alongside, the consistency of being interested in all of the other things in their lives as well, and give them a bigger picture for their lives so that they're they're holding this talent in conjunction with something bigger. I think the third thing is to say to people, not everybody can say this in the club, to say you can talk to me about anything confidentially. I think that's a wonderful thing. If you're a player and you say this man or this woman is here, they care about me, they're here to encourage me, and I can talk them about anything confidentially, and they care about me unconditionally, and they're going to encourage me unconditionally. I think that's a wonderful thing to have somebody in your club who's shown up, who's got a non-judgmental, quiet presence about the club, is seen, people can see them. Manager said to me one time, he was talking to me about football, and he says, and by the way, and he was talking about the particular chaplain, he said, the chaplain's been brilliant, invisible and brilliant. And I think what he was really saying was, I can see him out the corner of my eye, I can see that he's getting alongside people. He doesn't need his hand held. He's not that we're having to, you know, walk him around and introduce him to people. He's getting along with the business of getting to know people, build relationships with people, care for people, sip with people. And I think more and more that approach has learned well in a sporting arena. If you are in a a sports club and you're an administrator, you you have a duty of care that society has somewhat thrust upon you to care for the people in your club. And that's a good thing. But sports clubs are really set up to provide a competitive environment, good coaching facilities, uh, good coaches, some sort of a social environment. The business of Looking after everybody and caring for all their needs, and you know, physical and mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual are kind of somewhat beyond their reach. And whilst it's aspirational for them to do that, I think they see us as someone who can meet those needs. And in the recognition as well of a coach who will look at that more from a right, I've got a player here. I think they recognise well they're not they're not dealing with a Formula One racing car, they're not dealing with a machine, they're dealing with a human being who is physical, intellectual, emotional, relational, and spiritual. And so they likewise, and I think in football, I think in sport generally, what you're seeing with coaches and managers, they themselves are becoming a little bit more pastoral of heart because that's the peak like the Klops and Guardiolas have been like that, so they kind of somewhat trying to emulate them. But they also realise, like the administrators and the chairman, etc., they can't carry everything. So what I'm finding is they're keeping the champlains close to hand to say, can you help with that particular player or could you go and speak to such and such? I'm a little bit concerned about him. And that's great because it means the champlain's skills are being utilized more, and that's it.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

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He heard God's command.

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Our Lord God is grieved that his people have broken their covenant with him. He has pronounced that there will be no further rain. So you think your God can hold the rain from falling? How dare you speak to me, your king in this manner!

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He confronted the priests of the false god.

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Our nation has long awaited this moment. You cannot waver between two options. If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal is God, follow him.

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And when his work was done, God provided him with a successor.

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SPEAKER_02 24:46

You're listening to Faith, Hope and Sport with Drew Gibson, and I'm chatting with Phil Mitchell. Could you think for a minute or two then, Phil, about some of the particular problems that players and perhaps others and clubs, administrators, and so on might have, especially because sport at the higher levels and to some degree in lower levels as well, is so all-encompassing that it seems to me that a person's sense of who they are can be very much caught up in their sport.

SPEAKER_03 25:16

Does that sound right? A hundred percent. We did a bit of research just prior to COVID and we asked some elite or dedicated athletes, they weren't professional, but they were people who were obviously were training two or three times a week and were sparring to play as high level as high level as they could. We said, What are the biggest challenges you face in sport? And they told us injury, uncertainty, and identity. So that was interesting. Was I surprised at any of them? Probably a little surprised at the identity one that they called it out.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

Well, could we push that a wee bit further? And part of the reason I want to push that a bit further is and it seems to me that the first commandment has to do with identity. Who are you? And God is saying to his people, you are my people. That's the core of your identity, and that's why you should have known other gods before me. So thinking of sports people and their identity, if their identity is caught up with sport, I imagine that can lead to some quite serious problems.

SPEAKER_03 26:16

It can, and and it can start at a very young age as well, as it's not just when players are maybe ha are are hanging the boots up or retiring or because then maybe some of that identity it's becomes significantly challenged because they're no longer on the field at training. But you know, a gymnast said as part of that research, she said, I've been a gymnast since I've been six, I've been a gymnast all my life. If I'm not a gymnast, who am I? And it's quite a scary question she asked herself because she said my whole identity is tied up with with her sport. And I think one of the things that we've tried to say to sports people is what you're good at is not who you are. And this business of holding this talent that they have in conjunction with a bigger picture for their life is is so key, it's so important. I mean ambition's a good thing. It's the to strive to be the best you can be is brilliant. But ambition without reality can sometimes be dangerous as well. You're never gonna say to someone who wants to play for Barcelona or I want to play on the US PTA tour or you're never gonna say that's not possible, but you say to them here are also the statistics, you know. So you have to realise that there's a small percentage that actually get there. But so that business of saying to them that what you're good at isn't who you are, allows them to to kind of sometimes somehow separate out sport life. Not separate it out to compartmentalize it, because that's not helpful either, but to realise that it's just a part of them, it's a talent they've been given, and and this business of being good at something doesn't define you. Because the danger with that dre is that if you're a young talent coming through and all your pats in the back are based on all the success that you have as a player, then all of a sudden when life becomes difficult or you get injured or you're not getting selected and things aren't going so good, then your identity's still tied to that and all of a sudden you're feeling a lot less, and then your self-esteem, self-worth is all badly skewed.

