Church and Kids and Sports

I prefer to think this isn't needed on a church/sports blog, but....

2011-10-21T08:07:00.000-04:00

Here's a good piece about positive coaching from the New York Times. It's very easy to slip into a less constructive coaching style, regardless of the milieu you're coaching (or parenting) in.....

Needy.

2011-09-23T11:25:00.000-04:00

Every couple of years, around this time, our local newspaper prints letters to the editor from local clergy bemoaning the fact that kids don't attend Sunday morning programs. Usually they blame organized sports programs that meet on Sunday mornings. This week it happened again. My reaction on reading the letters was "That's incredibly needy. It's downright embarrassing, in fact."

The letters both succeeded in sounding like an actor or musician who was complaining because not enough people bought tickets to their show, or a businessperson who was complaining that insufficient customers came to their place of business. They were evocative of a tenth grade girl bemoaning the fact that no one had come to their party.

First, some practical advice: you do NOT increase the attractiveness of your product by complaining in the media that people prefer other products (e.g. youth hockey) to yours. When you do so, you make even your loyal customers wonder exactly what is so wrong with your product that you need to make such a public protestation.

Interesting: in re-reading both letters for what must be the 10th time, I noticed that only one of them was actively engaged in bashing youth sports and the volunteers who run them for taking "their" Sunday morning time slot. The other letter simply pointed out that church belonged in people's lives, and mentioned Sunday morning worship as one of the many things that churches do. (No issue at all with that point of view, by the way -- but the bad karma from the blast at youth sports in one letter carried over to the other letter, even for someone like me who pays a whole lot of attention to this sort of thing).

Hopefully it's unnecessary to mention that usually when youth sports leagues meet on Sunday mornings it's because it's the only time that a facility and needed volunteers can be available. Clergy: it's not about you.

Here's a radical suggestion: Do NOT fight Sunday morning sports leagues. Praise and publicize the kids in your church who participate and laud their accomplishments right in church. If you know that the team is playing a championship game while you're holding a service, pray out loud for the kids, for the team, for the opposition, and for those who help with youth sports. (After all, they're not in church, so they need your prayers, don't they?)

Two reasons: (1) it was the pharisees who were hung up on formal adherence to religious practice in the temple, not Jesus. (2) you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Worth circulating to kids in your sports program

2011-08-01T11:18:00.000-04:00

Kids, regardless of where they live, frequently get on horses. Some are fortunate, live in rural areas, have adequate resources to be able to afford horses or are able to work and get the use of horses in that way. Others get on horses only on rare occasions -- pony rides, dude ranch visits, happenstance opportunities -- including church youth group trips.

We've talked about safety in sports before, but this video, of Courtney King Dye, the upper level Dressage rider, who suffered a traumatic brain injury while warming up for a competition, makes the important point that you should NEVER get on an equine without a properly fitted helmet, regardless of how low-risk things may seem to be at the time.

If you're not conversant with horse lore, Dressage is generally considered the safest horse sport around. The horses are extremely well trained, they do not jump, and all riding takes place in a ring. Courtney King Dye WAS riding at the highest levels of the sport. She was anything but an amateur; she WAS a highly skilled professional. Grit your teeth and look at her now.

It's painful to watch and listen to this video, but I urge you to do so, and to encourage the kids to watch it as well.

Why what Trinity Wall Street is doing is important

2011-04-08T13:16:00.000-04:00

Since I started this blog a few years ago a number of people (not a big number, but big enough to think about) have made comments like this to me: (this is a composite of several questions)

"We would love to have sports in our church, but we're tucked into the middle of a city block, and the only open area around us is the alley where the super takes the trash out. We do have a church hall, but it isn't very big, and somebody put a huge crystal chandelier right in the middle of the room about 15 years ago, and we don't dare move it, and even if we did, all the windows are Tiffany glass, so we can't play inside either. Furthermore, the whole congregation is 70+ years old."

When I mention Trinity Wall Street, I'm referring, of course, to their recent announcement that they will be sponsoring two Little League teams, and encourage their congregation to attend games and cheer the kids on.

And, while the average age of their congregation isn't 70+, they are surrounded by skyscrapers and there's no place to play outside, except for the (historic) graveyard. In other words, they can't really play outside.

What they do have is sufficient money to sponsor two Little League teams (who will be playing on athletic fields built as part of the deal when real estate developers put up some housing on Hudson River landfill.

Let's assume that your parish can't underwrite two Little League teams. But what you can do is donate enough to a local soccer or baseball or basketball or other youth sports organization for one needy kid to play for one season. In our area, to do this for a needy travel soccer kid, it's about $100. In more affluent areas, it's probably twice or three times that. Ask the volunteers who run the leagues or the teams. You may find you get a really warm welcome.

Bravo, Trinity Wall Street

2011-04-07T20:48:00.002-04:00

This just in.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Trinity Wall Street has gotten on the bandwagon, and we are glad for it. Not one but TWO little league teams!!

Congratulations!! The kids and their parents will thank you for this.

For our Anglican friends in the UK

2011-02-14T07:26:00.005-05:00

I guess that we Episcopalians in the United States always perceive themselves as a little more enlightened than most of the rest of the Anglican Communion, but we do have to give credit where credit is due. In this case, the credit is due to the Diocese of London of the Church of England.

The Diocese of London is looking for an Olympic Coordinator!! Glory be to God!!

(Actually, the job title is "Olympic Mobiliser" -- and of course Blogspot flagged my UK spelling on that one.....)

A bad example

2010-09-15T16:32:00.004-04:00

Well, I was certainly among those applauding when the National Football League decided to face up to the evidence that repeated concussions contribute significantly to brain disease.

Regretably, it appears to have simply been a publicity stunt at best or legal loss prevention at worst. The example of cynicism set by the National Football League to college, high school, and youth athletes in all sports is nothing short of heinous.

If you are involved in youth sports, after the debacle on Sunday, your job in trying to care for the brains of your players just got a whole lot harder.

Physical Activity and Kids

2010-05-25T14:50:00.003-04:00

The Center for Disease Control has taken a significant stand in favor of increased physical activity for kids in school programs and family activities.

The post attached provides lots of resources for use in convincing recalcitrant school administrators that physical activity is important. We submit that the same material can and should be used on religious leaders. Here's the link. Use it!

