Saints Win: A perspective on Tween Ministry

Saints win the Superbowl and bring hope to New Orleans!  Until 6 months ago I spent my 34 years of life in New Orleans, LA.  For years my entire family would get together on Sundays to watch the Saints.  I remember every season wishing they would make it to the playoffs and maybe one day to the Superbowl.  Year after year, my dreams weren’t realized.  But I didn’t give up hope.  Neither did the city of New Orleans.

My uncle was Buddy D, a local New Orleans sportscaster who had  a love for football and a heart for the New Orleans Saints. He worked first for the local newspaper, The Times Picayune, then for channel 6 TV station as the most enthusiastic sportscaster in the city.  You either loved him or hated him.  Most loved him.   Later in his life  Buddy D was the announcer for the Saints pre-game and post-game show on WWL 870 radio station.  He said many times that if the Saints ever made it to the Superboowl that he would wear a woman’s dress to the game.  He died about 5 years ago.  Last Sunday, a week before the Saints would play at the Superbowl, nearly 2,000 fanatical Saints fans wore woman’s dresses marching from the Superdome to Bourbon Street in his honor.

A love for the Saints has been in my blood all my life!  It has been in the blood of every person who lives in New Orleans.  Through thick and thin, the fans have stayed faithful.  And that faithfulness has been returned by the Saints.  The winning of the Superbowl has brought hope to a city still suffering from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Hurricane Katrina devastated our city.  My family and I were fresh back from evacuating from another storm a few weeks prior, so when we thought it was another false alarm when leaving town for Katrina.  Boy, were we wrong!   My wife was 9 months pregnant with our third child, Emma, when Katrina hit.  She was due any day and we were fully prepared for her to go in to labor on the road.  We evacuated to two different cities for over two weeks.  We were fortunate for my wife to give birth to Emma three days after returning to New Orleans.  Our house had some damage, but not much.  However, the world around us was devastated.  Friends and family lost everything.  My job required me to do the work of three full time people.  The physical and emotional toll on the city was too much to bear.  It was clear New Orleans would never be the same.

New Orleans needed hope.  We needed a sense of unity.  We needed something to believe in that was bigger than ourselves.  We needed people that could stand up and fight for a cause beyond their own ambitions and well being.  The Saints winning the Superbowl tonight brought all that to New Orleans.  It brought us hope and unity.  We thought the people who would lead us out of our slump would be political in nature, but we were wrong.  Drew Brees, Sean Peyton and the many other Saints players would be our heros!  They would give us something to believe in and bring our city together.  They would inspire us that anything is possible.  They would lift our spirits.  They would help us to believe that one day our city could be rebuilt.  The Saints brought our city hope!

So what does all this have to do with preteen ministry?  It has everything to do with it!  The next generation needs hope.  They look for video games, internet and sports (just naming a few) to fill their empty souls.  Not knocking those things, I love playing the Wii.  It is one of my favorite things to do with my own kids.  But Wii, soccer, dancing, skateboarding or hanging out online will never satisfy the deep hunger that preteens have to be in a relationship with Jesus.  None of those things, as cool as they are, will bring hope.  In just a year or two, they will face many more temptations to win their hearts.  Sex and drugs are right around the corner for them, and some are already experimenting (if you have 6th graders in your group).  We have a short window of opportunity to reach them in the most influential time of their lives.  They are moldable, but still have questions.  They have open minds to God and want to wrestle with questions about God and life.  You and I have the awesome honor to reach them during those years.  We get to point them to Jesus, who ultimately brings hope!  Hope to avoid bad choices with bad consequences.  Hope to connect with their Creator.  Hope to experience a life-changing relationship with Jesus.  Hope for a better future!

I now live in San Diego.  Just moved here about six months ago.  But New Orleans is my hometown and the Saints my number one team.  I’m still amazed at what they’ve done this season.  Most of all how they have inspired and transformed a city.  As you go about pointing preteens to Jesus, remember that what you offer them is hope.  The kind of hope that lasts!