Dan Walker - sports presenter

Dan Walker is well known as a BBC sports broadcaster, presenting sport on News 24 and covering football for Final Score, Match of the Day and Football Focus.

He is also a born-again Christian and was converted after a Sunday evening service in 1989, when he was about twelve years of age.

Not only does he love the Lord, he loves the Lord's day and has never played sport on Sunday or worked on Sundays. We live in an age when Sunday has become a major day for sport and especially for sport on television but Dan holds true to his faith.

Here is what he says about the importance of the Lord's Day.

Many people - even Christians - have asked me why I feel so strongly about the Lord's day. for me it seems quite obvious. God, our Creator, has given it to us for our own good. Some will argue that Jesus Christ's coming means we are no longer obligated to keep it special but that is a viewpoint I fundamentally disagree with. There are still ten commandments and it is more important than ever before to guard the fourth one jealously.

I think it is also essential to stress the importance of being part of a 'local' church. The church, the corporate worship of God, and the preaching of the Word are three of the mai nthings Satan aims to undermine in the lives of Christians. I know that I would suffer both spiritually and practicaly if I started working on Sunday. I don't think our attitude to the Lord's day is a 'salvation' issue but I do firmly believe that it is a sign of our siritual temperature. What does it say about us if we would rather be on a football pitch than in the presence of God's people hearing His Word?

When people at work ask me why I wasn't covering something like the Wimbledon final, it gives me the perfect opportunity to tell them why I wasn't there and what I was doing instead. The fact that I turned down a lifetime ambition to work on The Open showed the editor of the programme that my faith in Jesus Christ really mattered. It seems weird but God has given me the chance to talk to people like David Beckham and Noel Gallagher about why I would rather go to church on a Sunday.

God made us and He knows how we are made.  He knows that we need a day of rest because that is way He made us that way.  That is why He set aside one day in the week as that day of rest.  But Sunday is more than a day of rest.  It is also a day for worship and for the family.