May 2017
By Diane Strzelecki
Every Sunday at 5 p.m., Mike Winters unlocks the doors at St. John’s Lutheran Church and School in Lansing, Illinois, and gets ready for youth group. He turns on the lights, opens up the gymnasium, gets out the basketballs, and sets up beverages and snacks. By 6 p.m., between 30 and 40 high school students are warming up, taking practice shots, and setting up games.
Now, you have to understand that St. John’s is not a large church. They average about 85 in worship and have a small day school. Winters is a church elder and a member of St. John’s for more than 22 years. He describes Sunday nights as basic youth group—only it pulls more kids from the community than the church.
There’s structure, of course, but it’s fairly relaxed. There’s no logo, no worship team, no nametags, no roster. It’s simply called the St. John’s Youth Group, but it’s become a big deal. And the theme is basketball.
“Basketball is the draw,” Winters says. “You can’t play outside in the middle of winter, and there’s not that many indoor facilities around here. We’ve got this huge gymnasium and we should make use of it. I think these guys appreciate the fact that it’s an indoor, safe space to get together with their friends and have some fun. And I’m sure their parents appreciate it, too.”
In 2012, Winters’ daughter Cassie and friends Brittany Kooi, Jordan Szymanski and Jeremiah Cooks approached him about reactivating the church’s youth group. Winters knew that despite the congregation’s children’s ministry and confirmation programs, there weren’t many reasons for high school students to stay involved.
“We told Mr. Winters that we need to get people together; we need some place to go relax and hang out on a Sunday night,” Kooi says. “We just came to Mr. Winters with the idea and he said he’d be in charge of it.”
Winters told Cassie and her friends to spread the word in the community that high school students could come play basketball at St. John’s gymnasium on Sunday nights, and everyone was welcome.
Cooks, a member at Lighthouse Community Church and currently a freshman at South Suburban College, says he let his friends know that Bible study would be part of the evening. “I told them: we’ll have an hour of basketball, give an hour to Mr. Winters for Bible study, and we’re gonna have another hour of basketball, and people say that’s cool with them.”
The group’s growing numbers led Winters to now add a Saturday night meeting time, as of March. Because a number of girls were also interested in basketball (the Sunday night players were all boys), he also added a Saturday group for girls that meets from 3 to 6 p.m.
Winters chalks up the group’s growth to the kids themselves. “I’ve never done any sort of advertising for the group outside of putting it in the church bulletin,” he says. “It’s all their Facebook, text messages, and cell phones. I’ve made no effort to publicize.”
He notes that a few core members are the communications points for the group. Winters sends them emails and they spread the word to the others.
“They are our best salesmen,” he says. “I can tell 20 kids what’s going on and they’re not going to listen to some old guy, but if they tell their friends about it—that’s when you get them.” Winters adds that the group isn’t about him, noting that he really doesn’t have any authority over the kids.
“It’s not like at school – I don’t have any influence like a teacher or coach does,” he says. “I give them their freedom and try to treat them as adults. I give them respect, I get it back. I don’t put a lot of pressure or requirements on them.”
Although he’s a freshman in college, Cooks now returns to the Sunday night group to help Mr. Winters. “I’m another eye for Mr. Winters to make sure everything’s running smoothly, because we got so many people now,” he says. But he thinks differently about Winters’ influence.
“I like Mr. Winters a lot. Everybody likes him. Everybody appreciates that he does what he does,” Cooks says. “There’s no youth group without him. There’s not a week that he’s not there making sure everyone’s good with drinks, food and everything.”
Brittany agrees. “Mr. Winters is a really good leader and a lot of people look up to him; they are very respectful,” she says. “He’s just a really good guy. He volunteers his time every weekend, and I think that’s really cool.”
Winters tries to take each week one at a time, but he does have an eye on the future. The students have done a couple service projects, including making and bringing Christmas cards to nursing home residents, and they’ve said they’d like to do more. Winters has always encouraged the seniors in the group to bring sophomores and juniors so the group can keep going.
“This is the way to reach a group that—at least in our church—has almost been ignored,” he says. “I personally see this as a chance to reach out to some of these students and hopefully give some life lessons as they move on from high school to college.”