Flying high to deliver a message: Skate team to bring testimony, talent to Zeeland

By GARY BROWER
myZeeland Staff

The hair may be a bit too long and the pants may be too tight.
The music may be a little too loud and the conversation a little too raucous.
But, the Rev. Tim Wessel said, do not discount the message.
The Naz Sk8 team and some street style cyclists from Brighton Nazarene Church in Livingston County will be stopping in Zeeland Friday afternoon for a 3 p.m. exhibition at First Christian Reformed Church and Wessel expects some powerful dialogue.
“We have some kids that came off the street and had a lot of pain. They found the skate park and through the skate park found Jesus Christ,” said Wessel, the youth director at Brighton Nazarene. “Some of the kids are going to be giving their testimonies.
“They all have the common denominator of skating and they all have the common denominator of Jesus Christ and they are just so excited to share that.”
The Naz team may have been a little too excited last weekend and headed to Zeeland a couple of weeks early. When they got to town and realized their mistake, instead of turning around and driving back, Wessel and the skaters stuck around for a while.
They befriended a two young men from Zeeland and took them on a whirlwind tour of skate parks in Zeeland, Holland and Grand Haven.
“Our kids just rose to the occasion and poured into them and talked to them about what God can do in their lives,” Wessel said. “It was a really neat experience for us and it gave us an excitement and passion for coming back.”
Wessel said nine skaters made the trip to West Michigan last weekend and expects 10 to 15 will return on Friday, along with a couple of notable additions.
The skate team will be joined by a few street style bikers and possibly a professional skateboarder and professional in-line skater.
Wessel said skateboarder John Kite, a member of the King of Kings professional skate team, is expected to join the Naz team in Zeeland, as is Andrew Hendricks, a professional in-line skater.
Even without the professionals, Wessel said the level of skating and cycling will be impressive.
“We have some pros and the other kids ... are at a different level of experience, but these guys skate all day, every day, all week long. They live and breathe skating,” Wessel said. “We’ve got some guys that are incredible skateboarders. As we visited the parks last week the comments were that those guys were very, very good.”
Brighton Nazarene owns and operates an 11,000-square-foot indoor skate park, and Wessel said it has become a large part of the church’s ministry, helping to connect with kids who would be almost impossible to reach through traditional youth ministry.
The exhibition is being sponsored by the Howard Miller Community Library and was arranged by Youth Coordinator Janet Poppema. Poppema originally wanted to host the event in the parking lot near the library, but it was determined there was more space needed than was available.
The Naz Sk8 will be traveling with a large trailer of ramps and sound equipment, so Poppema made arrangements for the event to be at First Christian Reformed, which she said is probably for the best.
“I’m a big get-out-in-the-community type of person, so for me to go out and work in partnership with a local church is really exciting,” she said. “I’m sticking my neck out on this one. We’ll see how it goes. It’s either going to work or it’s not.”
Either way, Poppema said she felt it necessary to try something to reach out to a group with which it is hard to connect.
“It’s something I’m looking forward to doing because it is so hard to get the teens involved with the library. You can only do so many clowns and puppets,” she said. “Maybe they will see that the library encourages more than just to read books all the time.”