Transformation of purpose

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.