Sexism and the IOC

2010-02-20T18:11:00.003-05:00

When you're involved with providing a sports program for kids, you occasionally hear about something that just plain is wrong -- and when it affects one of the kids in your program, you have at least some obligation to try to set it right. When you are involved on behalf of a church, you have even more obligation to do the right thing.

Well, although my church program does not include ski jumping (our field is flat as a pancake -- maybe we could do biathlon) we do have a couple of kids who do jump competitively, and others who occasionally participate who jump very competitively.

Did you know that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not permit women to ski jump in the Olympics?

I didn't either until I read this article in the New York Times today.

Nope, the old goats permit women to box, and to play rugby as Olympic sports, but they cannot ski jump. The IOC raises what is pretty clearly a lame excuse: that there isn't enough competition for women in ski jumping to permit them to have sufficient experience. Well, here in the very small town of Salisbury, Connecticut, we have ski jumping (open to both sexes and competitive for both) and we are definitely the minor leagues.

Fact is that the only possible reason that women cannot jump in the Winter Olympics is pure, unadulterated sexism. "Oh dear, the poor things might hurt themselves!" one can hear those blue-blazered old buffoons of the IOC muttering into their Dom Perignons.

But these are the same buffoons who HAVE approved women boxing and women's rugby as Olympic sports. How can that be? Easy answer: "ladies" don't box and don't play rugby -- but they DO ski! What if some well-bred young lady suddenly got it into her head that she wanted to -- gasp -- ski jump?

The whole thing is absurd on the face of it, but I guess we have a crusade to mount -- just to get women the right to compete in ski jumping at an Olympic level.

Where to begin?

Gratifying

2009-12-17T08:06:00.004-05:00

It's always a pleasure to see a young person who has participated in your program honored in the outside world for their performance. In this case, one young lady who was interested in volleyball -- in fact, one who suggested we have volleyball as part of our summer sports program -- just received the "Best Freshman Volleyball Player" award from her high school.

We think that's great, and we're making sure that she gets plenty of recognition for her achievements at church. And, why not? She's in the photo above.

Good info on concussions

2009-12-10T14:17:00.002-05:00

A really good resource on concussions in young people's sports from the Center for Disease Control. Recommended!

Keep it fun....

2009-10-31T17:23:00.002-04:00

Here is a really good reminder that a church sports program should not be like taking your medicine, or eating your vegetables, no matter how good physical activity is for you.

Recommended: http://tiny.cc/J9yAK

Concussion aftereffects

2009-10-22T09:25:00.002-04:00

If you're involved with sports in any capacity, there's no doubt that by now you have seen the preliminary information about the evident correlation between having played professional football or having boxed and dementia. Bottom line seems to be that "punch drunk boxers" were only the tip of the iceberg -- that repeated concussions in any sport can lead to early dementia.

Pro football, pretty much a sacred cow in the US, has been the thin entering wedge regarding the possibility that having the concussion delivered by a fist is necessary for dementia to result -- in other words, we're learning that -- DUUUH -- concussions are bad to have!

Here's a link to what could easily be an outlier -- but possibly not -- who had the telltale markers of trauma-induced dementia but neither boxed nor played pro football (he had played college football). http://tiny.cc/EKsf9 Outlier or not, it's worth reading.

Implications for church sports programs involve the clear necessity to ask seriously if it is appropriate for a church to sponsor or offer programs in sports that appear to involve a high risk of trauma-related dementia. Obviously, boxing and football fall in this category. Both may represent ways "out of the ghetto" and may have roles in reclaiming lives. But there may be better choices, ones that do not entail what appears to correlate the inherent risk of dementia with success.

Recreation Sunday

2009-09-16T07:37:00.002-04:00

We really like this idea from the Church of the Holy Communion in Memphis, TN.

Here's the announcement from their weekly newsletter, the eCommunicator, with some details:

"Dress casual this Sunday for...
Recreation Sunday! All Holy Communion flag football and soccer players and coaches are encouraged to attend the 9:00 a.m. service this Sunday. We will recognize the coaches and players in our recreation program for their dedication and enthusiasm here at Holy Communion. All players and coaches are encouraged to wear their jerseys for this casual Sunday."

Of course, the fact that they have a recreation program to begin with is something we're pretty impressed with anyway!

ACLs, again

2009-09-15T08:02:00.001-04:00

Here's a very worthwhile survey of developments in ACL injury, particularly in adolescent girls.

If you're involved in youth sports at all, whether church-based or not, this is something you need to stay up to date on.

Using Facebook Pages

2009-08-13T17:52:00.003-04:00

Here in New England, one frequently finds that people are willing enough to participate in church activities, but are embarrassed to belong to a church (or at least to acknowledge that they belong to one).

Facebook -- and we assume that any house of worship of any denomination has a Facebook presence by now -- has recently made available to small organizations (and even to small businesses) their "Pages" capability, of which one can be a "Fan".

This is distinct from their "Group" capability, which one can "join" (and which perhaps makes church Facebook groups less than overwhelmingly popular where we come from (see paragraph #1).

We're still grappling with exactly how to use Facebook Pages, but we think that it holds some promise for connecting with the easily embarrassed, and thus is worth a fair amount of effort in implementing.

Here's our current effort, just three days old, but with some "fans" who would not be caught dead "joining" a church group.

Trinity Lime Rock Sports on Facebook

What do you think?

You CAN do this....

2009-08-03T19:09:00.007-04:00

Yes, you CAN do this!

A regulation volleyball court is 60 feet long, and 30 feet across. You need 10 feet on either side for the guy ropes for the net. You need four feet on each end for serving space.

Look around your church.

Is the church hall 70 feet long and more than 30 feet wide?

Is there a parking lot that big?

Maybe a front lawn, or a back yard (as in our parish, where the people that went before were smart enough to realize that stewardship of open space is a pretty important kind of stewardship)?

We paid under $200 for the volleyball net (including poles, guy ropes, and the pre-marked rope to outline the court. We got the ball for points from a Citibank promotion.

Anyway, it should not surprise you to know that the volleyball court is a people-magnet. Even more than soccer was when we started the Sunday School playing soccer in the summer when Sunday School classes are on vacation.

