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This story available online:

www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2009/09173<http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2009/09173

>Hot wheels

Skateboarding ministry revitalizes Cimarron Presbytery
congregation

>by Toya Richards Hill
>Special to Presbyterian News Service

Editor's note: This is the fifth in a series of stories
about congregations engaged in significant outreach and
evangelism ministries, reflecting the General Assembly's
commitment to "Grow Christ's Church Deep and Wide."
[www.pcusa.org/deepandwide] ― Jerry L. Van Marter

LOUISVILLE ― Several years ago, unbeknownst to them, the
members of First United Presbyterian Church
[http://guthriepresbyterian.com/index.html] of Guthrie, OK,
had the very group they desired to include in their
congregation right in their midst.

Members were keenly aware that the church lacked the
presence and vitality of young people that it needed to
thrive, and they voiced a concern to their new pastor at
the time, the Rev. Karen Rogers.

"They kept saying, 'Where are the youth?'" Rogers said her
parishioners asked her repeatedly after her arrival in
2002.

About the same time, Rogers said she began noticing a group
of kids gathering after school in the church parking lot.
She could hear the kids outside her study window and they
were skateboarding.

These were the same kids the town had shut out with a
no-skateboarding ordinance on downtown streets, and even
the church had sent them a message by erected signs
proclaiming no skateboarding on church property, Rogers
said.

So, one Sunday morning, the pastor said she challenged the
congregation in her sermon to do something differently.
Rogers said she told them, "You want to know where the
youth are, they're out in our parking lot, and you keep
wanting to shoo them away."

"I challenged them that Sunday to pray for the
skateboarders each day for one week," she said. "I thought,
that is something that they could do."

Rogers also took the initiative to reach out to the
skateboarders herself, inviting them to come visit the
church's tiny youth group. No one came at first, she said,
but eventually a couple skateboarders came in.

Then, over time, "more and more skateboarders started
showing up and coming into youth group," Rogers said of the
youngsters, many of whom came from broken families and were
essentially unchurched.

Those small steps of prayer and reaching out slowly evolved
into what is now a vibrant youth ministry at First United
Presbyterian Church, which has fewer than 100 members.
Today skateboarders and non-skateboarders alike make up the
congregation's youth ministry, which has grown from word of
mouth and averages some 21 kids, Rogers said.

"The youth group has completely transformed," she said.
And, in the last six months "I have baptized ... 11 of the
kids."

What has happened at First United Presbyterian Church gives
Cimarron Presbytery [www.cimarronpresbytery.org] insights
into other ways to reach out to the community and grow the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) deeper and wider, said
Executive Presbyter James Bellatti.

"It's appropriate to reach out to unchurched people in the
community," he said. "That was what Jesus called us to do."

Rogers said food became a connecter and an integral part of
the youth ministry, with the group sharing meals and
learning the value of gathering together around the table.
"We realized that a way to minister to them was to feed
them," Rogers said.

"We ended up teaching them how to eat as a family," she
said. Also, "we were able to start teaching these kids to
cook."

Members of the congregation joined in, preparing meals or
donating money for food, she said.

Other efforts occurred, including the congregation's
Presbyterian Women (PW) donating money to build skating
ramps on land the town converted into a skate park.

"These young people have brought joy back into First United
Presbyterian Church of Guthrie, and that was one of my
prayers years ago when I first got here," Rogers said.

She said the youth also give immensely and are "very, very
committed."

Anything going on at the church "they are right in there,"
Rogers said. The youth help set up tables for
congregational meals or PW special events, are in the
kitchen washing dishes, have been involved with the
deacon's ministry, and "they put money in the offering
plate every single Sunday," she said.

For the last four years "we couldn't have had Vacation
Bible School without them," Rogers said. "They have been
just involved in every aspect of the church."

On top of all that, the pastor said, "it's a solid
ministry." The kids have said, "We know that we are loved
here and that there is more to church than just a place to
make friends."

The youth are diligently studying the Bible, applying it in
their lives and providing spiritual discipline for other
kids, Rogers said.

Bellatti said other churches in the presbytery are taking a
look at First United Presbyterian as they try to get their
congregations to think "out of the box."

"Sometimes it is very easy to be ... complacent about my
religion, my church," he said. But, "I think anything that
makes us look at something a different way is important.

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