Winter Basketball Outreach Program
A program for 4th to 9th grade boys and girls to play basketball.
BEST SUITED FOR: Any Size Congregation
WHAT'S INVOLVED?
 | A gym or place to play basketball. |
| Requirement to play: Each child from our church is required to invite at least one unchurched child in order to play. We accept anyone into our program, it does not matter what their skill level is. Everyone is given equal playing time. |
| We run our program for seven Saturday mornings in January and February. The first Saturday we pick teams and practice. The following six Saturdays we have games. The children get colored T-shirts with our church name on them. The T-shirts are used to tell the two teams apart and also help publicize our program when they are worn to school or wherever. |
| Our Time Schedule: |
8:00 -
9:00 (4 & 5 grade boys) — full court
9:00 - 10:00 (6 & 7 grade boys) — full court
10:00 - 11:00 (4, 5 & 6 grade girls) — half court; (7, 8 & 9 grade
girls) — half court
11:00 - 12:00 (8 & 9 grade boys)
| Each hour includes 10 minutes of practice, 20 minutes of play, 5 minute half-time, 20 minutes of play and a 5 minute snack. |
| We have 10 coaches and 3 referees all from our church. Referees need to have a good working knowledge of the game. |
| Coaches should have some knowledge of the game, but more importantly develop good relationships with the children and treat each one fairly. |
| We have the referees explain all of their calls; so the children can learn from what they did wrong. |
| Unchurched children and their parents along with the children from our church who invited them along with their parents are encouraged to come and watch their children play. This enables relationships to be built and friendships to start, which may lead to them attending our church. |
| At the end of our program we have a free banquet for all the children who play and their parents to attend. We show slides of each child set to music at the banquet. These slides are taken by our photographer while the children were playing basketball. We also have a speaker which is usually one of our ministers give a 10 minute talk flavored with the gospel message. We also make parents aware of our other programs and worship times. We put donation baskets out at the banquet and usually receive enough money to cover the cost of the meal and partially cover the cost of the T-shirts. |
| After our fifth year, this program had approximately 80 children playing. We allow only ten players per team. |
| The snacks are provided each Saturday by different persons in our congregation. |
DO'S AND DON'TS
| DO.....follow the guidelines listed. |
| DO.....use persons familiar with the rules of basketball. |
COST: Banquet
Idea submitted by Dave Brubaker, Middle Creek Church of the Brethren.
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