Bob Schindler addresses sports leaders from 16 different organizations in Baton Rouge.
In August 2014, ML Woodruff, Sports Outreach Minister at Istrouma Baptist Church, gathered two dozen administrators and coaches from sixteen sports organizations from Baton Rouge to discuss the brokenness of sports and launch the Baton Rouge Sports Initiative. They met to determine ways to work together on initiatives that they wouldn’t be able to do by themselves.
CSO and ML began a relationship back in 2011, shortly after ML left a 30 year coaching and teaching career to lead the sports outreach ministry at Istrouma Baptist Church. He found CSO through the internet, contacted us and quickly became a CSO Network member. We began mentoring him monthly and over the years have made several trips to Istrouma to meet with his Directional Team, coaches, and different ministry initiative leaders. (For more about this relationship between CSO and ML, click here.)
During his tenure, ML has established ISO (Istrouma Sports Organization – a ministry of Istrouma Baptist Church) with initiatives for youth baseball, basketball, extreme sports camps, and flag football, as well as adult golf, softball, lunch bunch pick up basketball, and fitness. ISO also does baseball mission trips to the Dominican Republic and began Operation First Base in Baton Rouge, in an attempt to teach baseball to inner city children.
All this gave ML great satisfaction, but he wasn’t fully satisfied. He wanted to see Baton Rouge transformed. Hence, the idea of the Baton Rouge Sports Initiative.
This meeting last August was the kick off and I was privileged to lead this discussion on the brokenness of sports, utilizing a lot of the material from our resource, For the Love of the Game. (To read more about this meeting, click here.)
Following that meeting, many discussions took place among those who attended. The whole group got back together in March 2015, to look more closely at specific initiatives they could do together. Again, I had the privilege of facilitating this gathering, from which the Baton Rouge Sports Initiative (BRSI) was formally birthed.
Photo by Mark H. Hunter – Jaelyn Fields, 7, steps into a pitch thrown by Chris Reid, 18, a senior at St. Michael’s High, during Sunday’s Baton Rouge Sports Initiative held at Anna T. Jordan BREC Park, and three other area parks.
The first step of the BRSI took place on April 12 in five selected areas of metro Baton Rouge, during which hundreds of children ages 6-14 learned about baseball, soccer, basketball, football, and cheerleading from experienced college and high school athletes from the Baton Rouge area. According to ML, “the initiative is a movement of God using sports as a bridge to help transform communities with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a movement from within these communities.”
BREC (Baton Rouge Parks and Recreation in the East Baton Rouge Parish) partnered in the BRSI and provided the facilities for these activities. “We’re trying to bring the community together,” said John Green, BREC’s Anna T. Jordan center supervisor. “Once we get the community involved, it can do nothing but help.”
Another key aspect is the involvement of partner churches. In addition to Istrouma Baptist Church, a dozen white, Hispanic and African-American churches provided volunteers, food and sports equipment such as baseball gloves, bats and balls, footballs and soccer balls, and a variety of uniforms and hats. While ML and others provide the expertise during a catalytic event like what took place on April 12, these area partner churches carry on the ministry afterwards. (To read more about what happened on April 12, click here.)
This component in April is the first of many others within the vision of the Baton Rouge Sports Initiative whose end is nothing less than community transformation through the bridge of sports. This transformation can only take place by the work of God operating through the cooperative efforts of many different entities such as the ones mentioned above who “together can do more than they could ever do alone.”
