麻豆社

Good morning.

The disappointment was dark and profoundly intense, but it was surprisingly short-lived. In fact for me it only lasted four minutes. That was in part down to the stoic graciousness of the England players who warmly praised their opponents just moments after being utterly crushed in the Rugby World Cup Final. But it was mostly because of the wild celebrations of the South Africans and in particular their first ever black captain, Siya Kolisi.

Kolisi is a remarkable man. He was brought up by his grandparents in hardship and poverty in a township near Port Elizabeth. At first he played rugby in boxer shorts because the family couldn鈥檛 afford the kit. But then a rugby coach from the independent Grey High School saw Kolisi play and offered him a scholarship. That talent spotter saw something no one else did, and that is what led to Saturday鈥檚 triumph for the rainbow nation, one that has united people from different backgrounds.

A wonderful story, but it made me think, how many other Kolisis are there whose talent will never be spotted? How many potentially brilliant sportsmen and women, academics, entrepreneurs, musicians, poets, craftsmen will never be able to discover their potential because there is no one to notice them or foster their gifts? How much talent are we wasting because, when we look for potential, we instinctively look amongst people like ourselves?

This is a massive issue in the Church of England. We aspire to be a national church, present in every community, but we have a leadership that mostly constitutes white graduates. Like so many other organisations, we are failing to spot leadership potential in other groups, especially B.A.M.E. people or those from non-professional backgrounds.

In the Bible, we read how the Prophet Samuel went to see the sons of Jesse in search of a new king. Jesse paraded in front of him his strong, well-built lads, but Samuel rejected them all, one by one. Mortals look on outward appearances, he explained to the disappointed father. But the Lord looks on the heart. So in the end the prophet chose weedy little David whom Jesse hadn鈥檛 even bothered to call from the fields. Samuel saw God鈥檚 gifts in David in a way that no one else could.

For anyone who holds responsibility in any organisation, no matter what the size, spotting gifts and potential in others is a key skill that needs to be fostered. It鈥檚 all too easy quite by accident to go for the people who look like us or think like us, and so vast pools of talent are wasted. Perhaps the story of Siya Kolisi might inspire us to see gifts and potential in those we usually overlook. For what matters most is not outward appearance, but the workings of the heart.

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