Congregations in the Church of England have tried different novelties to draw people inside, such as welcoming miniature golf and a towering Helter Skelter ride into their naves. St. Stephen’s Church in the working class city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, has turned to the heel-versus-hero fisticuffs and theater of professional wrestling.
“I just love the play-acting, the good triumphing over evil,” the Rev. Natasha Thomas, interim priest of St. Stephen’s, told The Times for a video and feature story about the parish’s joint venture with Kingdom Wrestling, which involves monthly wrestling matches in the nave of St. Stephen’s.
Gareth Thompson, a personable and media-friendly convert to Christianity, is the founder of Kingdom Wrestling. His group’s engagements have been featured on BBC multiple times. The shirt he frequently wears declares a four-word mission: “Pray. Eat. Wrestle. Repeat.”
The Times reports that Kingdom Wrestling “also works with local schools and pupil-referral units, runs a training school, a men’s mental-health group, and women’s self-defense classes.”
“We created a worshiping community, where bodyslams would happen in the ring and baptisms outside of it,” a Kingdom Wrestling webpage says. “Our worship music and sermons were tailored around particular themes relevant to the group we were drawing through the door and inside the ropes, we played out stories from the Bible.”
Thompson told The Times that he became a Christian at 15, when a friend invited him to church. “During worship, I just saw myself sobbing and I couldn’t control it and some guy came up to me after the service and said: ‘You’ve just felt love for the first time in your life and you didn’t know what to do with it.’ He was totally correct and from that moment, I tried to figure this stuff out.”
He then began pursuing his childhood dream of becoming a wrestler, but with a new twist because of his finding faith. “As I grew as a Christian and as I grew as a wrestler, I wanted to bring those two things together. I really felt like I had a story to tell that would inspire people, that would encourage people and maybe challenge their ideas of Christianity and faith,” he told The Times.
Douglas LeBlanc is the Associate Editor for Book Reviews and writes about Christianity and culture. He and his wife, Monica, attend St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Henrico, Virginia.
