Equine Academy at Lexington Catholic

Just saw this linked from the US Pony Clubs' Facebook page.  It appears that Lexington Catholic -- presumably a parochial school in Lexington, KY -- has decided to capitalize on their co-location with the Kentucky Horse Park and a variety of other equine facilities by offering a high school equestrian program, called, appropriately, the Equine Academy at Lexington Catholic.  

It sounds like a great idea to me.   Knowing the Lexington KY area a little bit, it almost seems like such an obvious opportunity for real synergy that a program like this should have been in place forever! 

So here's the question:  are there any other church-affiliated high schools that could benefit from a link-up with a preeminent sports facility that happens to be local?  Possibly one in your area? 

Worth circulating to kids in your sports program

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.

The more things change....

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 --