Whether sport or music or gaming, let’s join the dots

Every Thursday evening, I drive from choir practice to swim training, and in so many ways experience a massive gear change.

They couldn’t be two more different activities, and two more different groups of people. Yet, reflecting spiritually, there are some thought-provoking similarities and connections between them. I first joined the choir because I wanted to have regular contact with people outside church. It’s a community choir with a very low bar for musical ability. I am in the minority, being male and under 50, but, being an Anglican, I am used to that. I would also challenge anyone to have a better success rate at inviting non-Christian friends to a Christmas Carol service. I invite the choir to sing every year, and they come, and they bring their families and friends to watch.

Our local leisure complex has long offered a swimming session called ‘Masters’. It would more accurately be called improvers, but there are some excellent swimmers who attend. A qualified coach leads the session, and swimmers are put into lanes according to ability. It is brutal, but the feeling of being able to swim well is wonderful.

Both groups have a WhatsApp group, and I have had to mute them because they are so active. Whilst there is a moment of chat time before and after, choir requires the mouth for singing, and swimming requires the mouth for taking – or more likely gasping for – breath. But these group members have a lot to share, whether it’s updates on their channel swim or a new arrangement of their favourite anthem.

There is a social scene, a community that has grown up around the shared interest and experience. They have a ‘Christmas do’ and I wonder what they are celebrating. I wonder what Christmas means for them. For the choir it means singing some of their favourites to an appreciative audience. Swimmers are always hungry, so the food is a big part of it.

I find each group is like a different ‘world’, with its own language, values and rewards. That led me to consider how these groups might connect with the ‘Magnetic Points’ in Making Faith Magnetic by Daniel Strange. Being in a choir is definitively part of something bigger (totality), and ‘Masters’ is a global swimming fraternity. Whilst not giving a way to live (norm), there is definitely a right way to sing or swim, which you can learn and have a new lease of life (deliverance). Singing or swimming in an organised event gives a sense of destiny – and that just leaves a higher power.

I could make a case that the choir looks to God as a higher power, especially at Christmas time, because the words they sing are all about the birth of Christ. But I think they are more involved with lyrical artistry and the emotive melody. Swimmers are true to the cause of self-improvement, but the most uplifting aspect is how they celebrate one another’s achievements.

I find it fascinating that both singing and swimming are pictures of heaven. John sees a vision of the redeemed singing a new song before the throne (Rev.14:4). In Ezekiel’s vision of the river flowing from the temple, the angel leads him to waters to swim in (Ezek.47:5). It should be no surprise that these pursuits give enormous satisfaction; they point to the greatest hope for humanity.

Dan Strange encourages us to connect with the magnetism of these worlds – whether singing or swimming, or gaming, or dancing, or film, football, or family, or career, or whatever we encounter in our lives. As we sit next to an enthusiast at a Christmas do, let us be praying for an opportunity to ‘join the dots’ and help them see that what they are really searching for can only be found in Jesus.