Elite sports chaplain Ashley Null: ‘The gospel is the antidote to performance-based identity’

We’re not two minutes into our interview before Rev Canon Dr Ashley Null starts weeping gently. 

It is not what I was expecting. 

The danger with the relentless researching of your subject in preparation for an interview is that you’re bound to make some assumptions. My first was that Null, a Yale and Cambridge alumnus who is a leading expert on Thomas Cranmer and the theology of the English Reformation, might be intimidatingly intellectual and inaccessible to us mere mortals. 

My second was that this might make for a difficult interview with an overly fastidious subject. 

I was wrong on both counts. 

Null does indeed have a fierce intellect. Throughout our conversation, he hones in on the one word in my question, picking apart my choice of phrasing and expounding, in great detail, on some aspect or another of Christian thought. 

And he is fastidious, but only about two things: communicating the great love that God has for each one of us, and protecting those he works with – and for that, I cannot fault him. Outside of academia, Null is a sports chaplain, regularly crisscrossing the globe to run Bible studies and provide pastoral support for some of elite sport’s biggest stars. 

Though you will have heard of many of the household names in question, Null is clear that he will not discuss any of the athletes he works with, nor am I to namecheck them in this introduction. He is sorry-not-sorry for making my job as a journalist harder, he tells me, but this is important stuff. There are so many who wish to trade on their connections and star power, and he will not be one of them. 

Plenty of interviewers would find this annoying, but it’s hard to feel cross with a man who wears his pastor’s heart so clearly on his sleeve. 

Explaining – but, importantly, not apologising for – his emotional tenderness, Null tells me that he has just returned from the US swimming Olympic trials where, he says, there were: “some really wonderful weddings and some really heartbreaking funerals”. 

It’s the first of many Null-isms that he shares with me, painting an elegant picture of what it means to walk alongside people during their greatest triumphs and deepest disappointments. 

“If I am weepy today, it’s just because of the impact,” he continues. “One person’s joy in sport is built on a whole lot more people’s pain.” And it’s clear that Null feels the agony of those he pastors both acutely and personally. 

If your inner peace is based on outward circumstances, you will always be living on a knife edge

Growing up in Kansas, USA, Null attended church from a young age. But aged twelve, a preacher communicated something that he had not previously understood: “I realised you could have an intimate relationship with God,” he tells me. It was not so much a conversion experience he says, but “a come-to-meet-Jesus experience”. 

His journey into sports chaplaincy was “accidental”, or at least by God’s design and not his own. “If you had told me that’s what God was going to do with me in high school, I – and everybody else – would have laughed!” he says. 

Nonetheless, for the past 40 years he has been attending elite competitions at the request of various athletes. The Games in Paris will be his sixth Olympics. When I ask what his academic studies could possibly offer a sports star, he laughs and explains that the Reformation was “the recovery of the gospel, and the gospel is the antidote to performance-based identity”. Who, more than anyone else, he asks, needs to know that their achievements aren’t the basis of their relationship with God, or their hope for wholeness? 

How did you become a sports chaplain?

When I was in college in America, seniors were asked to lead Bible studies for freshmen. I was assigned an elite athlete, and he and his roommate began to pull back the curtain on the reality of how the Church relates to them. One would not go to a Christian group because he got tired of being a trophy; of Christians wanting him to come so that they could show people how important their group was. 

When you’re a fan of a person, it means that person is living out your fantasy. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have problems in my fantasy life – that’s why it’s a fantasy. But that means a fan – even if they’re a pastor – can’t visualise an elite athlete having problems; they just think how the athlete’s status can help them with their problems and their ministry needs. 

Athletes get inundated with requests to speak and to do this and that. Not always, but not uncommonly, there is an implicit guilt that if you don’t accept the invitation, it’s because you don’t really love Jesus. 

Christian journalists like me love to share testimonies of what God has done in prominent people’s lives. Similarly, church leaders are often eager to invite high-profile people to share their testimony. How can we tell these stories in the right way? 

It’s not wrong to give an opportunity. But don’t assume that what you want is what God is calling that athlete to. It’s not the request that is so destructive, it’s the subtle pressure that you need to do this if you’re a good Christian. 

We’re often not self-aware enough to realise that, even if we put Jesus on it, it’s all about how important we will feel if this athlete makes our programme successful. 

Ask yourself: “What is my motivation? Is this Jesus working through me, or am I being driven by my own performance needs, to feel better about what I do?” If we respond in that way, being more self-aware of our idols, that would be really helpful. 

In an increasingly social media-driven world, the pressures around self-promotion and platform have never been greater. How do you keep that in check? 

I have a God who loves me, who holds up a mirror even when I don’t want him to – hopefully before I make a mistake – and says: “Ashley, what is this about?” He loves me enough that even when I am oblivious, he taps me on the shoulder. And if I don’t listen, he lets me reap the fruit of my decisions. And then I say: “Oh, I’m in this mess because I wasn’t honest with myself.” 

In my experience, 90 per cent of the time, if you make a mistake and just say sorry, people are satisfied. But you’ll be surprised how hard that can be. You’re hearing the voice of experience: of getting it wrong and, therefore, hopefully getting a bit better at trying to hear the Holy Spirit and put the athlete first. 