SPEAKER_02 28:12

So Well, if you're saying that your sport is not who you are, that's if you like taking something away that's saying it's not the core of your identity, do you then go on to say, Let me tell you a bit more about who you are and and actually what your identity could be?

SPEAKER_03 28:32

Things aren't great at the moment, you know, I'm not in the team, I'm not playing well, or you know, the manager hasn't picked me or And i what they're saying is they've got this great sense of they don't think I'm doing well, the supporters don't think I'm doing well, the team doesn't think I'm doing well, I don't think I'm doing well, and I sometimes say and it points to their creator and I say, you know, you were created by God and you're his masterpiece. And I just sometimes let that settle with somebody. You are God's masterpiece, created by God. And it changes their perspective almost to think that someone else who's actually much greater than all of the other noises and voices in my life, has something much more powerful to say to me. And I I sometimes then say to him, and by the way, he's got a plan and purpose for your life, he's made a provision for the problem we all have of sin, and he's got a place, a physical place where we'll live forever. And in three or four sentences, you've kind of shared the good news of the gospel of Jesus, but but transformed it from actually saying, forget about what you and everybody else defined you as. You're actually much more than that. You are you're God's masterpiece. We know from Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10 that we are God's masterpiece. So and you just have to leave that with them. It takes them out of the constant, am I doing well? Am I good enough? Do they think I'm good enough? And and I I like I remember when I was, you know, when you were playing at Linfield and all, you're you were consciously aware of what people were saying about you. That that's that's much greater now because of social media. Everybody's got an opinion about you, and it's not just even at the professional level, at any sort of decent level, people have got lots of opinions. I mean I think about our referees that we serve as well. I mean, some of the the opinions people have in them, that they're they're human beings as well. These are people we love and care for, and part of it for them is their identity gets so badly shaped by I'm a referee. It's almost like there's so much more than a referee. You know, you're to say that you're God's masterpiece, and of course you're saying you're you're also a you're also a dad or a mum or a brother or a sister or whatever, but first and foremost, you're God's masterpiece. And I suppose in terms of that first commandment that we talked about, that's what really God's saying, I made you, you're mine, and God doesn't want us to have put other things in front of him. And when we get that, and I think throughout I'm not saying it, you know, my throughout my career was like that, but I did certainly towards the back end of my career, it settled in my heart that God was good, that that no matter what, and no matter I had some difficult circumstances in my life losing my parents, whatever, but uh it settled in my heart that God was good, it was settled in my heart that God is my saviour, that he is my creator, and that's it's a game changer.

SPEAKER_02 31:09

See, I I think you're doing something super there, Phil, because sometimes I feel that in the province, and in other places of course as well, in our desire to see people come to faith, we start at the wrong place. You're starting by saying you're God's masterpiece. You are something that He values beyond anything else as as a human being, beyond any other part of creation. So often we start by saying, You're a sinner, you're you're evil, you're worth nothing. You should be ashamed of yourself. And that seems to me to be destructive rather than constructive, whereas you're saying, let me help you to understand that you are something wonderful that he has created and that he can do something wonderful with you.

