Giant global party with a side order of sport
Appearing regularly in ChristianWeek ahead of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Podium—written by Jerrad Peters and Mags Storey—will highlight Christian individuals and organizations that are working towards a higher purpose at the Games.
The world's largest street party is arriving in Canada in six months. More than 300,000 people from more than 60 around the world are landing in Vancouver this February for a huge outdoor extravaganza.
This crowd—as big as half the population of Winnipeg—will be hitting the streets for rock concerts, event screenings, block parties, worship music, art, food, dance—and oh yes, sports.
But for anyone who's ever lived the Olympic games through more than their television screen, the actual sporting events themselves fall way down the line of memorable experiences.
Jack O'Halloran even gets excited remembering the line-ups.
"Olympic line-ups are amazing!" says O'Halloran, consultant for Global Events Group Canada. "Normally everybody hates line-ups. But at the Olympics it's different. At an Olympic Games everybody is in one giant party. Amazing outreach conversations happen in lines because people just want to get to know us."
O'Halloran knows his sports. He's attended almost every major sporting event worldwide in the past eight years, from World Cups to Commonwealth Games to Olympics in Turin and Athens. That's almost 40 events a year.
"It's a very cool thing to see a city come alive with people," O'Halloran says. "It's about coming together, and sports are what bring people together.
"In Turin 2006, we had event tickets offered to us that we didn't use because the atmosphere outside was so amazing. The atmosphere on public walkways, on the train, in the streets is way better than being inside a venue watching a sporting event."
He remembers spontaneous parties erupting, including hundreds gathered around televisions in public spaces and store windows.
"Thousands of the people coming to Vancouver won't even have tickets to the games, but they just want to be a part of it. They're here for two weeks and on those nights they don't hold tickets, they are on the ground looking, 'Hey look! There are Canadians! Let's go talk to them!'"
O'Halloran helped set up More than Gold Canada (MTG) before handing over the reins to Karen Reed. MTG is working to connect and coordinate Canada's Christian community to show "radical hospitality" to the influx of people visiting Vancouver.
"It's about going out into the public arena with joy to celebrate and invite people to join us," Reed says, "Five major streets are being closed on Sunday nights. So we'll be doing worship concerts, children's events, big screen events, warming stations with the Salvation Army. It can be so easy to find creative ways to engage in the public arena."
There are people who come to the Olympics just to trade pins," O'Halloran says. "At the 2006 Winter Games in Turin we gave away 15,000 Salvation Army pins. We had people literally running up to us to grab them!"
MTG has created its own lapel pin for the games. It is shaped like a snowflake with five-different colors of the "wordless book." It comes attached to a card explaining the gospel.
"The Lord is bringing the mission field to our front door. Especially in the time of economic problems, we don't need to spend money to send mission team overseas to do great work—we can minister to the countries of the world right here.
"The Lord is saying, "Hey Canada! I'm going to send the mission field to you!"
The least that we can do, is stretch out our hands to welcome them.
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