Benefits of Sports at Church

Yes, we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 96 participants at Summer Soccer last summer. But what has become of them since?

Well, some attend Sunday School with varying degrees of regularity. But, really, not very many as a percentage of the total summer soccer participants. However, in most small Protestant congregations in the Northeast, that's very much to be expected.

However, when an opportunity that's a little different -- and respectful of the hectic pace of family life today -- appears, so do the kids from summer soccer.

Here's a short excerpt from our Christmas Pageant this year:



In that video, the still photo of the principal narrator depicts one of our Sunday School regulars -- indeed, the girl whose suggestion three years ago led to our summer soccer program. And the girl playing Mary who sings the solo is likewise a Sunday School regular. Some of the rest pictured attend Sunday School regularly, some occasionally, some rarely, and two not at all.

When you include the rest of the cast -- shepherds and animals, not yet on stage -- far fewer attend with any regularity. For some, it's their one appearance in church this year. For some, it actually was their first appearance at a church service ever.

Let me replay that last line: FOR SOME, IT ACTUALLY WAS THEIR FIRST APPEARANCE AT A CHURCH SERVICE EVER.

All but two of the participants, interestingly, were summer soccer participants. Of the two non-participants, one moved to town after summer soccer ended for the fall, and the other was brought by a Sunday School regular.

What NEVER to say...

Last summer, a deeply religious older lady was serving in an official capacity at a major national competition of an organization for young people -- NOT a church-related organization in any way, by the way.

I think she had been away from kids for a few years, had been called out of volunteer retirement to serve in an official capacity for this one competition, and had been shocked at "kids today". Things were clearly not as she remembered them a decade or more ago.

By the end of the competition (which ran for four days), this lady called the competitors together and announced to them in no uncertain terms that "God is going to punish you." The quote marks are intentional; those were her words to the kids.

How much damage did she do with her bizarre imprecation?

It's hard to say.

Perhaps the most damaging thing she did was to convince a bunch of pretty much straight-arrow American kids that, regardless of what they might have been hearing about the benefits of organized religion, they now had first-hand experience with the intolerant, unforgiving side of it. The more thoughtful among the the kids will link this sort of rhetoric with that of the Islamo-Facists.

We can hope that they will eventually realize that the lady who had cursed them -- for this is what she did -- was personally deficient.

A longer-lasting impact will be a reluctance by adults who hear of the incident to address the subject of religion at all within the context of that organization, and perhaps in related organizations, of which there are many.

It was certainly a sad occurrence, but equally sad is the fact that this sort of thing occurs with astonishing frequency.

The more things change....

I had what is probably best called as a "what on earth was I expecting?" moment this Sunday.

Our parish (that's the one with the innovative summer soccer program for kids, remember?) decided that we needed new fundraising and community-building ideas, so we had an open brainstorming session after the coffee hour that follows the "big" Sunday service. I'm also the parish clerk, so I took notes on the suggestions offered. There were 41 of them.

Given the success of summer soccer, and given that we are the only Episcopal church within 25 miles with any Sunday School for kids at all (in fact, probably the only one with any kids at all), you would think that most of the suggestions would involve ways we could leverage our new found fame, and our new reputation as THE church were "things are happening", right?

Well, not exactly.

Here were the general subject areas, followed by the number of suggestions in that area:

--Antiques: (2)
--Charge people to put up memorial plaques in the sanctuary or elsewhere (3)
--Musical event (2)
--Have book groups about religious books (1)
--Book sale (1)
--Tell nearby inns we have overflow space for special events (2)
--"Dinner and a movie" (1)
--Get videos of church services on public access TV (1)
--Lectures on healthy eating (1)
--Publish a new cookbook (1)
--Podcast organ music (1)
--"Chocolate Sunday" with bake sale (1)
--Wine tasting (1)
--Block party (1)
--Quilt show (1)
--Quilt making instruction (1)
--Flower show (1)
--Table decorating contest (1)

As you can see, while several of the above fall into the "fun" or "frivolous", none really build on the idea of sports ministry or sports and kids and church.