We also rounded up the captain of our local high school's volleyball team. She doesn't go to our church, but she was delighted to be involved with getting younger kids involved with volleyball and teaching them skills -- and possibly keeping an eye out for potential players for her team amongst our kids who will be entering high school in the fall.

We also found that dads seem to like volleyball a whole lot. Even the ones who mainly don't show up on Sunday mornings!

More pics are on our website, and on our Facebook page (your church DOES have one of them by now, don't you?)

New summer, new sports

2009-06-26T11:26:00.000-04:00

I apologize for not posting this blog in a while. It's not lack of interest on my part, it's the feeling that once again I am trying to make it up as I go along.

The end of last summer, interest in soccer plummeted. It was as though we were back in year 1 of the four year run that summer soccer had at Trinity Lime Rock. There were at least two Sundays when we were back to the levels of that summer: a couple of kids, one parent, and me, looking at each other, wondering what was wrong and where everybody was.

Anyway, once the summer was over, I asked the kids in the Sunday School (not that there are all that many of them; this is New England, after all) what they thought about soccer, summer sports, etc.

The girls (ages 10 - 14) were initially diplomatic to a fault. Oh, yes, of course they just love soccer, and the summer soccer program, but something had come up that kept them from attending. (like for four straight weeks?!)

Then, when I asked them if they would rather have a different sport, the whole mood changed. YES! Not much question about what had happened. They had voted with their feet.

It took about five minutes before the older girls had settled on volleyball as their sport of choice. That, we can do -- and we will do in August.

The younger boys (small parishes do tend to have these bifurcated age/gender groupings, and you do have to cope with them) initially wanted cars -- like motorized vehicles -- but when they learned that this was not in the cards, fairly quickly they settled on some sport involving a bat and a ball. Maybe tee-ball, maybe something more advanced -- we'll see.

This year, due to a whole rash of major parish activities in June, we're starting the program the first Sunday morning in July -- the middle of July 4 weekend.

Let's see how it goes. In the next few posts, I want to talk about how to organize alternative recreations to be prepared for whoever might happen to show up.

Today's Parents -- #2 (Finances)

2008-12-17T08:43:00.003-05:00

Let's take the differences between this generation of kids' parents and their parents. Item #1 (and here's the list of differences again, for your reference:)

QUOTE
There are several ways the current generation of parents is different from those who came before. Here are a few of them:
--Family finances
--Demands on time
--Priorities
--Educational backgrounds
--Attitudes about church/religion
--Alternatives
--Expectations
END QUOTE

Unless the kids you are ministering to come from the top one or two percent of the nation in terms of family income (in which case, you're wasting your time here -- the children of the Masters of the Universe exist on a different planet), their parents are POORER in terms of real income than their parents were. (You can look this up if you want to, but any reputable economist can show you the statistics to support this contention).

While organized youth soccer, for example, was not a major financial burden for the kids of a generation ago, it usually is today. Thus, families that want their kids to play it find that it chews up a larger portion of their disposable income (if any) than it did a generation ago. Ditto any other organized sports activity.

This creates an opportunity for church sports to serve as an alternative that is more family-friendly and, most importantly for squeezed families, cheaper. The risk -- and the reason the church venue may not succeed -- is that church sports are viewed as significantly inferior to for-profit youth sports, either in quality or in cachet or both.

The current generation of parents is poorer than their parents were, but they have not consciously accepted this knowledge yet (the older generation always poor-mouths and talks about how they walked to school five miles uphill in the snow both ways, so why should the less-inquiring of their children recognize that they were raised in considerably more prosperous circumstances than their parents were?) so they are particularly sensitive about being perceived to have accepted the cheaper alternative for anything.

Target your program at "the unfortunate" and you will get the least fortunate end of that population. You will completely miss the middle class. They simply do not yet realize that they, too, are unfortunate.

Today's Parents #1

2008-12-12T10:08:00.002-05:00

There's an old saying -- an axiom, really -- in the military establishment that armies are always equipped and trained to fight the last war.

When we gear up to deal with today's parents, we are always at risk of doing exactly what generals normally do. We view the wants and needs of today's parents based on our own experience with parents of a generation ago, or, if we take an academic approach to things, based on what has been written about soccer moms and the like.

Suffice it to say that, by the time a term like "soccer mom" has reached a level of popular acceptance that a spin-off term like "hockey mom" can be a key component of a vice presidential campaign, the train has already left the station with regard to soccer moms as we understand them.

A new generation of parents is solidly in place, and it is the children of this new generation who are the beneficiaries of any church sports programs out there that are not oriented toward adults. (I'm not disparaging church-based sports programs for adults; in fact I think they are a super idea and that more churches ought to be supporting them. It's just not what this blog is about.)

There are several ways the current generation of parents is different from those who came before. Here are a few of them:
--Family finances
--Demands on time
--Priorities
--Educational backgrounds
--Attitudes about church/religion
--Alternatives
--Expectations

Over the next few posts I'll look at these differences and try to project ways they affect parental attitudes about church and kids and sports.

Today's Parents....

2008-12-08T08:27:00.003-05:00

With this title, you're expecting what we used to call a jeremiad -- a litany of complaints, a catalog of things that are wrong, a set of dire predictions for the future -- but you would be wrong, at least a little bit wrong.

Yes, today's parents are not like the parents of a generation ago, and that generation of parents was not like their parents. In those years, the nation has come from being one in the tail end of the Great Depression, gone through some wars, had a whole lot of social and cultural and technological change -- and currently seems to be headed back into a new Great Depression. (Maybe in a few years we'll be referring to Depression I and Depression II, like we refer to the World Wars. I hope not.)

So parents today are different.

For the next few posts I am going to talk about such topics as what today's parents (seem to) want from sports programs for their kids, what they actually (IMHO) want, why they want what they want, and how church-based sports programs can address all of it.

Interestingly, these issues do NOT just affect church-based sports programs.

When families ask about college sports....

2008-12-02T06:47:00.004-05:00

Fact is, if you are involved in youth sports at all -- whether in a school, club or church environment -- the subject of college (and college sports) is almost guaranteed to come up at least once per season.

In an earlier post, we provided some cautionary information about the possibilities of Division I college athletic scholarships, and the burdens they impose on their fortunate (?) holders.

