Dirt mounds and the sound of bats cracking aren’t usually associated with church services, but they provided the ideal backdrop for worship services organized by two Birmingham Baptist Association churches May 25.
Liberty Park Baptist Church, Vestavia Hills, and Brookwood Baptist Church, Birmingham, conducted two services at Liberty Park Sports Complex in Vestavia Hills during the Memorial Day tournament, hosted by the Birmingham Vipers, a high school travel softball team, May 23–25.
According to Scott Guffin, pastor of Liberty Park Baptist, the tournament is one of the largest for girls’ softball in the Southeast. Seventy of the teams played at Liberty Park.
About 10 people showed up for the 7 a.m. service, with the number increasing to almost 70 for the 9:30 a.m. service.
Except for the location, worshipers were hard-pressed to think they weren’t in a church. The services began with the singing of four hymns, followed by a greeting and opening prayer by Guffin. Beanie Ketcham, head softball coach at Samford University in Birmingham, shared a message targeted to ball players, using a baseball glove on the hand versus off to illustrate how individuals cannot properly fulfill the purpose for which God designed them without a relationship with Christ.
"The problem is that we’re sinful, and our sin separates us from God," Ketcham told her audience of softball players, parents, siblings and coaches. "When we ask Christ into our life, God takes sin away."
The idea for the services came to Guffin after he became frustrated by the number of youth and their parents who missed Sunday morning activities at church because of Little League sports.
"It’s something that I’ve talked about from the pulpit on many occasions, and I have often urged parents to be vocal about the planning of the games and practices so they don’t interfere with a family’s weekly church involvement," Guffin said.
A chance meeting with a Vipers coach last winter led to an impromptu conversation about the situation. The coach put Guffin in touch with the tournament’s organizer, Jeff Gillespie, who was eager to include the worship services.
Since Liberty Park Baptist and Brookwood Baptist began partnering on both local and national missions efforts about three years ago, Brookwood was an equal partner in helping make this event a reality. It supplied the band, with the exception of the drummer, who was from Liberty Park Baptist. Robert Brandon, worship and missions pastor at Brookwood, led music, and Sherri Spurling, college/singles minister at Brookwood, sang during the first service.
Guffin’s wife, Beth, and Keith Kirkley, a member of Hunter Street Baptist Church, Hoover, who is leading worship at Liberty Park Baptist through June, sang at both services.
Guffin estimated there were about a dozen people from each church involved in the event, doing everything from setting up chairs, staging and tables to handing out song sheets, coffee and doughnuts.
While the timing of the services and their length of approximately 30 minutes allowed Guffin and Brandon to change and return to their churches for regular services, Spurling pointed out that sometimes a minister’s presence is required outside the church.
If ministers remain inside church buildings, then they miss opportunities to connect with individuals they might not otherwise encounter. The opportunities also allow them to be involved in the community.
"That means being where others are on Sundays instead of waiting for people to come to the church," Spurling said.
Encouraged by the response to this effort, Guffin is already working with Gillespie in planning services for an October tournament in Birmingham.
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