“Our presence really showed Christ’s love.”

Matt Charbonneau
Special to Spur Ottawa

Faith matched up with basketball last month, as local teenagers learned about Jesus while shooting hoops.

Ottawa’s Metropolitan Bible Church (MET) held its Hoop Nights outreach basketball camp July 10 to 14 at the Michele Heights Community Centre, providing a free drop-in skills clinic to youth aged 12 to 18.

About 30 players attended the three-hour nightly sessions during the week, practicing drills led by 13 volunteer coaches. Each night also featured key sessions focusing on the gospel message of Jesus Christ.

“We want to point them towards God and show how important it is to have that faith base,” says Justin Buhr, a MET city outreach summer student charged with coordinating the camp.

Hoop Nights was also sponsored by The CODE, a mentorship ministry for young men. Photo courtesy of Justin Buhr.

First introduced last summer, the camp is geared to boys from lower-income or fatherless homes. It aims to teach qualities like hard work and perseverance, while encouraging at-risk youth to surpass social expectations based on their life circumstances. Each workout also includes a talk, led by at least one of the volunteer coaches, keying on the need for Christ’s model of living in today’s secular society.

“The way we broached the Word of God was through action and empowerment by our behavior,” says camp volunteer RJ McEwan, lead pastor of theREACHcentre, a local church that launched in January. “Our presence, through the messages we were able to share and our behavior, really showed Christ’s love.”

McEwan says the camp staff are a distinct quality of the Hoop Nights, calling them “people passionate about Christ and believers in the Kingdom.”

McEwan, who has 25 years’ experience working in ministry and with youth, is also part of a group called The CODE, which partnered with The MET to host Hoop Nights. The CODE is a mentorship program that strives to offer young men coaching, optimization, discipleship, and empowerment.

Buhr says The CODE is a perfect partner for Hoop Nights, as it is seeking to find volunteers who can demonstrate life modeling and faith mentoring for at-risk teens.

“It allows us to start relating to the youth.” Photo by Joseph Addy.

“It allows us to start relating to the youth,” he says, emphasizing that many of the program’s clientele do not have fathers active in their lives. “God is there for you and can be that father.”

“I’m not afraid to speak my faith,” says Dan Hall, a volunteer coach at last month’s camp.

He says it’s important to show the players in attendance “there’s something different” available to them in their lives, adding, “this world isn’t just about you.”

Hall grew up in a lower-income area, himself, and played five years for the University of Ottawa football team, before graduating in 2006. He says his life hardships and faith give him valuable credibility when working with the Hoop Nights youth.

“They can see when you can speak to what they know,” he says. “I can connect to them on that level.”

Hall takes great pride in modeling righteous living for youth and says he appreciates the meaning and purpose of Hoop Nights.

“Anything you do, you should do to the fullest ability that God has given to you,” he says, adding he wishes to help teens discover the true purpose God has for them. “There’s more to life than just basketball.”