However, for kids with only moderate talent, there's an echelon of college sports that falls between intramural and intercollegiate that you should know about -- and that's club sports.

Thanks to the New York Times for bringing us this update! It's good background information even if the question of college sports never comes up in your organization.

Genetic test for children predicting athletic success

2008-11-30T07:28:00.002-05:00

This will be controversial, and those of us with an interest in church and kids and sports will need to think about its ramifications.

Anyway, here's the link to the NY Times article on the subject today.

More to follow....

You need to look outside the church....

2008-11-17T17:06:00.004-05:00

I think we are going to get a little wonky for a while on this blog, for one big reason: the need to figure out sports sometimes in their larger context.

One issue is historical and quite location-specific.

In New England, the birthplace of the "Park and Rec" movement in the United States, any church sports program you create will likely be competing, directly or indirectly, with a taxpayer funded sports program in your town or city.

As I indicated, the reason is historical, and likely due to the historical importance of the Congregational Church in New England -- and their rather narrow (as they, themselves, would acknowledge today) historical view of the role of the church. You can read the history yourself; let it suffice to say that this was not exactly a tolerant and fun-loving community back in its formative days. The term "Puritan" is not pejorative today for no reason!

In this under-served area the Park and Rec movement was born and developed, beginning with the Boston Common in 1651, the Boston YMCA in 1851, the Boston Sand Gardens in 1886, and the New England Park Association in 1898. Today, every New England town but the very smallest has at least one full-time employee in the Park and Rec department whose basic job is to run recreational services for the townsfolk.

Furthermore, these services are not trivial. In 2007, the Town of Salisbury, CT, the northwest-most township in the state, and entirely rural, offered the following activities via their Recreation Department: lap swimming, strength training, paddle tennis, youth soccer, basketball, indoor walking, ice skating, clinics for lacrosse and field hockey, volleyball, aerobics, Latin dance, baseball, an Easter egg hunt, a track and field clinic, sailing, kayaking, swimming lessons, swim team, tennis lessons, sailing lessons, and lifeguard training. Other organizations in the town offer travel soccer, ice hockey, and ski jumping. The Appalachian Trail runs through the town, and the town also hosts three private boarding schools (Salisbury, Hotchkiss, and Indian Mountain) with extensive athletic facilities that are occasionally available to residents, and Lime Rock Park, the auto race course. Under separate departments in the town of Salisbury are the departments that deal with elder activities and the department that runs the Town Grove, which includes picnicking facilities, boating, swimming, et al.

The annual budget of the Salisbury Rec department is $86,736 (2006).

I suspect that over the state line in New York, the offerings are a bit skimpier.

One really needs to consider the competition -- and whether the church views the town Park and Rec department as competition or not, it very much is -- when one structures a church sports program. I'll say more about this process in future posts, but this is a good place to start.

Never assume that everybody knows

2008-09-03T15:22:00.004-04:00

This is another of those "what was I thinking?" posts. I've been meaning to write this one for a couple of weeks.

The other day, I decided to stop by the new sporting goods store in the town next to the one in which Trinity Lime Rock (and our summer soccer program) are located. I wanted to say hello, and to pick up some inexpensive equipment to serve as a backstop sports program for any Sundays when the attendance just didn't work for soccer.

As it turns out, this is also the place where we've bought the tee-shirts that we give away to participants for the past two years. (They've done a great job for us, by the way.)

While I was paying for my purchases, I mentioned to the lady behind the register that our attendance was down this summer. We also talked about how the local soccer travel club had been able to roster only half as many teams for the fall season as they usually did -- she suggested it was probably the lousy state of the economy, gas prices, etc., which I was able to accept.

However, then she said something to the effect of "It's too bad that your program is only for Salisbury kids!".

The fact is that it is NOT just for kids who live the the same township we do, and I hastened to tell her that. Fact is, we welcome everybody, even people just passing through.

However, in our corner of New England, recreation and education are tightly controlled on a Township basis. There is a K-8 school in every one of the towns that make up our Region I. Every town has its own Recreation Department, and their own rec sports, and they absolutely do NOT accept outsiders.

Somehow I had assumed that, because we're a church, people would not impose this "township model" on us -- but obviously they have done just that.

Well, that's something to consider next year when getting the publicity out. We have to make sure that we make it clear that it does not matter what township you live in -- you are still welcome at Trinity Lime Rock summer soccer.

By the way, the lady with whom I had the conversation was delighted to hear that we were open to kids from her town. In fact, she invited us to put up posters and even pictures on their community bulletin board next summer.

However, since doing so will involve setting foot on the turf of another parish, I guess we can anticipate some blowback on this -- whether that parish has any summer programs for kids or not (it does not).

A little creativity helps....

2008-08-21T21:51:00.002-04:00

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.)

First-generation Chinese-Americans

2008-08-21T07:59:00.002-04:00

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.

Free.

2008-08-16T07:43:00.003-04:00

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.

No space; no facility? How about jump rope?

2008-07-31T07:58:00.003-04:00

Probably the most frequent excuse (and that's what it is, I'm afraid) I hear why churches cannot possibly have physical activity for their young people is that they do not have any room. All their outside space is taken up by parking lots (if they have any space outside their four walls to begin with), and there's just no room inside to play basketball or something along those lines.

Well, my usual rejoinder to those complaints is "ping pong" -- but an article in today's New York Times suggested another one: JUMP ROPE!.

Okay, you'll probably never be able to develop jump rope in your parish to the level the kids in New York City have taken Double Dutch, but it's definitely a low-cost sport to start with.

Also, presumably you realize that boxers traditionally jump rope for conditioning and coordination purposes -- so it works for boys as well.

Give it a try! Let us know how it works out!

Getting closer to home....

2008-07-30T08:33:00.002-04:00

Pine Plains, NY is not in the area from which we currently draw parishioners here at Trinity Lime Rock (CT), but it is only one town away from where our Senior Warden and her husband live.

So, when I saw this headline from the Poughkeepsie, NY newspaper this morning, it seemed too close to home to neglect to post.