We have the ministry not because we deserve it, but because God, in his sense of humour or wisdom, has called us. 

You’re an academic and a sports chaplain. What makes those two roles work together? 

The Reformation was the recovery of the gospel, and the gospel is the antidote to performance-based identity. So, literally, all I do is give athletes Reformation teaching: it’s not what you do for God, but what God does for you. Using American slang, I just give them Cramner for jocks. 

The lie of sport is that if you win, you will be whole. But there are spectacular cases of people who have found out that’s not enough. In his documentary, The Weight of Gold, Michael Phelps [the American swimmer and the most decorated Olympian of all time] talks about the successful Olympians who have questioned whether their lives were worth living. When you have what everybody would give anything to have, and you realise it doesn’t make you whole, where do you turn? 

The gospel is revolutionary for many elite athletes. Realising that it’s about what God does for them gives them meaning, purpose and hope. 

Many people become successful at something they love, but then their life begins to revolve around succeeding at it. How do you help someone who has lost the joy in their God-given talent? 

What gives people resilience in the face of adversity is not their medals, it’s the people who love them. 

The first thing an Olympic gold medalist does when they win is make eye contact with someone they love. Because if there is no one to share the joy with, it’s empty. How do you help athletes find joy? You remind them that we are relational creatures and our greatest joy is in relationships. The power of sport is the opportunity to build relationships. The harsh reality is that, so often, athletes are trained to sacrifice relationships in order to achieve. 

But healthy relationships must improve performance, especially in team games? And we see the fallout from when it goes wrong splashed all over the tabloids… 

A banker who has a tumultuous private life cannot give their all to their job, and neither can an athlete. 

I think God gives any gift – whether sporting or otherwise – for four reasons. Firstly, it gives him joy to see us have joy. But if you pursue excellence with your gift, it won’t all be about joy. That’s why, secondly, it’s also a school of discipleship. 

Good gifts are an opportunity to learn that the gift points to the giver. But often, we use the gift to say we don’t need the giver. When we do that, we distort the gift and ourselves. Therefore, it can help us differentiate between our use of the gift, and the joy of seeing the giver’s use of the gift through us. 

Thirdly, our gifts can be a means by which we have something to offer other people, and God can use those gifts to draw us closer to others. And, since he is in us, he enables us to be his vehicle to draw others to himself. 

And fourthly, these are not Thomas Cranmer’s words, but this is a summary of his theology: only the unconditional love of God for sinners inspires sinners to love God more than sin. Gratitude is the fuel of the Christian life. When we see what God’s love has done, is doing and will do, it inspires a loving gratitude to serve him and others. 

This is really, really important for elite athletes. Everyone knows there is a physical pain barrier you have to press through to achieve excellence. There is also an emotional pain barrier, and very few athletes push through that. They numb it with alcohol, sex, video games, music; or saying: “I don’t care if I win or lose.” 

When a Christian athlete tells me that they don’t care whether they win or lose, that isn’t a hallmark of how sanctified they are. That means they’re running from the pain of losing rather than embracing it. 

It hurts so bad to fail on a global platform. Is Jesus’ love enough in that moment? Often, athletes can’t endure that kind of pain, so they back away. They do not ask Jesus to lead them through the emotional pain barrier; to concentrate not on the results but on the execution and the joy of being what God made them to be, and then, when the results are revealed, that he will work even in disappointment and heartache for their good. 

We trust that if God asks for Good Friday, Easter will come. The true hallmark of a Christian athlete is not testifying to Jesus when you win but being willing, like Paul, to endure massive suffering, if that is what he asks of you, because you trust he will be a good steward of your pain. 

The number one question I’m asked by Christian athletes who don’t reach their goals is: “What did I do wrong?” 

What gives people resilience is not their medals, it’s the people who love them 

The athlete thinks that if he’s holy enough, does enough Bible studies and evangelistic activities, God will bless him with success. That’s because, so often, we preach a gospel that God responds to what we do, as opposed to us responding to what God does. 

Ironically, when it doesn’t work out, it may not have anything to do with them not being good enough, but just the opposite. As John 15:2 warns us, pruning is part of the process. God is going deeper and, down the road, there’ll be more fruit. In my experience, if you’re driven by fear, the higher you go up, the more fearful you get, because now you can blow it on a bigger stage. But Jesus offers a better way. 

I don’t think Christian athletes have an advantage in that God is going to enable them to win over other athletes. Their advantage is that they have a firm hope, come what may, that God has a good plan for their life. 

That’s a lesson that goes wider than sport. When our identity becomes wrapped up in our success, it’s a very dangerous place to be. 

If your inner peace is based on outward circumstances, you will always be living on a knife edge. 

For anyone going through adversity, my advice would be never look at circumstances or the motivations of the people around you. Look for where Jesus is in the mess and flee to him. He’ll take you by the hand and lead you to the light. 

Comparison and competition give us an awareness of what we’re good at  – I’m not as good as someone, or I’m better than someone. What’s toxic is when society rewards that difference as saying you have more or less value based on the results. If we can help people grasp that, despite tremendous levels of difference in giftings, the depth of God’s love for each person is indescribable and equal…that’s the gospel.  

To hear the full interview listen to Premier Christian Radio at 8pm on Saturday 17 August, or download The Profile podcast