‘We’re about having fun’

Soccer players, take note. There’s a new game in town. The Spokane Valley Wesleyan Church and Valley Open Bible Church have teamed up to offer Upward Soccer. Upward is an international Christian-based sports program. Another church, Valley Nazarene, offers Upward Basketball, but this will be the first Upward Soccer program in the area.

Pastor Darrell Cole of Valley Wesleyan said he likes the program’s positive message. “It is super positive in the sense that their theme is every child is a winner,” he said. “The real emphasis is not just sports. It’s the Christian message.”

The core of the program, for boys and girls age 4 through the sixth grade, is that every child plays and the teams are evenly matched in terms of skill. Skill evaluations were recently held for children who have already signed up, and more evaluations will be held after registration closes on next Saturday. In the younger age brackets they won’t even keep score, said church administrator Dale Maurer of Valley Open Bible.

“It’s all about helping kids develop self-esteem and character,” Maurer said. “We’re not score oriented. We’re about having fun.”

Each player will run through a tunnel and be announced by name as they run onto the field. Trash talking by parents, coaches or referees is not allowed. “It’s a positive environment,” Maurer said. “The coaches and the referees work together. It’s all about the kids. We want the kids to enjoy themselves.”

The fact that the program is Christian-based is no secret. There will be prayer at every practice and testimonies at every game. “It’s up front,” said Cole, noting that parents will be given a booklet about the program. “They know exactly what we’re doing.”

The Christian message being given is not specific to any one church, Cole said. “It reaches across all denominations. It is evangelical.”

So far about 100 children have signed up to play, Cole said.

The idea for the program came up during one of the weekly gatherings of Valley pastors. The two churches agreed to work together and now share administrative duties. But it was no small matter for Valley Wesleyan to get involved. The church had actually disbanded for two years in the mid-1990s when the church lost its pastor. Cole reopened the church when he arrived in 1996. While the church is growing, there are only 60 to 70 people at Sunday worship.

“We made a decision a couple years ago that even as a small church we really wanted an emphasis on kids,” Cole said.

The church has spent $10,000 to turn an empty field out back into two soccer fields. “This was just solid rock out here,” he said. “We hauled truckload after truckload of rock out before we could plant the grass.”

That $10,000 isn’t small change for a church with an annual budget of $70,000. “For a small church, that’s a pretty big bite. The people have just been so supportive of the ministries we’ve determined that we’re going to do. It’s exciting.”

Valley Open Bible, which draws about 325 people each Sunday, had a field ready to go. The pastor had wanted to use the field for outreach for years but didn’t know how, Maurer said. “It’s our first year, so we really don’t know the impact we’ll have,” he said.

Maurer doesn’t think it’s unusual that the program is being run by churches that belong to different denominations. “I think that’s a testimony to churches,” he said. “I think those walls between churches are coming down. We work really well together.”