Soccer league ends on a high

What a great night to crown the summer of soccer. We had a Bell rep come and present a $25,000 check to Youth Unlimited, 1/5 of which helped FAC and Youth Unlimited put on this low cost soccer league. It allowed us to make our field into a playable state, next year hopefulyl it will be in even better shape.

We also had a visit from two former Olympians who encouraged the kids to hold onto their dreams and not give up even if people told they would never make it.

The two final games the 3rd/4th place final went to a nail-biting shoot out. The final was pretty close until the last minute when the purple team scored their fourth goal to put them 4-2 up.

Medals and trophies were awarded and all the kids went home happy with a ball framed certificate and a soccer ball.

Sports and Kids

Christy over on Counting the days til Sunday highlights sports ministry as a place for us to learn from. As I coached Clayton's, my 8yr old son's, soccer team this summer I reflected on this as well. I didn't fully get the parent buy-in thing - but looking back there were parents there that made sure their kids were there and encouraged the kids. You could even tell the kids that had had practice at home during the week.

Of all the resources and opportunities that we've offered parents this year - the one that gets the most positive feedback was the 60-day Devotional - which the parents and kids are doing together. So it does seem that we have had some buy-in for that.

I'm glad becasue since we only see the kids for about 40 hours a year and the parents have so much more time - if we can help the parents use their time more regularly with their children to build spiritual champions - we all still win even if they don't buy into KIDSZONE and/or parent activities as much as they could.

So we want buy-in from the parents to KIDSZONE activities but the best buy-in is parents building spiritual champions at home.