Skateboard Ministry

He opened with a verse from the Bible. "This is from a guy named James, who's really an action kind of guy. I think you'll like him," he said, reading a passage on the importance of mercy.

While he talked, the skateboarders sat on curbs with blank expressions on their faces. Some looked bored or indifferent or at least acting like it. A few responded to his questions.

Showalter pointed out how they yielded right of way to each other on the rails and ramps, how the older ones help the younger ones. "If you can take those actions out there into the world, it can be revolutionary. I mean, that's something powerful," he said.

He closed with a quick prayer, and the teenagers then jumped back on their boards. Some said later that the sermon is something they just sit for out of respect for Showalter and the church members, who, unlike other adults, seem to listen to them and take them seriously.

Others, especially the younger ones, seemed to have listened more closely than they appeared.

"They're basically trying to show us how we can be better to people," said Jesse Stotts, a middle-schooler practicing kick flips with a friend. "If you start one thing that helps a person, maybe that person will help someone else."

Showalter watched as Jesse and other boys tried to go higher and higher off the ramp and into the air. With summer ending and the skateboard ministry closing down at the end of the month, he's grateful that his skateboard ministry experiment has reached at least a few kids.

"We needed to win the right to speak to them first," he said, "because as much as these kids need pavement, they need Jesus, too."