Hit the wall: Teens gather for extreme worship and extreme sports

Sometimes life can get so frustrating it feels like you're hitting a wall.

It takes an extreme faith to get over that wall.

A group of Lutheran teenagers learn that lesson literally when they participate in an event that began four years ago, "Extreme Sports/Extreme Faith." Teens from five sponsoring churches from The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod will get together at 5:30 p.m. Sunday at the recreation center at Southeast Missouri State University and compete with each other in volleyball, basketball, racquetball, some original games and rock wall climbing.

They will face the wall.

And they will learn lessons from the experience and from the devotional service that follows.

In the event's first year, Trinity LutheranChurch was in charge of the devotional service that ties sports with faith, said youth director Leah Kortmeyer.

"The focus was on the word 'extreme,'" she said. "The whole idea is to put yourself out there. In the world you deal with challenges and pressure. For a person of faith it's not that easy to do. It can be extreme for these students and adults to stand up for what's right."

Danny McElreath, 16, a sophomore at Central High School and a member of Trinity, knows about the wall and its lessons. Every year he tries to climb it. He hasn't made it yet.

The climb is done in varying degrees of difficulty. Each participant wears safety straps attached to a pulley and climbs under the supervision of a trained spotter. Danny lamented that he not only couldn't scale the intermediate level rock climb, he nearly pulled the spotter over the top of the wall with him.

Will Danny try the wall again this year?

"Oh, yeah," he said.

Some people scamper right over that wall in a matter of seconds, he said. Others persevere.

Extreme Sports/Extreme Faith is a chance for local Lutheran teens from various churches to get together over some friendly competition and fellowship. Kortmeyer said she bounced the idea off other churches' youth directors, who liked it. After the first year, when about 50 students participated, it took off and grew.

"Last year we had around a hundred there," said Charlene McElreath, Danny's mother and chairman of Trinity's youth board. "It was hard to count them, they were in so many places."

"It's a lot of fun," said Erica Shirrell, 16, a Central sophomore and member of Trinity. "We get to talk to other people from other churches and then have devotions."

The teens who participate say it's not difficult to compete with other teens for a couple of hours and then sit down with them to worship.

"It's a friendly competition," said Sam Breite, an eighth-grader at Trinity Lutheran School.

Danny added that it's not about one church group competing with another; it's more about short games with a variety of teammates, and then coming together as one group in worship. Except in one category: the rock wall climb.

Every year a traveling trophy is awarded to the group that wins the rock climb. This year, St. Paul Lutheran Church in Jackson will compete to keep that trophy, which is -- fittingly -- made of rock.

Extreme Sports/Extreme Faith has attracted area participants from as far away as Dexter, Mo., and Friedheim, but it is organized and sponsored by five churches: Trinity, St. Andrew, Hanover and Good Shepherd, all in Cape Girardeau, and St. Paul in Jackson.

Kortmeyer and McElreath said if anyone wanted to drop by after 5:30 p.m. Sunday and watch the competition, they'd be welcome.

lredeffer@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160