Yes, schools ARE cutting back athletic programs -- but not just on the interscholastic level, like Pine Plains. They are also yielding to budgetary concerns and cutting back throughout the schools. You can bet that if the Pine Plains school district is cutting back their interscholastic sports, there is little money in the budget for badminton birdies, ping pong balls, volleyball nets, or for the people who bring tools like these into the presence of the kids.

When schools -- and government in general -- falls short, there is both an opportunity and an obligation for churches to help.

Certainly not just soccer!

2008-07-27T18:55:00.004-04:00

While we're very proud of the kids who have developed their soccer skills in our Summer Soccer program, we're now beginning to think that perhaps we're making a bit of a mistake by confining our efforts to soccer.

Likely due to the economy, we're seeing the local travel soccer team unable to fill what are normally two very popular age levels: U-12 girls and U-12 boys. There simply won't be a team for the few U-12 girls who tried out, because there's already a full team of U-14 girls. The few U-12 boys will get to play up with the U-14s, and thereby we will have a U-14 boys team.

With families pulling back on expenses like travel soccer, we also see them pulling back on activities that might lead to future expenditures on travel soccer. And, as a result, our attendance has been off this summer.

Today, I asked the kids what they thought we should do. (By the way, asking the kids is always a good idea in this kind of thing. We'll go so far as to say that if you do NOT ask the kids, you are setting yourself up for failure bigtime. But that's another post.)

The little kids didn't have much in the way of opinions. One six year old girl suggested football, and a five year old boy agreed with her.

The big kids were more forthcoming. Lacrosse (one girl said it is the fastest growing youth sport in America right now) was a popular suggestion. So was beach volleyball. So were ordinary volleyball, badminton, horseshoes, and ... soccer.

Anyway, we're floating a trial balloon on this one, both inside the parish and outside it. Namely: what do you say that we call it Summer SPORTS at Trinity Lime Rock next summer, and we do what most people want to do each Sunday?

Where do YOU think we are going to go with this?

Here's an add-on

2008-07-23T10:53:00.004-04:00

No, this post isn't specifically about kids and sports and church. Instead, it's about having a church that's sufficiently open to the idea of sports that it can not just accept the notion that sports are good for kids, and what's good for kids is also good for church, but expand on that as well.

In the photo above, Emily DiMartino is honored during the main Sunday worship service for winning the gold medal in the 1500 meter speed walk for women age 60-69 in the US Transplant Games for 2008. Emily took the opportunity to ask the congregation to complete organ donor cards -- a great way to continue giving after one's death; what a great living illustration of the Golden Rule!

(Thanks to John Lloyd for the photo!)

NOT a loss leader

2008-07-12T19:41:00.003-04:00

For anyone who feels that having enough space for kids to do sports is simply a matter of spending money on the undeserving, let me offer a good example of how churches can have open space that's used for sports for kids and have it make a contribution to the bottom line as well.

Here's the link.

You see, here at Trinity, we let Lime Rock Park use our field (that tomorrow morning will be occupied by kids playing soccer) for overflow parking for their racing events. As the blog post linked shows, they had a very good day today, and they compensate us on a per car basis for cars that they park in our field. They also maintain the field for us! Good people, and we are happy to have the racers and their fans as part of our extended ministry.

Try looking around your place and see where you have some space that could do double -- or triple -- duty!!

Cholestrol and Kids

2008-07-10T06:45:00.003-04:00

Well, we're not pediatricians or scientists, but we do know a thing or two about getting kids into the habit of regular, vigorous physical exercise.

No, we're not the athletic director of a school. We run a soccer program for kids at a CHURCH!

And, we are very happy to welcome kids as young as four years old.

As the New York Times (and lots of other media as well) have pointed out recently, it's an important thing to do. Here's a permalink to the: Times editorial. Not surprisingly, the Times recommends that the schools take responsibility for this.

But, why leave this important mission to the schools? Churches -- at least some churches -- can actually do it just as well or even better. Can yours?

Thank God we are not in Greenwich!

2008-07-10T06:34:00.003-04:00

Interesting!

I never suspected that a town in the same state where we're located would be quite so hostile to kids and sports.

Well, the citizens of the "diamond of the Gold Coast", Greenwich, CT, cannot find it within themselves to let teenagers play wiffleball on town-owned land.

Here's the permalink from the New York Times article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/nyregion/10towns.html?ex=1373428800&en=3a8a02a8cafa6c8e&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Is there anything that churches (of any denomination) can do about it? They really ought to try!

When the wealthiest, most privileged kids in our nation cannot indulge in pick-up sports, there is emphatically an opportunity for churches to step into the gap.

What the competition is doing

2008-06-05T18:40:00.002-04:00

QUOTE:
Separate is our Youth Room space which is Jr. High & High School. This is an awesome space with a climbing wall, zipline, stage built out of the side of an old school bus, pool table, foosball, arcade machine, air hockey, half court basketball, and two 42" LCD TV's with two Wii's.
END QUOTE

The above paragraph came from a description of youth programs for Junior High and High School ages in an evangelical church.

Are you clergy or lay management in a mainstream Protestant church?

Consider this as a good minimum in designing new spaces for young people. NOT more classrooms.

Exercise for teen girls prevents cancer later on

2008-05-20T16:40:00.004-04:00

After the depressing NYTimes article about teenage girls who damage their knees (particularly) in competitive sports, I've had my eyes out for news that indicates that vigorous physical activity might have some offsetting benefits for this population.

I was glad to find a study cited that indicates that pre-menopausal cancers among women who had been physically active as teenagers are more than 25% less frequent than among women who had been sedentary as teens.

Here's the permalink to the article.

Perhaps there's a middle way that churches ought to consider -- especially for girls: something between encouraging/coercing girls to sit quietly with their hands demurely folded in their laps (this typically "churchy girl" behavior is correlated with increased frequency of cancer) and the other extreme, playing on three travel soccer teams simultaneously (this "girl jock" behavior causes increased risk of ACL tears).

The middle way is called "fun sports for teens", especially teen girls.

What's YOUR church doing about this? We would love to hear!

Good Grief! Another Episcopal Church Does Sports!

2008-05-19T07:33:00.005-04:00

Well, after three years of thinking that our little parish church was the only church and sports game in town, so to speak, with our summer soccer program, I learned this morning that there is a parish church -- yes, a parish church in the Diocese of Connecticut, where we are -- that actually fields a cricket team.

