Has it really been five years?

Has It Really Been Five Years?

Well, the answer, I guess, is that it has!

Remarkably, Sunday School at Trinity Lime Rock -- what we were talking about a few years ago -- is still a going concern.  We have continued to operate 52 weeks a year (more or less -- we always have a couple of unplanned "no days" a year when there are simply no kids in the building.  The routine is still Sunday School on Sunday mornings during the normal school year, plus Summer Sports during the Summer months, when nobody has Sunday School.  Some months we have a Youth Sunday, when there's no Sunday School but when the kids are in church, and depending on who gets cold feet any particular Youth Sunday, we may have kids assisting as Ushers, doing the readings, and even serving at the altar.

We started keeping a count of how many people under the age of 18 were present in the building each Sunday morning.  The number isn't exactly huge, but when you compare it with the attendance of young people at other houses of worship in our area, it is downright spectacular.  Young people in our area do not have much to do with church anymore, sadly.

We count ourselves lucky.  We work on encouraging the kids we have, and we encourage them to take more and more responsibility, both for themselves at church, and for telling us how they want church to interact with them.  They surprise us regularly.

For example, the previous tranche of kids thought that the red streamers that come out every Pentecost were hopelessly uncool.  This group thinks they are great.

And we see some interest in sports!  Here are some of the kids running towards the soccer pitch of bygone years.  It was great to see, and we hope that someday we're back with a virtual mob scene on the soccer field!  We are definitely not giving up!

Building a facility?

The photo above is the "Ladies Parlor" at one of the most successful all-purpose buildings that I've seen.  I'm posting it as a reminder that, while readers of this blog almost certainly are focused on the volleyball court, or basketball court, or indoor go-cart track, or swimming pool or hockey rink that a church might construct al all-purpose building to house, that you will get a whole lot farther in getting your project done if you consider all your constituencies.

At Trinity Lime Rock we're in a growth phase (yes, I know that mainstream congregations are supposed to be shrinking rather than growing, especially in New England) and the notion of building an all-purpose building probably has more possibility behind it now than it had a decade ago when I originally proposed one almost as a joke.   Additionally, because so many parishes are closing, it's currently viewed as a bit irreverent to suggest new construction.

However, at present our Sunday School is outgrowing their facility, and the choir has seriously outgrown theirs.  Our art program would be scheduling additional shows were it not for a conflict over the available space with Crescendo, the regional chorus that we spawned about eight years aog.  Our sports program seems to be growing even faster, and we keep coming up with community  activities that we could do if we only had the facility to do them in.  So we're actually in a position of needing to re-thing space utilization.

The Ladies Parlor in the photo was likely a fundamental requirement of Memorial Hall of the Liberty Methodist Church, in Liberty, NY, when it was constructed; as much so as the kitchen or the Sunday school rooms, or the basketball court/volleyball court/space for parish dinners.   While the building was largely the gift of one local family, it doubled the church's footprint, and it needed to deal with the needs of the entire church community -- including, back then, a place for the elderly ladies of the congregation to do whatever elderly ladies do in a Ladies Parlor. 

My personal recollection of this room was that was where I attended Methodist Youth Fellowship (yes, teenagers WERE involved in that church -- likely due to the athletic facilities it had).  Behind the sliding doors at the back of this room (see photo) is the basketball court.  Interestingly, even though the building was already a little long in the tooth by the time I became familiar with it, I never saw those doors opened.  Clearly it was still an imperative that this concession to Victorian times remain separate and distinct.

And well it should have.  It was, after all, part of an all-purpose building.

Preventing obesity, redux

We're a little over half way through with the 8th summer of Summer Sports at Trinity Lime Rock, the enterprise that sparked this blog, so it's probably reasonable to provide some updates and commentary at this point.

First off, a comment about why we have Summer Sports at Trinity.  Although we've received favorable comments about how we're fighting back against organized youth sports that have violated the Sunday morning turf, it's not really what the program is about.  Sure, there's an element of that, but mostly that's not it.

Here's one thing that is:  lack of physical activity for kids today.  This article, from the Well blog in the New York Times, provides some statistics about even so mundane an activity as walking or biking to school, and the shocking infrequency with which it happens today.

So, here's one reason for Summer Sports at Trinity Lime Rock: we offer kids physical activity at least one day a week all summer long.  (Honestly, we also offer physical activity for the adults who participate, coaching, helping out, chaperoning, and so forth, but let's keep that our little secret, shall we?  We don't need to tell the adults that they're getting something out of this too.)

Even if your parish cannot mount a competitive soccer team, you can offer physical activity to kids.  That's worth a lot, a whole lot. 

Sexism and the IOC

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?

You CAN do this....

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?)

Certainly not just soccer!

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

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!)

Team Picture

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks, Marge!