Waycross Friday Night Football

Perhaps my favorite days during my time at Trinity UMC of Waycross, GA were Friday nights during football season.  In south Georgia, football is a religion, and every home game Friday night the entire town of Waycross would gather to worship together. The "temple" was this amazing stadium (see picture), much nicer than many of the stadiums at some of the smaller colleges I have visited.  It even had a "Diamond Vision" style replay screen.  You could actually buy reserved seats.  It astonished me.  As a youth pastor, it was always a great night- I could see every kid in town all at the same place.  We would sit near the band, next to the section where all of the middle school students would hang out.  Students would parade in front of us all night, often stopping by for a quick visit or to ask me if I would take my shirt off so they could paint something on my chest.  The answer, in case you are wondering, was always NO!  I would also get to chat with parents, other church members and most every other youth pastor in town.  In fact, if you were a youth pastor in Waycross and were not at home football games, you weren't doing your job very well.  It was your chance to connect with the entire town at once.

In the years before my arrival at Trinity UMC it had been a tradition to have a youth gathering at the The Vine (the TUMC youth house) following home games.  It was supposed to be an outreach event, but had been mostly Trinity kids coming just to hang out.  And there had been some problems with drugs and alcohol.  Among my priorities as I began to plan for the 2006-07 school year was to crank that idea up a notch while making it a safer environment.  I went to a local eatery called Dick's Wings & Grill, a favorite among my youth.  I asked them about hosting The 5th Quarter, an after-game gathering on home game Friday nights.  It would mean keeping their doors open a little later than usual, and total chaos as hungry teenagers descended on their restaurant- but they agreed to do it, and to offer half price appetizers so the students could actually eat!  The location secured, I then purchased an ad in the most widely read magazine in Waycross- the Ware County High School Football Program.  I also sent e-mails to all of the other churches in town letting them know they were all invited.  The program was a hit from the very beginning, as the food and fellowship were a perfect combination to draw students.  As the weeks went by, we added door prizes, a karaoke machine and some other goodies to keep new people coming in- and they did.  I met a ton of students this way, and cemented our growing reputation as one of the hot student ministries in town.  And my own students loved it and took great pride in hosting the event.   They even did two stories on the program in the local paper.  We were a hit.


Among my many regrets about having only served one year in Waycross was that I never got a chance to build on that first year of success with The 5th Quarter.  The whole story reminds me of the many advantages of small town youth ministry, and the opportunities that exist in those situations to change a community in the name of Jesus.  And wherever WCHS is playing tonight, I can only say "GO GATORS!"  And eat some of that deadly hot Dick's Secret Sauce for me...


Because of Jesus,