That church is St. John's Stamford and I am glad to see they are doing this. After running through their website, however, I didn't see anything in terms of sports that they do for kids. (They do have kids in their parish; witness their Sunday school programs and their Christmas Pageant -- they just don't do sports with them.)

Now, having worked in Stamford for a few years, I can understand why St. John's does not have a soccer program. Stamford is a renascent small city on Connecticut's Gold Coast, and there are already plenty of opportunistic soccer coaches down there driving BMWs and lining their pockets. St. John's is located very close to Stamford Town Center, definitely a high-end mall. It's not your standard inner city parish. And they are also creative enough to host the Stamford Model Railroad Club in their undercroft!

But one does wonder if there isn't something, no matter how obscure, in the world of sports that a parish like St. John's could do for kids that would benefit both the young people of Stamford -- and St. John's as well.

By the way, thanks to The Coracle for this lead! At one time in my life, I found myself keeping score for cricket matches on Staten Island, so this resonated for other reasons as well. (Interesting that to keep score in cricket you don't need to know a silly mid off from a fast bowler, but that's another post.)

Girls and soccer...

2008-05-08T19:09:00.004-04:00

The New York Times magazine section has a thoughtful article about injury rates in elite female athletes. It's long, but definitely worth reading. Here's the permalink to the article.

It seems to me that the last thing we want to do when introducing sports to church is provide yet another opportunity for girls to over-commit. There's a whole lot to say in favor of sports for kids being fun -- instead of a "do or die" phenomenon that the soccer industry has made it in many parts of the country.

People frequently ask me if I am planning on a future soccer team of Trinity Lime Rock players -- making our fun summer Sunday morning soccer into something more "serious".

My answer is an emphatic NO.

And our fourth summer of soccer starts in just a month!

More about "more about"

2008-04-25T12:35:00.001-04:00

Here's the link to the Time magazine article...

More about girls and physical activity

2008-04-25T12:29:00.002-04:00

We keep seeing more and more evidence of the importance of girls remaining physically active into their teens (and beyond). The linked article in Time magazine is just one example.

Significant (but understated) in this article is another point: that some kid sports are so over-orchestrated that the kids simply do not know how to play. It's true: every summer we find that the kids don't seem to be able to divide themselves up into teams and scrimmage; they seem to stand around waiting for an adult to accomplish this for them.

Anyone got any suggestions?

Preparing for What?

2008-03-12T08:15:00.007-04:00

Occasionally, even in our really small (comparatively) church summer soccer program we find ourselves in conversations with moms and dads whose children are with us for only one reason: to get mileage, in hopes they will eventually get an athletic scholarship.

The New York Times has been running an important series about athletic scholarships, and the lives they impose on their holders, particularly in Division I NCAA colleges. It's emphatically worth reading, especially if you find yourself occasionally (or frequently) in contact with parents (or kids) with athletic scholarship aspirations.

Two things the series make clear: (1) unless you're in one of the marquee sports, like basketball or football, full scholarships are very, very uncommon. Thus, there will also be major expenses associated with college. (Some people seem unaware of this, sadly). (2) an athletic scholarship is a job, and a very demanding one.

Questions that remain (at least so far) in my mind:

(1) given that division III NCAA colleges cannot give athletic scholarships as such but that there may still be a connection between a scholarship and athletic (or musical or artistic or whatever) prowess, how do expectations at division III schools compare with the bleak picture the articles paint of scholarship athletes' lives at division I schools? (As a lacrosse player many years ago at a division III school who did not have a scholarship, I suspect this question needs to be asked today as the experience of 45 years ago probably isn't representative of today's world.)

(2) what about private secondary schools that provide pretty much undisguised athletic scholarships? (In this case, I have a special concern about kids who may find themselves playing hurt just so they can continue their education even when they may only be in 9th grade or thereabouts.)

Glad to have thoughs or input on either of these questions.

What has this got to do with church? If you are involved with church and kids and sports, you'll get into this topic sooner or later. Might as well be informed on it in advance.

Being in the world - a hint

2008-03-06T19:00:00.003-05:00

Frequently, people planning church activities for young people are guilty of a standard church error: talking to themselves -- assuming that everyone speaks church lingo, and plans their family life around the church year and church functions.

Fact is, if you really want to be IN the world, you've got to get out of that habit -- and this particularly applies to activities for young people, most especially sports.

When we set up our summer soccer program, one of the first considerations was when spring soccer ended and when fall soccer started. (It pretty much goes without saying, I think, that no one serious about soccer is going to skip a championship game of spring soccer to attend summer "fun soccer", nor are they about to skip the first game -- or even first practices -- of fall soccer.)

Next, we worked around the "for profit" soccer camps. We had no interest in competing with them (and, when we started out, we weren't much competition anyway) because we would much prefer to be working with them. We learn from them, we share kids with them, we even share instructors with them! It's a great opportunity.

Then we focused on the fact that many families, particularly those where both parents work outside the home, plan their children's summers in February. There are practical reasons for this. It's a matter of scheduling -- if Junior is going off on some kind of international work-study program, you will want to plan your family trip to a vacation spot with the dates of that program in mind. Of course the most desirable summer programs fill up early, so families have a great incentive to commit for the summer by the end of February, and certainly no later than mid-March.

If you really want to spread your net wide, you need to at least announce, and ideally be accepting registrations for, any programs that hope to attract an audience from outside your own church.

Accept walk-ons later? Sure!!

Encourage people who attend the program to bring their friends next week? Definitely!!

But if you fail to get out to the larger community -- the world -- about a summer program that's hoping to attract outsiders before April, you're going to miss the audience that sets the trends.

Lent notwithstanding.

Transformation of purpose

2008-02-21T09:27:00.003-05:00

I have to admit that where my head is now regarding church and kids and sports is not where it was when I started this blog.

As I recall it, back then, my objective was to dignify the Sunday School kids we already had with an activity they could call their own, and one that they could do with a minimum of adults sniping at them (or worse) when they did not behave in a suitably churchy, prissy manner.

Well, we got that pretty well done.

