lPastor Sean McNabb leads Orlando Colonial Church of the Nazarene, a congregation of about 50 regular attenders in the Central Florida District. The church hosted a football camp for neighborhood children in mid-June to test out the GOL 2010 global football evangelism emphasis before it officially kicks off at the General Assembly and Conventions in Orlando this summer. (Read more about GOL 2010)
Nazarene districts and churches around the world will follow suit during the next 12 months, building on the surging worldwide frenzy for football leading up to the World Cup in South Africa, June 2010.
Engage talked to McNabb on the first day of his church’s week-long football camp.
Engage: What convinced you to run a soccer camp this summer?
McNabb: Gary Hartke (director of global Nazarene Youth International) came and met with …myself and a couple others from our district and presented the idea of the GOL 2010 project, the whole idea behind it being to capitalize on the popularity of the World Cup games coming in 2010. So as we sat and listened to him I was intrigued by the fact that we could draw on that excitement…. I was also intrigued by the fact that it was not going to be necessarily a Church of the Nazarene project; however, it was the Church of the Nazarene doing it. It was a project that was going to be just Christian in nature— something to reach out to the communities, using the World Cup to do that.
Engage: Why did you believe a soccer camp could be an effective outreach tool for Orlando Colonial Church of the Nazarene?
McNabb: There is a large Hispanic population of students in our area and so within the Hispanic culture, soccer is a very big thing. We’re looking at the possibility of starting a Hispanic ministry within the church. I believe that because of the Hispanic population within the community, if we can tie into them through the GOL 2010, we may be able to create a base, or at least a core, with which to build on a Hispanic ministries within the church.
Engage: This week you are testing out the strategy you developed. Tell us how your first day went.
McNabb: It was a great first day. We had 30 kids enrolled. We have a field in front of our church so we wound up using that field, which actually worked very well. We had enough room to split the older kids from the younger kids. The majority of the entrants we got into the soccer camp are from the local community where we’re at and attend the elementary school across from the church.
(UPDATE: The camp drew a total of 55 participants, and 15 of the students accepted Christ.)
Engage: How did you implement the salvation story using the colors on the soccer balls?
McNabb: Each day we’ll take a color and address a color. Today we started with the color black during the time where we were all together.
To emphasize the colors on the balls, we separated the kids into teams and each team had a color. We only used four colors—not black. In order to mark the teams we bought wrist bands in those colors for the kids to wear that were on that particular team. Getting the little wrist bands actually worked very well. It was inexpensive and it did what it needed to do.
(UPDATE: 15 children invited Christ into their lives by the end of the one-week camp.)
Engage: How did parents react to what you were doing with the camp?
McNabb: I had given information to the parents this morning regarding the ball we’re using and what it represents and the whole purpose behind using that ball so they had the information in front of them so they didn’t think we were trying to do anything with the kids that they weren’t aware of.
God also opened the door for them asking questions about the colors on the ball. It gave the adults there having conversation with them (the chance) to witness to them and share with them.
The parents said, “We’ve never had our kids doing something like this. It’s always ‘Win, win, win,’ not, ‘Go out and have a good time with a great attitude.’”
I couldn’t have asked for a better situation than this.
Engage: Do you think the GOL 2010 strategy could work for other churches?
McNabb: One of the hardest things for me to do is utilize a program like this or get involved in a project like this because I think so often it’s designed toward larger groups and focusing on those groups. But this is exciting—Gary challenged us to figure out “How can you make it work in a multicultural church? How can you make it work in a small church? How does it work in a big church?”
We had members from another Nazarene church here in the Orlando area and we also partnered with what’s called Classical Conversations, a home-school coop. We all went together and coordinated everything.
It’s about learning how to partner for the kingdom.