3 & 3 BASKETBALL OUTREACH
At Philippine International Baptist Church, we have made a lot of attempts on reaching out to the local neighborhood by going door to door, offering free medical checkups and having garage sales just to name a few, but it was always difficult to get a significant response. This past summer we installed two permanent basketball rims on the church parking lot and to our surprise, a lot of kids from the neighborhood started showing up to play basketball almost every day. Out of so many attempts at generating interest from the neighborhood, it was a real surprise to find out that putting up those basketball rims would cause such a big draw.
We wanted to find a way to reach out to those young people and since basketball was what drew them in, we figured that it would be good to use basketball as a means to share the Gospel with them. On September 18, 2011 we hosted a 3 on 3 basketball tournament for the neighborhood. Through fliers and through word of mouth with less than a few week’s notice, we were able to have a total of eight different teams of three participate and most of them brought along some friends as well to cheer them on. At the end of the day the top three teams were awarded gift cards thanks to donations made by some of the members at PIBC.
Before we started the games one of our pastors, Pastor Nonnie Lesada was able to share with them briefly about how there are rules or laws that govern the game of basketball and that in life there are also rules and laws that apply to everyone. He was able to share how all have sinned and how God sent his only Son to die on the cross for our sins because of His love for us.
The tournament went well and all the participants did a great job but more importantly we were able to share with them and express to them that they were more than welcome to come back and that if they had any questions at all, we would be happy to talk with them. It is our prayer that there were seeds planted that day in those young people’s hearts and that we would get more opportunities to reach out to them and many more people in the neighborhood.
