Olympic Pin Trading At Milan-Cortina Games Opens Doors To Gospel Conversations
MILAN — Early in her trip to Milan, Italy, for outreach connected to the Winter Olympics, Kim Cruse encountered a college student named Ari who worked at the local cathedral, Duomo di Milano, where she handled entrance tickets for thousands of tourists.
“She had never heard of a relationship with Jesus,” Cruse said. “All she knew was religion, and she had lost faith years ago because of something that happened, how somebody rejected her.”
Cruse shared the Gospel with her, and Ari returned the next day to continue the conversation. Cruse left her with some resources – the Gospel of Mark in Italian and an English biography of Jesus.
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That’s just one example of fruit from the efforts of dozens of volunteers who have spent the past two weeks during the Winter Olympics witnessing to locals and visitors from around the world. Coordinated by International Mission Board personnel, the project included more than 100 volunteers from Southern Baptist Churches in two teams, each spending about a week in Italy.
The volunteers rely mainly on three Olympic pins to begin conversations. Pin trading is a popular activity at each Olympics, and this year the IMB is using three Olympic-themed pins to facilitate gospel conversations. One pin has the Olympic torch, which connects with Jesus as the light of the world. Another pin has trees, connecting to Jesus as the true vine. A third pin features snow skis, which represents following the path of Jesus.
The volunteers wear easily identifiable blue scarves produced by the IMB, and each day they have been stationed in popular tourist locations in Milan, such as in the plaza near the cathedral.
“People are just coming up to us en masse asking, are you the ones giving away the free pins?” said Cruse, the missions discipleship specialist for Tennessee Woman’s Missionary Union. “Because they know to look for the people in the scarves. And so we say, ‘Yes, we would love to give you a free pin. Let me tell you a story that goes with it.’”
Charlie Worthy of the IMB, who helped coordinate the volunteers across Europe, said technology is a key component of the project’s success this year. Each pin has a QR code that leads to a website in the native language corresponding to the phone of the user. That website provides a more thorough explanation of the Gospel message.
Worthy said the project has gone viral on the Chinese platform WeChat, with people posting about where the pins are available. Worthy’s teenage son Benjamin started a TikTok account to invite people to stop by and pick up the free pins. Some of his videos were viewed thousands of times, with people regularly coming up to the volunteers and telling them they came because of the TikTok videos.
Benjamin himself became a minor celebrity because of the effort, with people coming up to him and asking for pictures.
“They didn’t even ask him for a pin,” Worthy said. “So then my son stops, and he actually shares the Gospel with them.”
Liz Encinia, executive director of the Kentucky WMU, said the Olympics provide an excellent opportunity for Christians to share the Gospel not only with Italian nationals, but with people all over the world — even from closed countries.
She met a young woman from China named Zoe who is studying in Italy. Encinia gave her a pin but was engaged in conversation with others at that moment. She expected Zoe to walk away.
But Zoe waited for Encinia to become available. She asked questions of her about Jesus. Standing in the shadow of the centuries-old Castello Sforzesco, Zoe pointed to the images of cathedrals on her phone.
“I see a lot of pictures in these places,” she told Encinia, “but no one has ever told me the story.”
Encinia told Zoe that inside the nearby museum, there was a statue of Jesus.
“He’s hanging on the cross,” Encinia said. “But He’s not on the cross anymore.”
Cruse said she thought the evangelism project was extremely effective — especially with the QR codes giving people a resource to access later.
“It’s hard to know in a 10-minute conversation if they’re going to completely make a life-changing decision — time will tell,” she said. “But they are keeping those cards. I haven’t seen a single one littered on the ground.”
While many people the volunteers encountered made professions of faith on the spot, Cruse said it’s impossible to know if those are genuine conversions or if people were just being polite. Regardless, she was pleased with the openness she saw.
“We’ve had thousands of conversations — hundreds every day,” she said. “They’re all different, but the people are listening.”
This article has been republished with permission from Baptist Press.
Tim Ellsworth is associate vice president for university communications at Union University in Jackson, Tenn.