Being in the world - a hint

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.