It’s hard to believe not just another year is over, but another decade! 2019 was another great year for Skybacher Ministries with it’s own set of challenges and triumphs!
We continued to host large group outreaches in the form of 5 different sports tournaments – Cosmic Clash blacklight dodgeball, 3-on-3 Basketball Slamrock, Pumpkin Blast Dodgeball, Flag Football Cereal Bowl, Good Stuff Volleyball, and the Broomball Blizzard. The tournaments were all well attended, and continue to bring out students from the surrounding school districts but mainly Freedom Area. Each tournament had a message from the word of God, and I personally felt reenergized by the response of the students.
Other big events included our annual Someone Special Dance, the Dinner Auction, and the Rubber Duck Derby. All continue to be very productive community events as well as fundraisers for the ministry.
In terms of elementary sports we continue to host our 6 summer sports camps with attendance larger and more diverse than ever. We also have had our largest pool of staff over the past two years. It has been amazing to see students get what the vision for the camps are and use their gifts and abilities to help future generations! Good stuff! We also continue our Hangtime Basketball program – We took a step back as many of the larger things were passed onto the boys varsity basketball program but we felt there was still a need to give students after school programming. It led to a much more organized and focussed Hangtime Basketball program for students as we just focused on teaching Biblical Virtues and Basic Fundamentals of basketball.
Every Sunday we continue to have our open gym outreach and prayer – Pray & Play – the attendance in different seasons wavered between 15-30 but there were always students with things to pray for! Kristie and Lindsay continued to host a very influential Girls Group with students from the volleyball, soccer, and basketball teams.
As we head into 2020 we look forward to new things God has in store – we are laying down ideas of hosting video game outreaches, as the esports circuit continues to grow. We also have plans to host a spring after-school futsal (indoor soccer) program called Kickin’ It. We of course can’t wait for another summer of the sports camps. We continue to believe for a place to call home that regular sports ministry can take place on a daily basis.
Finally pray for us. When we first started Skybacher Ministries 16 years ago there was very little sports choices. You either played for your high school team or you didn’t and if you didn’t the most you could hope for was some sports time in gym class. Now there is an explosion of sports and competitive culture! We are trying to see where and how we fit into all of that while maintaining an influence of Christ in All Things. Students today (including our own) might have some sporting event every single night of the week. How do we as a sports/youth/family ministry convince students and families that spiritual development is just as important if not more so than physical and athletic development. (Wow! my Higher Education Masters is kicking in right now!) Any ways pray for us!
Finally one other crazy thing of 2019 was seeing some of the small fruits of our labor. The primary goal of Skybacher Ministries was to bring the gospel to students using the avenue of sports. But in that it was always a hope that students would learn to love and value sports as a gift and to strive for excellence. Our kids have grown up doing every camp, every tournament, every week of Pray & Play, and every team we’ve coached, their entire lives. Often times what we do isn’t taken very seriously or labeled as just fun & games. That’s fine for people to think that but not necessarily accurate as we have been in the game for a long time and understand many of the traps when it comes to sports and sports culture. This year we were able to see all of those many hours come to fruition as many noticed the gifts and talents of our three oldest thru high school soccer and now high school basketball – what a blessing to see them use the gifts and talents He has blessed them with to bring Him the glory! We thank God for those moments and the moments where we get to watch them and others shine His light as they teach someone how to kick a ball, or shoot a basketball! Praise Him!