Evangelism -- you know, bringing in new church members (or church member families) then seemed to me to be the correct orientation for church and kids and sports. After all, this is the rationale most Evangelicals use for their "sports ministries" or "recreation ministries". Actually, I'm not surprised that I fell into that trap briefly, because all the current literature about church and kids and sports is oriented in that direction. It's a little bit like a Bowery mission: get the bums in the door with the promise of a free meal, but once they're in the mission, they still have to sit there and listen to a sermon in order to get that free meal. And sometimes that free meal was not forthcoming -- hence the expression "pie in the sky" -- as in "You'll get pie in the sky when you die."

The idea of corralling kids with the promise of soccer in order to preach at them seems dishonest at best and unchristian at least. It's not something I've ever been comfortable with, and I suspect that the fear of being preached at would be a profound negative for any program in a mainline church that combined church and kids and sports.

Where I am now is that whatever we do in terms of church and kids and sports (beside keeping the Sunday School kids entertained during their downtime) needs to be cast in the role of Outreach. You know, doing something for other people that you don't expect to be paid back for.

Interestingly, a recent post on an excellent blog called "Small Membership Churches" -- the link is http://smallepiscopalchurch.blogspot.com/ mentioned a list of books for small Episcopal churches that would be useful to them. There was a book on worship in the small church, another on evangelism, another on spiritual leadership, another on christian education, and another on administration. All these are important topics, no question about that.

Interestingly, there was no book in the series about Outreach. I don't think I'm reading too much into this when I see this as evidence that small churches are interested almost entirely in themselves.

There's a good chance that there's an excellent reason why they are small. Think of people you personally know -- are one or more of them almost entirely self-involved? If yes, are the self-involved people the ones you want to be around? Of course not!! Self-involved people are boring at best!!

It's exactly the same for self-involved churches!!

So, from now on, Church and Kids and Sports is going to focus on sports and recreation as an extraordinary opportunity for OUTREACH.

Think about it.

Benefits of Sports at Church

2007-12-26T08:45:00.000-05:00

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...

2007-10-24T15:25:00.000-04:00

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....

2007-09-25T13:07:00.000-04:00

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 --

Joining Technorati

2007-09-25T08:15:00.000-04:00

Technorati Profile

The WRONG answer

2007-08-09T16:03:00.000-04:00

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

2007-07-29T18:18:00.000-04:00

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

2007-07-29T16:06:00.000-04:00

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

2007-07-21T14:47:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-07-21T14:39:00.000-04:00

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

2007-07-21T14:19:00.001-04:00

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?

2007-07-04T08:53:00.001-04:00

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

2007-07-01T16:37:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-21T20:59:00.000-04:00

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....

2007-06-09T16:01:00.000-04:00

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

2007-04-11T18:28:00.000-04:00

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

2007-03-15T17:39:00.000-04:00

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

2007-02-22T20:24:00.000-05:00

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?

2007-02-11T21:00:00.001-05:00

Take a peek, folks. I really liked it.

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

National Football League versus God

2007-02-06T11:47:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-26T15:06:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-23T08:53:00.000-05:00

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!

2007-01-04T14:44:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-02T14:23:00.000-05:00

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?

2007-01-01T17:27:00.000-05:00

"...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.

Churches that do it right, example #1

2006-12-30T16:58:00.000-05:00

This article is particularly intended to outrage mainstream protestant clergy in the Northeast.

To most of them, the idea that young people should be permitted to do ANYTHING physical at church is anathema (hope I spelled that right), and that if they do happen to be permitted to do something physical, that the activity could possibly be COMPETITIVE is somewhere beyond anathema.

Starting with this post, I'll provide some cases of churches that do it right (I've already said a little about the Methodist Church of Liberty, NY -- sorry they do not have a website, although they do have a gymnasium).

The next example is the First Cumberland Presbyterian Church of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Please take this link to view the main page of their youth group on their church website.

Yes, I mean it. Please DO look at that page, and do it now. (There will be a quiz.)

Have you looked yet?

Really, please look before we go on. I'll wait.

Okay, I understand that "Cumberland Presbyterian" is a little on the edge of mainstream protestantism.

However, I will say that I know a little about this particular congregation because my wife grew up in it. She's fond of referring to them as "the high church Anglican Cumberland Presbyterians" -- they have a magnificent structure, a three manual pipe organ that can blow you through the (masonry -- wife's father was also the masonry contractor for this job) back wall, and lots of other "stuff" that would work pretty well in most mainstream protestant denominations.

You can read about their main worship space here.

And they have a six lane Olympic swimming pool, as well as lighted tennis courts, and a playground.

"Yes, but that's down South!"

And so it is. But, in a city with a church on virtually every corner, these folks seat 1000 in their sanctuary, and come pretty close to filling it regularly.

So, mainstream protestant clergy in the northeast, can YOU do that?

Of course you can't.

Trying RSS syndication

2006-12-29T18:01:00.000-05:00

It occurred to us that, if we don't tell anyone about this particular blog, it's unlikely anyone will ever find it.

So, we've signed up for RSS syndication. Let's see how it works!

John Ernhout and Basketball

2006-12-27T16:35:00.000-05:00

Likely I've given the impression so far that if mainline protestant clergy would simply embrace sports it would be clear sailing.

'taint so, I'm afraid.

I remember, when I was a very small boy, my father came home from work absolutely fuming about this fellow whom I knew as John Ernhout -- which was his name.

I knew that Mr. Ernhout went to our Liberty Methodist Church, and I had really only two impressions of him: first, that he was old (like about 70), and second, that every thing about him was starched. I cannot remember what his face looked like, but I can recall clearly that his white shirt was extraordinarily stiff. In retrospect, he probably had his underpants starched.

My father was fuming because Mr. Ernhout had evidently been overcome with religious zeal and, with a sidekick of his, had removed the basketball backboards from Memorial Hall, carried them to the back lawn of the church, chopped them up with an axe, and burned them.

I cannot say exactly why Mr. Ernhout committed this zealous act of vandalism, but I can theorize that he had concluded that young people were committing the sin of having FUN by playing basketball, and that while fun was bad enough wherever it took place, when it took place in a church-owned structure it was completely unacceptable. Thus, he may have reasoned, he was called to eliminate the root of the fun, namely the basketball backboards.

One supposes that, while chopping and burning, Mr. Ernhout envisioned himself as one of the Old Testament prophets.