Well, it wasn't really that bad. A snowman building contest for the Sunday School, a "poker run", serving breakfast for the racers and fans at the auto race facility across the road, serving lunch to the tour groups of bicyclists that often come by, having the Vicar bless the race cars at the facility across the road, hosting a horse show in our field, and having a golf outing were also suggested. While these are not generally of a particularly active nature, I guess I should be grateful that some people are even thinking about sports at all.

But where I'm coming down right now, is the possibility that people go to church BECAUSE they don't want to be involved in athletic, or even particularly physical, activity!

Because they are mostly made up of physically inert people, churches do little to disappoint those who come searching for socially sanctioned inactivity.

And people who are looking for physical recreational pursuits, realizing this, avoid churches.

It's interesting that our soccer program was the suggestion of a kid who had no particular choice (yet) whether she attended church or not. (By the way, here's a group picture from our final soccer program of this summer --

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The WRONG answer

This post is about a classic "wrong answer" by an Episcopal Church in Michigan -- the story is here and it's worth reading:

It's absolutely painful to read; I'll warn you of that much.

Here's a summary of the story:
--Young people discover a way to use church property for sports (in this case, building a BMX bicycle track in some church-owned woods and developing it for nearly a decade)
--Church people discover that young people are having FUN on church property
--Church reflexively drives the young people away, replacing the young people with a "prayer walk"

As someone who tries pretty hard to find successful sports and recreation ministries at churches, finding something like this is discouraging.

Why? Citing insurmountable obstacles, the church in question doesn't appear to have even tried to figure out a way to provide some form of ministry to the kids it is displacing.

Okay, insurance companies and zoning boards are not traditionally fond of home-cooked extreme bicycle racing. I'll grant you that much (although we haven't been provided with any evidence that the church really did check to see if an activity like this would be insurable and be permitted as a church activity by their local zoning board). Let's assume the initial answer was "no" and "no" and that no one in the congregation had the gumption to pursue the issue aggressively.

Do we have any evidence that the church made an effort to see what kinds of activity might be of interest to the youth in question (other than perambulating on a "prayer walk")? From my reading of the piece, the church doesn't even appear to have bothered to investigate alternatives sufficiently to see if there was a way that the kids and the church could work together on some kind of more formal BMX bike activity -- or some other recreational activity the church might have found more acceptable.

Ideally there's a solution out that that would have constituted a way where the church was able to add value from the point of view of the kids (and their families).

(Spare me this comment, please: "Oh, but the church needed the 10 acres for a prayer walk." Gimme a break! What selfishness on the part of the church! You don't need 10 acres for a prayer walk. You don't need ONE acre for a prayer walk! You can stick a labyrinth inside most parish halls and still have room to walk around the outside of it. And yes, by the way, I can definitely sympathize with parishes that cannot minister to young people because of lack of space and facilities.)

But why should the church do anything at all for these kids, these trespassers? It appears, after all, that the kids using the BMX track were not parishioners.

The answer should be obvious, and the very question implies that no one in the congregation has been paying attention during the New Testament readings lately. Why has it not occurred to this congregation that they are being called to a ministry to these kids and their families?

This situation is as clear a call to a specific ministry as a church is ever apt to get -- that is no doubt the real reason that the incident merited press coverage. The situation is crying out for a sports or recreation ministry. To be any more obvious we would need to see a Paul on the road to Damascus event, it seems to me.

It is tragic to see this church refusing to listen.

Original article re girls/sports/college graduation

For those who want to go through the statistics and proofs, the article upon which the New York Times based its article concluding that girls who play interscholastic sports in high school are 41% more apt to graduate from college than their peers, can be found here.

Causing further grief to many associated with churches who would prefer less vigorous physical exertion, both fine arts and other extra-curricular activities were specifically examined by the authors and found to be less effective (in the case of fine arts) or actually counter-productive (in the case of other extra-curriculars).

DEFINITELY something to think about!

Helping girls get ahead in life

The New York Times today had an interesting article -- a portion of which is quoted here:

QUOTE
Girls who play interscholastic high school sports are 41 percent more likely to graduate from college than their counterparts, according to a study in the June issue of the journal Youth & Society — in time for the 25th anniversary of Title IX. For her master’s thesis at Brigham Young, Kelly P. Troutman looked at 5,000 girls in the National Education Longitudinal Study, high school class of ’92. The athletes had the advantage of “social capital,” she says — a network invested in their success, mentor coaches and all those parents in the stands sharing college info.
END QUOTE

That said, it certainly looks as though, if one is interested in helping young females in a church, one of the more important things we can do is to help them develop sports skills that will enable them to make the team in high school.

Furthermore, since 41% is such a big number as statistical studies go, there is little doubt that parents will take note of it -- big time -- as this news is propagated, especially beyond the grey confines of the Times.

What will parents do when they see it? The answer is pretty obvious, given what we already know about today's parents in America. They will try to improve their daughters' chances of making the team in high school.

How will they do this? They will ensure that they are taught sports -- sports for which there are teams in their daughters' prospective high schools. Their daughters will be encouraged to play on club teams, elementary school teams, recreational teams -- and church teams.

Where will the time for all this additional sport come from, given the extent to which kids are already over-programmed? This answer is simple: it will come from wherever there is no discernible payback. Too frequently, church and Sunday School will be perceived to fall in the "no discernible payback" category by these parents. (Free play time, to the extent to which kids have any of this scarce commodity left, will be an additional casualty.)

Few churches will be able to suck in and respond by filling the demand. Most will whine, complain, and generally badmouth sports, as so many already do. Others will respond -- or continue to respond -- by going on the offensive, attempting to punish sports that infringe on what they perceive as their turf with regard to young people. Almost without exception, of course, churches view Sunday morning as "their turf".

Churches that have an interest in survival will incorporate sports in their programs for young people, and will learn to make use of Sunday mornings as the ideal time to combine sports with worship and learning -- on THEIR turf.

41% is indeed a big number.

Using FaceBook

About a month ago I had mentioned that I was contemplating putting our weekly Summer Soccer sessions on FaceBook. At that point I was a complete neophyte at this web 2.0 networking stuff, having just been introduced to it by my grad student daughter.

Well, since then I have acted. You can now find a group called "Trinity Lime Rock" on FaceBook, and each week I am creating an activity for Summer Soccer for that group. This week I added it to the local network (Hartford, CT is the closest to us) and we will see if there is any discernible result.

I'm also working on the profile for Trinity Lime Rock on FaceBook, and am glad to have any suggestions at all. Swing by and take a look!

96 shirts!

Just as an addendum to the previous item, earlier this week the second order of shirts for Trinity Lime Rock Summer Soccer 2007 participants arrived, three dozen of them, supplementing the 5 1/2 dozen we received earlier.

Tomorrow we'll start handing them out -- these are for the people (kids and adult volunteers) who have appeared since the Summer season began and since we placed the first shirt order this year.

Interestingly, two of the shirts will be going to participants in Norway who appeared (and played well) for two sessions while visiting the US -- their dad had been an exchange student at Housatonic Valley Regional HS back in the 1980s and he brought his family over to show what things were like in the US. They returned home last week, but their shirts will be following them shortly.

Team Picture

We're about half way through Summer Soccer 2007, so here is a "team picture" from last Sunday's session.

When I look at this group, I'm amazed at how this program at a very small, rural Episcopal parish in New England has grown in 2 1/2 years. That first year, there was one session when I was the only participant. There was also one session when only I and the kid who had suggested the program to begin with attended.

Around this time that first summer I had the feeling on more than one occasion that it really wasn't going to work at all. Eventually, no one would show up; the few people in the congregation who had raised their eyebrows when I had suggested the program to them would be shown to have been right after all.

Then a remarkable thing happened. One Sunday, as I was standing at the far end of the corridor leading toward the field, I saw a very old woman whom I knew from the congregation making her way purposefully down the hall toward me. Her name, I knew, was Marge, and I also knew that she was 99 years old.

She manouvered her walker up to me, pointed her finger at me, looked me in the eye, and said "Are you the soccer man?"

I was afraid that I was about to be told that I was doing something Godless or worse and that I ought to be ashamed of myself for having ed this program. With that in my mind, I swallowed hard and said "Yes, I guess I am."

Marge said "Well, keep it up!" and turned and manouvered her walker back down the hall toward the church.

If I ever had seriously contemplated dropping the soccer program, Marge's admonition to keep it up pretty much put those thoughts to rest. She's now 100, and I'm not sure she's been at church this summer to see the kids in their new purple shirts -- at her age she's certainly entitled to take a few weeks or even months off -- but she has been there in my mind every Sunday.

Thanks, Marge!

Salvation Army and Lime Rock Park?

There was an interesting article yesterday in the Waterbury Republican, noting that the local Salvation Army was sending their youth group to the American LeMans race at Lime Rock Park, in Lakeville, on July 6.

Now, knowing the Salvation Army, you may suspect that the youth group will be armed with their traditional red kettles and be charged with collecting money from the reasonable well-heeled track patrons (after all, admission to the track that day costs $65, so they might just have some spare change for the Salvation Army). Conversely, you might expect that they will whip out band instruments and render a short concert (after all, Judy Collins is doing a concert later in July at the same venue).

No, according to that article, neither is the case. The objective of the visit is so the youth group members can see the race, enjoy a day in the most beautiful race venue anywhere, and perhaps see a religious connection.

Well, this is sports ministry. I find it provocative because my parish church, Trinity Lime Rock, is directly across the street from the Outfield entrance of Lime Rock Park, and during the fifty years we have shared our common location, our two organizations have succeeded in cooperating only in our providing parking for their overflow visitors in our field, and in our clergy delivering occasional invocations at the track.

I'm a little deflated that I have not been able to come up with a sports ministry for our own young people involving Lime Rock Park, while the Salvation Army, forty miles away in Waterbury, has been able to do so.

Record attendance

Just a quick update after the fourth session of the third season of Summer Soccer at Trinity Lime Rock.

Today we broke -- shattered, really -- our previous attendance record, with 41 people in the field. We also had several people who had previously not taken the plunge venture into church for Communion as the soccer session wound down.

Interesting that we succeeded in breaking the record on a Sunday when few of our own faithful year-round kids were present (this was the first Sunday of that ten day July 4th weekend that you get when the 4th falls in the middle of the week, and most of our own were off on vacation, or in summer camp, or visiting family elsewhere).

Assuming that most of these people return, won't the kids who regularly come be surprised to find that they've been invaded! It will be interesting to see the dynamics of this.

Two weeks into the third season -- progress report

I said I'd report back after the first session, but I guess I missed that target.

Well, the first Sunday we had 24 people in the field (about 19 kids) which probably is as many as we had had last summer at our high point. The picture on the left, which is Coach Richard Kirby talking to some of the kids, was taken that first Sunday.

You can also get a peek at the 2007 soccer shirts. Neat, huh?

Then, last Sunday (the second Sunday of Summer Soccer this year, and Fathers Day to booot) we had 31 people in the field, mostly kids -- we were a little hard pressed for coaches in fact. We had two simultaneous scrimmages going on, and some of the littlest kids still pretty much entertaining themselves -- not where I want to be with this.

Fact is, we were so busy that I didn't even get to take any pictures! The high points included the return to Trinity of one boy who I last saw three years ago (and didn't recognize when I saw him Sunday). Also, when we gathered in a circle for the Lord's Prayer, having to consciously project my voice due to the size of the circle.

The local paper, the one that rarely prints our stuff, has now printed something about our Summer Soccer program for FOUR consecutive weeks. I'm dreading the inevitable requests from the chairs of the various programs at Trinity for me to exercise my influence with the local paper to get THEIR activities publicized. I guess I will have to suggest to them that they do something really different -- and then the journalists will beat a path to their doors.

Well, this Sunday I hereby promise to take a lot more pictures. Maybe even some video so I can put a more current video on the Trinity website (courtesy of YouTube, of course).

Here's a question: do you think it makes any sense to put an activity on the Trinity Lime Rock group in FaceBook for soccer? All thoughts welcome......

Been a while....

Tomorrow starts our third summer of what began as Summer Sunday School Soccer at Trinity Lime Rock, and our first year when we have been active in publicizing the program in the larger community.

Last summer we had around 35 kids attend at one point or another, some for one session and some for nearly all. This summer we already have 54 kids formally registered (something we didn't do last summer) -- and our local newspaper has printed not one but two notices about the program.

Over the past four days I've been participating in the tryouts for Berkshire United Soccer Club (BUSC) our local youth soccer organization, and I've been surprised at how many of the adults and the kids whom I did not know knew who I was. One mom who introduced herself said that another mom (whose name I recognized but who had not registered her kids) was planning to attend.

I said "great but tell her to get there early -- I ordered 66 shirts, and 56 are already spoken for".

Well, here goes.

I'll report back after day one.

Getting ready to go public

Well, we've run the summer soccer program at Trinity Lime Rock for two summers now. The first one started off a bit slowly, but gained momentum. The second summer took off where the last one ended and grew from there.

Anyhow, we figure that it is now time to start reaching outside the church. There are certainly kids in Lime Rock who play soccer seriously, whose families have no connection to Trinity, and who wouldn't be apt to hear about the program. Well, they might hear if our kids talked about the program at Berkshire United, or in town rec soccer, or in school soccer. However, kids are kids and don't tend to tell other kids about church.

So, we will have to do the telling. We're thinking a press release that the local paper, the Lakeville Journal will -- with a little bit of luck -- print at least part of. We're also planning on mailing invitations to the known soccer kids who live in the area of the church. And, I guess I will e-mail all the area soccer folks who are in my directory.

It will be interesting to see how it goes. We'll keep you posted.

We do YouTube

Well, we began to get in the spirit of things recently and put something up on YouTube about our summer soccer program.

No complaints yet!



And we'll do better!

Clergy at sports events

Seems to me that I remember in high school (a small town public school in upstate NY), the local Catholic priests attended ALL home athletic events, wearing their collars.

People talk about evangelism alot nowadays, and spew about their personal relationship with various manifestations of the Deity. For the most part, it's off-putting if not downright repulsive.

What those padres did was EVANGELISM.

How do you find fault with this?

Take a peek, folks. I really liked it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4Y5Qbgfwuk

National Football League versus God

Well, it's been in the news now. The National Football League has informed churches that intend to show the Super Bowl (TM) at their church that they will be prosecuted for copyright infringement.

No, it doesn't make any difference whether admission is charged, or that the activity is not-for-profit.

Unless you are a sports bar (the NFL much prefers bars to churches, evidently) you simply cannot show the Super Bowl (TM) at your church.

Why is this on a blog about kids and church and sports? Because it's about a belief that the sports business establishment wants to encourage in the wider community that sports (at least professional sports watched by couch potatoes) are cool, but that churches are NOT cool -- especially churches that see that sports and kids and church can all fit in the same sentence.

Why do they want to do this?

The answer appears to be simple: it's all about money.

Money that goes into a collection plate does not go to line the pockets of the professional sports business establishment. Kids who are doing sports at their church are not spending money on being more proficient couch potatoes.

What's the best way to fight these greedy folks?

(1) Remember what Jesus said about how easy it is for a rich man to enter heaven. And pray for the NFL and its stooges and lackeys.
(2) Encourage active, participatory sports -- especially for kids -- at your own house of worship.
(3) And do NOT show the Super Bowl (TM) at your church next year (or in your own living room, for that matter).

A resource you might not have thought of

We found this resource just the other day, and it's not the kind of resource you might expect to see here.

To give you a flavor of what kind of things you'll find here, check this blog posting and our response.

The name of the website is something that might slightly disorient you (although I hope that if you're reading this blog I have already accomplished that much.

It's churchmarketingsucks.com. Yup, that's it!

Check it out!

Looking for clues

It's been my experience that when looking for "the" thing that caused a social movement, or a sea change in the way institutions view things, people are so eager to find a single causative factor that they miss the point: most things change because they are ready to change, and rarely does the change come from a single event or action.

A recent press release from the Episcopal Church News Service, in the "Ecumenical News International" section, gives us a hint.

The article is headed: "England: Church seeks ambassador for sport".

It's worth reading. I'm not sure the Bishop of Sherwood has got the answer completely right yet, but when he says "A church building for most people is like going to Mars ... We have to go where the people are." he is spot on.

No, you don't even need a ballfield!

Back when I was getting cranked up to start Trinity Lime Rock Summer Soccer, I came across the website for Cross of Life Lutheran Church -- and, very specifically, their summer soccer camps.

The link goes directly to their soccer camp page, but I recommend that you take a good look at the entire website of this church. (And, the last time I looked, Lutherans were considered very much a mainstream protestant denomination, thank you!)

One thing that should dawn on you very quickly is that this congregation does not have its own soccer field -- or, in fact, any real estate of its own! They "hold church" mainly in rented public buildings.

Yet, Glory Hallelujah, they STILL manage to do sports, and to do a lot of sports.

How can that be? Well, look at Cross of Life's website and find out!

(The sound you now hear is that of air escaping from mainstream protestant clergy who have been arguing against involving their parish or congregation in sports on the grounds that they have no place to do sports.)

Stewardship + Church + Sports

How often are we reminded that it is our duty to be good stewards of the bounty God has given us?

If your church is anything like my church, you hear this pretty frequently.

Now, I'm NOT about to ask you for money!

But I AM going to ask you whether our young people are not part of our God-given bounty? My guess is that virtually any of us with young people would rank our kids as our most important thing in life.

Now, with an epidemic of childhood obesity across America -- this being a disease for which one of the standard preventative measures is physical activity -- and with childhood obesity as a primary causative factor for Type 2 Diabetes -- and with our schools eliminating recess so kids can sit still and be drilled in preparation for standardized tests -- and with kids lacking the freedom to run and play vigorously outdoors when not in school, as most of us did as kids....

HOW ON EARTH can you call it good stewardship of our God-given bounty to have our kids who come to church just sit on their hind ends?

Would it not be better stewardship for us to provide these kids with something that is increasingly missing from their lives: vigorous physical activity?

Connection between sports and religion?

"...but you can do sports ANYWHERE!" whined one cleric who felt that children playing sports in connection with church was somehow improper.

I guess the worthy cleric's statment, if taken to its logical conclusion, implies that you can worship and pray only in church, but let's be gentle for the moment instead of tackling that head on right now.

Beside running the summer soccer program at Trinity Lime Rock, I also, for the past few years, have directed the Christmas Pageant.

And, as part of the summer soccer program, I have always felt it appropriate to pray for a minute before undertaking the sports aspect of the program. The most useful prayer I have found yet for this is the Lord's Prayer, the Our Father.

Well, doubter that I can be, during soccer these past two summers I often wondered if it made any impression at all on the kids that before we played soccer we ALWAYS recited the Lord's Prayer. After all, while we were standing in a circle reciting the prayer, I often had the feeling it was mostly me who was doing the reciting.

Well, today, on December 2, in the first Christmas Pageant rehearsal of the year, I got clarification on that.

At the point that the shepherds enter the story, the pageant script has Angel Gabriel herding the small angels up the aisle to meet them, and together proclaiming the small angels' one big line of the whole pageant: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace....etc."

Angel Gabriel dutifully herded the small angels up the aisle, and I directed, "Okay, angels -- do your thing!"

They, in unison, in strong voices, immediately recited the entire Lord's Prayer.



It was really quite impressive. I was actually a little bit choked up. I almost hated to de-program them!

Here are Angel Gabriel and the little angels, taken at the subsequent dress rehearsal. By this time they had their line down pat. And, presumably, they had not forgotten the Lord's Prayer, either.