Does this describe your church: we have a gymnasium, athletic field, church hall, or other facility that kids could use for sports, but unfortunately, all the members of our congregation are over 70 years old and cannot do the needed maintenance on it?
Well, HERE is a solution I saw today in one of the Hartford Courant blogs.
Nice thing about this one: doing community service is a great way for people to make amends to society -- why not see if there are people sentenced to community service in YOUR locale who would be able to work on maintaining your recreational facility.
(No, I'm NOT recommending that you turn operation of your recreation program over to offenders. Staffing the program is different from maintaining the facility. We'll talk more about staffing opportunities in a forthcoming post.)
Thursday, August 21, 2008
First-generation Chinese-Americans
The New York Times had an article today dealing with generational differences in attitudes about the appropriateness of sports for young people.
If you have Chinese-American families -- especially first generation -- in the population you are trying to reach, you will find this article useful. I'm wondering if it will also prove to be instructive for other immigrant ethnic groups that find themselves trapped in the "seamstress/restaurant" cycle and are eager to break out.
If you have Chinese-American families -- especially first generation -- in the population you are trying to reach, you will find this article useful. I'm wondering if it will also prove to be instructive for other immigrant ethnic groups that find themselves trapped in the "seamstress/restaurant" cycle and are eager to break out.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Free.
Interesting. I did not know THIS about Little League, and I suspect that few others knew it either.
People making a buck (or a lot of bucks) off kids' sports has become pretty endemic, I'm afraid. So much so that, even though the publicity for our church summer soccer program says "free" and even though the website says "free", virtually every parent who has showed up with their offspring has asked me how much it costs and if a check is okay. Furthermore, they seem to expect to have to pay for the free tee-shirt we give each participant. (They don't, of course -- generous parishioners underwrite them.)
I suspect that many churches that offer sports for young people sometimes are tempted to consider them a revenue stream. Their logic probably runs along the lines of "Well, worship is free, but this isn't."
Let the founder of Little League -- and Jesus himself -- be your guide instead.
People making a buck (or a lot of bucks) off kids' sports has become pretty endemic, I'm afraid. So much so that, even though the publicity for our church summer soccer program says "free" and even though the website says "free", virtually every parent who has showed up with their offspring has asked me how much it costs and if a check is okay. Furthermore, they seem to expect to have to pay for the free tee-shirt we give each participant. (They don't, of course -- generous parishioners underwrite them.)
I suspect that many churches that offer sports for young people sometimes are tempted to consider them a revenue stream. Their logic probably runs along the lines of "Well, worship is free, but this isn't."
Let the founder of Little League -- and Jesus himself -- be your guide instead.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
