Recently I commented to my boys something like this: We could think of an infinite number of ways to take a ball of any shape and size and think of a myriad of different rules to transfer it from one location to another, and then make it into a competition that vies for our attention! We throw balls in the air or kick them on the ground into different size nets, over nets, over ice, and even into garbage cans in the corner of our room. Middle school boys are especially good at coming up with new twists on all these games we call sports.

So why are our lives caught up in sports? Are they just mindless diversions that often seem to bring out the worst in us? We have wrestled with questions like this over the years and continue to ponder them. God has put on our hearts a desire for redemption in this area of athletics, and that is what has shaped much of our life’s work.

Years ago, as life’s direction began to take shape for us, my husband and I felt a call to be involved in the lives of kids. We had impactful relationships and learning experiences during our teenage years and wanted to be involved in discipling others in this way. Both of us received degrees in education, and we thought we would teach. In many ways, that is what we have done, though, as time has gone on, more of that has happened on the court or in the field than it has in a classroom. Our goal is the same: to use the platform we have in kids’ lives to point them to a relationship with Him.

We’ve come to see sports as our scaffolding. When you are building, a scaffolding is constructed and used to accomplish something. We use sports as a scaffolding by which lives might be turned to a relationship with Christ. The scaffolding itself really doesn’t matter. It isn’t the end goal, but it is a tool that is used.

There are myriads of such scaffoldings in our world, and if they have the purpose of developing relationships with the Lord Jesus Christ, they are generally good. The challenge is to keep the scaffolding in perspective. It is easy to get caught up in pursuing the scaffolding as the end goal. Is our goal sports, or is it discipleship with Christ? Scaffolding by itself is ugly, and yet we get caught up in thinking we want it to be beautiful. We want to have the winning team at all costs, we berate the referees, we spend so much energy getting the perfect schedule or making sure nothing falls through the cracks so the scaffolding will look beautiful. Look at what I have done!

Yet the beauty is beyond that. The beauty might come years later when those kids remember the lessons they learned through sports that pointed them to something more—the fact that all is rubbish apart from your relationship with the Lord Jesus.

Our Story

We’ve felt the call to build scaffolding in the area of sport, as many of you have in so many different areas of life. What is the story of our scaffolding?

We both graduated with degrees in secondary education. We were excited to work with kids and have an impact on their lives. We both taught for several years in a couple different school settings. When our first child came along, we decided I would stay at home as we began to raise a family. Nate stayed in the educational setting for a few years, but he soon became passionate about how sports were used in Christian schools. Usually there was very little money for them, and coaches were teachers already worn out from a full day of classes in numerous subjects.

Athletics was something that attracted students and was handled in the same way as all the other schools around. It was often the thing kids were most excited and passionate about. Could he help Christian schools by giving them more of a scaffolding that they could use to aid their athletic programs? Could schools use sports in a way that would see them as scaffolding—a way in which to disciple kids in a relationship with Christ rather than merely imitating what everyone else was doing?

In 2003, we took the plunge. Nate began what is called the National Christian School Athletic Association (NCSAA) in an attempt to assist Christian schools in their athletic programs. It started with a magazine, tournaments, and the building of a team “curriculum” that could be used in sports seasons. It has changed over the years.

It has been easy throughout the years to focus on what was going to make the organization succeed and what would bring in the money. And we wanted the scaffolding to be beautiful so others could see what we had built “for God.” Thankfully, God has been gracious along the way and reminded us that the scaffolding is worthless. Perhaps the scaffolding was merely meant as a project that would just bring us into intimate relationship with Him.

Yes, we feel God has given us all jobs and ways in which to serve Him, and we attempt to do that with excellence and beauty as we reflect our Creator; but ultimately it comes down to relationship with Him. It is so easy in sports, as in countless other arenas, to get caught up in attracting others to see what we have done. But when done in the light of crafting something so much more meaningful than winning a game, we enjoy freedom to go out, perform, work, and disciple because we know that outward scaffolding is merely a tool to a beauty underneath.

It hasn’t become the organization we envisioned at the beginning. We’ve only been able to support ourselves because of a business that grew up alongside us at the same time, which Nate’s dad started. We’ve learned in a very real and practical way that God’s strength is seen in our weakness. It’s funny how I always want to fight against this—I can do it, we can make it right—and yet what He asks for is my weakness.

Practical Outlet

In the midst of all this, we decided to homeschool our kids. Little did we realize that this decision would grow into the practical application of what we were encouraging schools to do with their sports teams. We loved homeschooling, but we both desired the community and athletic opportunities for our kids that had caused growth in our own lives. So, with the support of the homeschool co-op we were a part of (Plants and Pillars), when our oldest was in 5th grade, we started the first set of homeschool basketball teams.

We continued to add teams as those kids grew, with a conglomeration of volunteer coaches, and to compete with the Christian schools in the area. There are now soccer, volleyball, basketball, and track and field teams available for kids from 4th grade through high school. I do a lot of pulling things together behind the scenes, and Nate coaches during every season.

The community and discipleship opportunities that have grown out of this have been such a blessing for us and our kids. Yes, at times we lose focus on the goal, and we often fail and end up in miserable situations. But, when those times hit, you can often hear me saying to my kids, “This is why we play sports—so we can learn in the midst of community.”

Plants and Pillars was named after the verse of blessing for God’s people in Psalm 144:12: “Then our sons in their youth will be like well-watered plants, and our daughters like pillars carved to adorn a palace.” We have taken on the Oaks as our mascot. We figured an oak tree would serve as both plant and pillar! And that is the blessing that we seek—strong, rooted, beautiful children who will be called “oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor” (Isa. 61:3).

At times, we lose our way and the scaffolding becomes our focus, but our heartfelt prayer is that the scaffolding will fall away and what will be revealed is a display of His splendor. Our hope lies in the fact that it is God who plants and sculpts.