SPEAKER_03 31:52

That's right. And we know from the rest of that verse that he's created us uh and prepared works in advance for us to do. So I think what's helpful for us in chaplains in in navigating that space is one of the things I say to Lord Chapman's when I start, everybody has an opinion about these sports people. This is a very judgmental arena. It might not appear like at all the time, but everybody has an opinion on the team, on their performance. In all of our training we say we're the person who's not judgmental. So we're not just not judgmental about their performance team, we're not we're non-judgmental about them as people. So irrespective of whether they come with the the excesses of life that they're bringing in terms of potentially addiction, all those things, it's not our job to judge them. Our job is to love them and care for them and listen to them and make them feel valued, not by us, but to realise actually that they've got a creator God, made them in his own image, right? We know that from scripture too. We are we're made in God's image. And I think one of the things I also say on the whole business of labelling that happens around sport and society, I say, here's the only labels that we all have. We're all made in the image of God and we're all loved by God. And for a lot of people, they don't they've never really grown up knowing that. They felt that their whole sense of how they're valued and whether they're loved or not is based on this horrible lie that their identity is tied into what happens on Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon or whatever. So changing that up, it's a privilege. Drew, that's the thing. For all of our chaplains, I think they constantly will say what an enormous privilege it is. One of our chaplains in in the South of Ireland said, you know, he sat in many business meetings and he says, sometimes you say, I'll never get them two hours back again because you know it's it's it's around the table and not ever not really ever got there. But he said he's never counted anything other than a privilege to sit with a sports person and allow them to talk about the things in their life that they want to talk about. And that is that is one of the key things. Willie Grattan, who's our champion for the under 17, 19s, and 21s with Northern Ireland, he said everybody's talking to sports people all the time, they're constantly talking to them about what to eat, what how how to play, team tactics, um, strength and conditioning, all of those things. And he says, when they're with us, it's their chance to talk, and it's our turn to listen. And uh so that's a privilege. But you know, and obviously when you listen long enough in, you know, they they want you maybe to say something about their life as well, so it's uh it's great.

SPEAKER_02 34:12

Phil, in a multicultural Ireland that we have these days, how do you navigate that difference in cultures and difference in backgrounds?

SPEAKER_03 34:21

Yeah, I think that's been actually a real benefit. There's the there's a richness now across Ireland that's gone beyond what everybody says. Are are you a Protestant or a Catholic? I think the people who've come in from Africa and from uh South America and and and Asia, some of those people have come in and have a real strong Christian faith, and it's kind of moved the the conversation away from you know, are people being Protestant or Catholic? And when when we sit through with clubs and we're very often asked the question, what's the criteria for being a chaplain? And I always say, well, our chaplains come in all shapes and sizes, some are in their twenties, some are in their eighties, most of them are obviously in between. Um, some are male, some are female, some have a sporting background, some don't, some are pastors, some are plumbers, some are film producers, some are teachers, some are housewives. But here's what they all are. They're all followers of Jesus and they've all got some people skills. Now the person who's listening at the other end will have come from whatever faith tradition they've come from or whatever faith background they've come from, and you know they all say, that's great. I think there's something invitational when we say that we're followers of Jesus. In other words, that you too can become a follower of Jesus. In the business of people who have um came from different backgrounds, Muslim backgrounds or Hindu backgrounds, whatever, those guys have realised we love them just as much as anybody else, and we're not trying to push anything on them. Um I could tell you lots of stories of uh Muslim players who've sought out the champlain for help and support and practical issues, and there are also people who want to talk about what they understand and believe. So, yeah, and and in terms of Northern Ireland, I mean, if you're a club now, this is the beauty as well, Drew. If you're a club now and you are anything other than open-door approach to everybody to come and play, you're a dinosaur. So for us, we're there for everybody too. The fact that we're we're all followers of Jesus, we're all Christians, we're all saved men and women. I think what sports people realise their motive is what actually drives them. It's their faith is the most important thing in their lives. They're obviously all followers of Jesus, but the motive that they have as a consequence of that is to care for people in the same way that Jesus did. And we also often say that you know we'll be there for everybody, like Jesus, like he was. So that kind of cuts across everything. We don't put labels on anybody, which I said earlier. So the starting point is getting to know them and helping them to not sense that their identity is tied up with their background, it's not tied up with their sport, but actually first and foremost, you were made in the image of God, that you're God's masterpiece, and then just forget about all the other stuff for now. And when you realise that, I think it cuts across all boundaries and allows people to see their life in a different way. I think if you I have said in number sports people, you know, there's a verse in the Bible that says that eternity has been placed inside the heart of every man. I haven't met anybody yet who disagrees with that. So um and that sets them on a journey. I think sometimes what we do, Drew, is we're in our care for people and our love for people. And our chaplains across Ireland are honestly, I I'm so in awe of them, the service they give, their care for people. But I think we're we're nudging people towards a relationship with God, but ultimately none of it's of us. Um that's between the Holy Spirit and the end, you know.

SPEAKER_02 37:34

Phil, thank you very, very much indeed for giving your time. Thank you for all your comments, thank you for giving us an understanding of sports chaplaincy. It's been great. Thanks to everyone who's been listening to us, and we hope that you'll join us again soon for our next edition, when I'll be talking with Gladys Ganiel, an academic and a long distance runner extraordinaire. Faith, Hope, and Sport is a production of Commission Christian Radio, and you can find out more about us on our website, CommissionRadio.org, or through Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn.