What Christians can learn from Parkrun

‘In both Parkrun and church, there’s something to be said for collective determination, driving each other on to reach personal goals,’ says Emily Bright, as she shares her experience of her weekly 5k run.

My family made me do it. Joining Parkrun was a shameless bid to score brownie points with my nephew and niece.  But as I huff and puff around the route each week, lapped by sprightly septuagenarians, I am struck by how much the Church could learn from it.

For the uninitiated, Parkrun is a free 5K race manned by volunteers, which takes place across hundreds of communities every Saturday morning. It began in Bushy Park, London, 20 years ago this month. Since then, Parkrun has expanded beyond the UK into another 22 countries in North America, Europe, Australasia, Africa and Asia. It now has more than nine million registered runners.