Hope for Manhood
By Ruth Schenk | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Some might say Southeast member Jason Jackson is overqualified to coach a basketball team made up of urban teenagers. While living in California, he
coached high school teams and later a college team at California State University Stanislaus, which has a student body of more than 8,000.
But after moving to Louisville, joining Southeast and reading a story in The Outlook about a new outreach program with Youth for Christ, created for high school
athletes, Jackson decided coaching urban kids was the perfect serving opportunity for him.
“Coaching is my spiritual gift,” he said. “I volunteered and have been with City Life ever since. This is a chance to pour into these kids. What I’ve learned is these
kids deserve everything they get. It’s also a gut check for me. These kids hold me accountable. Eighteen eyes watch most everything I do. Coaching them is a
privilege.”
On the weekend of June 3 through 6, City Life coaches took 25 players to Country Lake Christian Retreat in Underwood, Ind., for a Hope for Manhood retreat.
Though their teams are chalking up victories in tournaments around the region, what they do week after week is about far more than basketball.
Basketball is a tool to share Christ.
Changing direction
Malik Carr reeled in a basket of bluegill as he explained how he became part of a City Life team. He heard about tryouts for the traveling team while playing a
pickup game of basketball at the Americana Apartments in South Louisville. He went to the tryout with his friend and was chosen for one of five teams.
Being part of City Life has been life-changing.
“I love playing basketball,” he said. “But it’s not just about the basketball. These coaches are forming us into good Christian men so we can grow up, live our
lives and teach our kids in the same way.”
Carr lives with his dad near Shawnee Park and attends St. Xavier High School, where he plays forward on the basketball team and tight end on the football team.
He was baptized last year and attends St. Stephen Church in West Louisville.
“City Life has given me good coaches like Chris Harper and Coach Jason Jackson who teach us how to live,” he said. “It’s hard when other kids are messing
with jails and stuff and you’re trying to read your Bible and form better relationships with people.”
Carr’s dream is to go to law school after college.
At Country Lake, players camped in wigwams, put on a basketball slam-dunking exhibition for a visiting 4-H group, went swimming and talked with coaches
while milling around bonfires. They heard testimonies from professional athletes and urban hip-hop performers, and they took classes in wilderness survival
and sexual purity.
For many of the teens at the retreat, it was a whole new world.
Targeting leaders
For many of the players, coaches are the only father figures in their lives.
Athletes in the program are 99 percent unchurched and attend public high schools such as Shawnee, Iroquois and Southern. They are natural leaders, and 99
percent play on their high school basketball or football teams.
The main goal of the program is to influence leaders for Christ so they can go back and share their faith with teammates. The discipleship plan is to “influence
the influencers.”
There are five teams with between 12 and 15 players on each team. Three teams travel to tournaments in cities such as Nashville and Indianapolis every other
weekend and also play in local leagues. When playing out of town, teams attend churches in the cities they visit, and players pray before games. Practices
always include devotions.