However, sanity did prevail. Ernhout and his sidekick, while not ostracized in the church, were at least marginalized. New basketball backboards were in time fabricated (although they were not as handsome as the ones Ernhout had chopped up and burned) and hung on the end walls of the tiny gymnasium.

And, in fact, basketball was again played in that little church gym -- albeit with a new sense of insecurity, the realization that mean-spirited people could, at their whim, in the name of mainstream protestant religion, abolish joy.

Where I got the idea....

2006-12-23T21:17:00.000-05:00

Back in Liberty, New York, in Sullivan County, in the Catskill Mountains, where I grew up, there was a Methodist Church.

In the picture on the right, the church itself is on the right side. On the left was nothing short of a stroke of genius: something called "Memorial Hall".

Back in the 1890s or thereabouts, a local family decided to memorialize a family member by building what we today might call an "all-purpose building" for their church. This turned out to be Memorial Hall. In the basement it had five Sunday School rooms (kinda depressing for adults, but kids liked them fine). On the first floor it had a requirement of the day, a "ladies parlor", a church office, a kitchen -- and a very small BASKETBALL COURT. Really, it was not much bigger than a standard volleyball court. On the second floor it had three larger Sunday School rooms, a balcony around the basketball court (with shuffleboard layouts painted in the open space and a ping pong table or two).

That's it. No olympic swimming pool, no hockey rink, no playground.

None of the other churches in the town had anything remotely like it.

And the Methodists ate their lunch (and I do not mean at church suppers).

There was once an Episcopal Church in the town. Being fairly astute, their Vestry realized that they could not compete with their offspring denomination and closed their church, joining with another Episcopal church in nearby Monticello. The Lutherans were, for the most part, German-speaking, and, although they had occasional bursts of revival, were really just old people. The Baptists were not of much consequence. I didn't know any kids growing up who were Baptist, and that says a lot. The Presbyterians were decent competition -- but only because the denomination send a string of really high-powered young ministers to that congregation who did a heroic job retaining kids (many of whom showed up at Methodist Youth Fellowship on Sunday nights on a regular basis).

Really, the Roman Catholics were the only gentile competition the Methodists had, particularly for the young people of the community. St. Peter's, however, had two priests -- the younger of whom was invariably a really good athlete and liked kids. They had their own parochial school for grades K - 8.

Ecumenism was not an important concept in the 1950s -- yet a few Roman Catholic kids actually attended Methodist Youth Fellowship, and the CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) regularly invited the MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship) to go along when they chartered a bus to go roller skating or to Palisades Park or for some other suitable amusement not available in the small town of Liberty.

I can think of one -- and only one -- reason why the Methodist Church in Liberty thrived while the other churches struggled: Memorial Hall, with its grotty little basketball court.

Fast forward

2006-12-22T15:25:00.000-05:00

Just so everyone knows that everything has turned out okay so far, I thought I should put up a couple of pictures from the 2006 season of Trinity Lime Rock's Summer Soccer.

The picture on your left was taken in early July. The kids are a couple of the 8 year olds who participated for most of the summer.

The shirts were the generous gift of a parishioner who seemed to intuitively understand what I was trying to do with the whole idea of summer soccer. The kids really REALLY liked the shirts.

The balls were not intended to be color-coordinated, it was just that soccer.com had that particular color on sale when I concluded that I definitely needed some more size five soccer balls, since the kids had very quickly realized that there was no percentage in bringing their own ball to the sessions.

The picture on your right was taken at one of the sessions in mid-August. The truck isn't intended to be color-coordinated either; it happened that when my wife bought it, it was the color that the dealer had in stock from the previous model year and she got it cheap.

In our little parish church, the fact that as many kids were present on a Sunday in August as you see on the truck represented a fair approximation of history being made.

Anyway, now that you know that we have achieved a measure of success so far, you should also know that in future posts I will be talking about:

1. How we got from zero kids per Sunday in the summer to the group on the truck in only fourteen months

and

2. Why mainstream protestant clergy are generally bemused -- if not stunned -- when I tell them about Summer Soccer at Trinity and why it is GOOD.

Why this blog....

2006-12-22T14:16:00.000-05:00

Four or so years ago I found myself running the Christmas Pageant at our small, rural Episcopal Church, located in Northwest Connecticut, Trinity Lime Rock. The fact that I was running the pageant was largely happenstance: I had been photographing it for a couple of years for the parish website, and when the previous pageant director moved along, I was the logical person to attempt to pick up the pieces and continue the pageant tradition. At least I knew all the kids by name; likely I was the only person in the church who did.

The most obvious thing I noticed is that we had about 25 kids in the pageant, and maybe a fifth that many regular attendees in the Sunday School. But, praise God, I did not get saddled with the Sunday School in addition to the pageant, so for the most part I put that uncomfortable fact out of my mind. Lousy Sunday School attendance was NOT my problem; it was somebody else's.

When the next summer came around, I noticed that even these "faithful five" gradually disappeared. A couple showed up for church the first Sunday after Sunday School had stopped for the summer, but they didn't make that mistake again.

That winter I ran the pageant again. Once more, about 25 kids in the pageant, versus five in the Sunday School. Again, come summer, even those kids vanished.

At the same time, we were deliberating in the parish about what use we should be making of our "Trinity Field". This was a flat, well-drained former hayfield and former (like in the 1890s) bicycle racetrack, located right behind the church. The church had sagely acquired it a decade before, and aside from providing overflow parking for Lime Rock Park, across the street from the church, had made little use of it.

When late spring 2005 rolled around, one of the kids (who had been Virgin Mary in the Pageant the past Christmas, and who was one of the few regular Sunday School attendees) told me during parish coffee hour that she really loved soccer, and she wished we could play it at church. Courtney, thank you for that insight.

Within a few hours of that remark a thought occurred to me. Yes, I know that thoughts are supposed to occur instantaneously, but this one did not. It took a little while.

Here it was: we could have the Sunday School play soccer during the summer instead of scattering. After all, we had a field, and we had at least one motivated kid, and even though my soccer experience dated back more than 50 years at least I had some -- so all we really needed was a soccer ball -- and the permission of the Rector to do such an unorthodox thing as have Summer Sunday School Soccer.

I'll post this and continue the chronology in the next post.