As many as 3,000 missions workers from across North America and Europe are to be on hand to reach both athletes and the scores of international visitors expected to frequent the two major Olympic sites in Vancouver and nearby Whistler Blackcomb Ski Resort Feb. 12-28.
Coordinated by the interdenominational ministry More Than Gold (MTG), volunteers will be stationed at 17 commuter stations across Vancouver, where they will help answer logistical questions and be a general love witness. There also will be 14 venues, including open stages, where Christian artists of various genres will perform for a total of 400 hours during the Olympics and the Paralympics for disabled athletes, which will immediately follow the traditional games.
(To learn about
Christian athletes competing in the Winter Olympics, read “Faith on the Ice
and Snow.”)
The volunteers include teams from the Salvation Army, which will be providing canteens and coffee; the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association; Power to Change Ministries (previously Campus Crusade for Christ, Canada); and the Alpha course. A team of intercessors will be praying for the outreach activities throughout the games.
“We want to see the church have an impact through a whole movement of hospitality so we’ll see transformation for our cities,” says MTG staffer Karen Reed, an ordained pastor with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. “In Vancouver, we have the lowest church attendance of any city in North America.”
MTG is also partnered with a nonprofit organization called Home for the Games, a network that provides visitors reasonably priced accommodations in Vancouver-area homes. Half the proceeds will support local homeless charities with a goal of raising $1 million to combat homelessness, Reed says.
Although MTG has coordinated Christian volunteer efforts at both Summer and Winter Olympics for 15 years, Reed says this year marks the first time the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has acknowledged MTG’s presence before the games. She says 15 denominations from the Vancouver area are involved in the outreach.
Behind the scenes, Olympic chaplains will be ministering to athletes competing at the events. Former gold medalist Kathy Kreiner-Phillips is in charge of the chaplains working at the Whistler Olympic site.
A Vancouver-area Christian, Kreiner-Phillips won a gold medal in giant slalom skiing in the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. During the Games, she said she experienced an inexplicable draw toward Christ.
