Nailing Down the Basics

This past week, JSAW had 16 riders attend our beginner skate camp. Every day we would do everything from stretches, to clinics, to games. But the most important part of skate camp was our devotional time. Over the week, JSAW's coaches taught riders about the basics of faith. We shared our experience of how we have seen faith play an important role in both our riding and our lives covering five main topics.

These were as follows...

1. God Loves You

2. What Faith is and How it applies to skating and Jesus

3. Why it is important to read the Bible

4. What prayer is and how should we pray

5. Why the church/JSAW community is important to your faith

I gave my staff opportunities to teach these important topics to the young riders and was blown away by their efforts. At one time or another, they would ask me questions to clarify things, but overall they owned the teaching time. I sat back and watched them passionately share their hearts for Jesus and I was amazed to see how the riders responded to them. As we taught through each of these topics, we saw first hand changes in each of the riders. Everyone became more willing to take turns, more willing to talk with one another and on some occasions willing to celebrate someone winning instead of them.

One example I saw of this was when there was a rider who rolled their ankle at the end of the third day of camp. The next day, he sat alone on the bench unable to ride. But, because of The Holy Spirit at work, riders would sit and visit with him and I would see him light up with joy as he felt God's love through each of them. God moved through our efforts to teach these riders not only about skateboarding, but about our Savior and King.

In moments like these I am reminded of 2 Timothy 2:2, where the apostle Paul is instructing his young disciple Timothy how to make disciples. He says, "The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others." See, making disciples doesn't just impact one person, but multiple. In this example Paul lists four; Paul to Timothy, Timothy to reliable people, reliable people to others. As I instructed each of my staff on how to teach God's word, they were able to pass along God's word to each of these riders. Each of these riders now have the gospel seed planted in their life, and have the ability to pass it on to others.

This is what it looks like to make riders into disciples. We take every opportunity to share the message of the hope that we have found in Jesus. If you would like to help us make more riders into disciples, you can! We are actively looking for people to sponsor the riders we serve here. Sponsoring a rider goes a long way; everything from giving them free access to our skatepark to supplying them with a mentor. If you're interested in sponsoring a rider, please reach out or click the button below. Thank you!

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