In addition I'd written 5 books on hockey, established the Sports and Leisure Ministry placing chaplains into Australia's professional sports and had myself been the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years, retiring at the end of 2000.
This request did not come as a surprise as it had kind of been aired in one or two previous discussions, and so I asked for a little time to reflect on it as to how this request might be managed.
By February 2010 I had agreed and initiated a daily sports report and by March I had begun to appoint young sports writers to a specific day each week. The full 5 day team was in place by April.
Joshua Hinds on Mondays on International Sport,
Rosie Timmins on Tuesdays, mostly women's sport
Wesley Tronson on Wednesday, EPL soccer (after 7 years in the UK)
Jeremy Dover on Thursdays, AFL, Athletics and other sports
Clayton Hinds on Fridays, NRL, Super 14, Cricket
When someone was away, ill or at a conference or unable to write, I filled in for that day, and so began a new era for Christian Today, a daily sports article by young keen sport writers.
Joshua Hinds was on the Gold Coast, Rosie Timmins is from Melbourne and studying journalism at Bond University, Wesley Tronson was in the only UK soccer team (Manchester Juniors) that won an international tournament in 2008 (in Prague); Jeremy Dover is from Geelong in Victoria and Clayton Hinds was in Townsville and in 2011 has moved to Sydney to Morling Seminary.
Christian Today had sought, as part of the brief, to include some kind of Christian input into the articles. In effect what occurred, was that most of the writers would send their 'sport' article to me, and then I would add a Christian comment of some kind, a theological component.
It soon became obvious this was not a good way forward as the Christian component often appeared artificially 'added on'.
When the young sports writers met with Christian Today Australia at our inaugural mini-conference in June 2010 this was one of the issues on the table for discussions. It became clear to everyone that the sports writers thought they should be writing sport and not being pseudo theologians for which they felt unqualified.
It is important here to note, that we're not talking about an occasional feature article on sport and religion. This was a daily sport report that Christian Today was endeavouring to view as a generic sub-heading. Sport, after all is the nation's largest sub-culture.
Christian Today still sought some form of Christian input and it was agreed as a compromise that at the end of the sport report, the following words would be used - "A Well-Being Australia theologian says of this …... "
In other words, readers knew at that point, the sport report had ended, and they were now on another pilgrimage, into the world of Christian theology where a teaching would be given from some item in the sport report.
After the mini-conference this process functioned for a few weeks, and then Christian Today UK sent a directive that they finally agreed with the philosophy of the young sports writers (and of Christian Today Australia), that they were writing a sports report to enhance a broader readership for Christian Today, rather than trying to be pseudo theologians.
Since mid year 2010, the statistical results have borne out the wisdom of the philosophy of writing a sports article, and such has been its success that Well-Being Australia through its Press Service International ministry has widened its scope to now having monthly Comment articles by young Comment writers for each week day of the month.