He will yet fill your mouth with laughter
    and your lips with shouts of joy.

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

Job 8:21, 1 Corinthians 10:31

New Year’s Eve I had the opportunity to do something I haven’t done in years, maybe decades even. I played a round of Frisbee Golf.

Not just “make it up as you go along” Frisbee Golf, but a real course, featuring actual, official, Disc Golf holes. You know, the ones with chains and a bucket to catch the disc. (It’s known as “Disc Golf” because Frisbee is not the only disc you can use, and it evolved – along with rules and standards – into “Disc Golf” after game founder Ed Headwick left Wham-O).

I first played back in graduate school in the early 80’s. Columbia Theological Seminary had a really well thought out 18-hole setup. It was, of course, unrefined; we “holed out” when the disc hit the designated tree trunk, or telephone pole, or some other “natural” landmark. Today the official game is much more sophisticated.

My brother-in-law Jesse and I used to play on the course he invented around First Presbyterian Church in Leesburg, FL (again, in the 80’s). Since then Jesse has played a lot, and now owns a couple of complete sets of tournament discs. He has “drivers”, “approach discs”, and “Putters”!!!

Community Outreach:

So New Year’s Eve we jumped in his vintage Miata and zoom-zoomed to Jacksonville’s Faith Community Church, where there is a real nine-hole Disc Golf course set up.

And this is the main point of today’s post. What a great idea for a faith community to engage the public, and deploy a true community spirit with no strings attached!

The course was laid out and built as an Eagle Scout project (NB to Scout troop leaders: maybe your hosting church doesn’t so much need another set of garden benches, or a pagoda, as a super-cool Disc Golf course designed to bring the community onto your campus?

Faith Community Church maintains the course, and it is not unusual for church members to interact with young people and others from the community on a regular basis.

God, I firmly believe, is a huge investor in creativity and fun, and where better to engage both than a local church that is outward facing in its posture and invitational in its theology?

Game on!

The scoring ended up being closer than I had imagined, and Jesse had to nail down his victory with a ten foot “putt” on the final hole.

I believe I see a Disc Golf set in my future. What fun! And what a holy experience! – DEREK

• Here is a tour of the course. enjoy: