Some holy rollers at Seaforth have developed a unique way to reach out to youth.
James Goff’s inspiration for starting Skate Church at St Paul's, Seaforth came after watching a DVD about a skate church running in Portland, USA.
"After that, things grew quickly," James says.
The 26-year-old has been a Christian for about seven years but a skater since he was in high school and knows how hard it is to reach skaters with the gospel.
"The sorts of kids that skate aren't the sorts of kids who generally come to youth group. In skating, everyone's out for themselves and it's a tough culture to break into," James says.
"I knew if I wanted to preach the gospel to these kids, I had to take it to them. We couldn't just keep trying to bring them to our standard youth group."
St Paul’s jumps on board
James says St Paul's leaders were supportive of James' plans for a Skate Church.
"We met with the wardens and talked about it and they were happy to see something unique being done to reach out to young people," he says.
"The concerns about safety for people and property and insurance were taken care of and the parish council was really supportive. We built the ramps we needed and placed them in the church hall."
The first Skate Church meeting at Seaforth was held in July, 2006 with James and a friend leading.
"It was attended by three kids from the Seaforth youth group who skated. They brought four friends along. We skated for a while then talked about Jesus," James says.
James says the word about Skate Church has spread through the nearby Skate Parks and teenagers have been coming from all over the northern beaches and the upper north shore to attend the Saturday night meetings.
"We actually prayed for a time that it would not grow, because we didn't want it to get too big too quick," James says.
"We never advertised the group, but it spread through word of mouth and we now have about 150 kids on the roster with around 60 attending each week."
Rolling along
James runs two sessions of Skate Church on Saturday nights, from 4 to 6:30pm for primary-schoolers and 6 to 8:30pm for high-schoolers.
"We now have four of us leading. But it's not like a youth group where you have to be watching kids all the time.
“They just skate away for an hour, then we break for half an hour where we have a Bible reading, a talk, an interview with a new kid and some prayers. We finish with another hour of skating."
James sees Skate Church as a mission rather than a youth group.
"It's more set out to reach the kids out there rather than build up Christian kids already coming to a church,” James says.
“There are four boys there who are definitely Christian and we meet on Tuesdays for Bible study. With everyone else there, it's hard to tell at this stage.
But our hope is to funnel these kids into midweek Bible studies and it's already happened with two of them.”
James adds that one major challenge in expanding Skate Church is a lack of leaders.
“It's hard to find a Christian leader who skates. If anyone does, they should join."
