c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Tattoos, piercings, skateboards _ and Jesus?

That combination seemed too heretical a decade ago, but now mainstream churches have flipped a “one-eighty,” using skateboarders to bring teens into the fold.

“I think it often takes time for Christians to catch up on culture trends,” said Kevin Palau, executive director of the Oregon-based Luis Palau Evangelistic Association. The religious group produced “Livin’ It,” a 40-minute DVD featuring skateboarders who also are Christians.

“Livin’ It” has been one of the most popular skateboard videos of all time, and now PalauFest Productions, the production arm of LPEA, is making a second DVD, “Livin’ It LA,” set for release in October. It will feature big-name skaters Christian Hosoi, Matt Beach, Lance Mountain, Lynn Cooper and others.

In addition, a “Livin’ It Tour 2005” launched in May, with skateboard demonstrations and Christian testimonies planned for 20 cities.

“It takes time for churches and larger ministries to feel safe and comfortable with something new,” Palau said, but thanks to the ministry his father started in the mid-1960s, mainstream churches are seeing the advantage of blending boards and Bibles.

Skateboarding, which has gotten a bad reputation over the past 20 years as leading boarders into drugs, alcohol and sex, isn’t the rebellious teen subculture it once was, Palau said. It’s a powerful evangelistic tool, he said.

The definition of Christian skateboarding is loose, but the Palau method melds wicked tricks on the half pipe with a Billy Graham-style evangelistic message. After demonstrating the newest moves, skateboarders then tell their personal stories to an onlooking crowd of teens.

Palau “festivals” have attracted young people to festival cities with a combination of skateboarding, BMX biking, contemporary Christian music, food and a message from Luis Palau, the 70-year-old evangelist. The next festival is Oct. 8-9 in Washington, D.C.

Tom Fain, a former pro skater turned youth pastor, says the Palaus have put a new spotlight on Christian skateboarding, but it has been around for years.

“My first experience with a skateboard ministry was actually in the late ’70s, and there were a few organizations doing it back then,” Fain said.

In 1987, Skatechurch, arguably the nation’s first organized skateboard ministry, was founded by two friends in the parking lot of Central Bible Church in Portland, Ore. Other groups followed, and traveling skateboard ministries sprouted across the country.

There are the King of Kings Skateboard Ministries based in Idaho, Steel Roots in North Carolina and Glory Skateboards in California, among others. Estimates of how many skateboard ministries exist nationwide exceed 300.

Fain said the connection between grinding and the gospel is obvious.

After winning the National Skateboarding Association’s world championship in 1978, he said, he found his life empty.

“The fame and the money wasn’t making me happy, so I just walked away from my career,” Fain said. So for most of the 1980s he wandered the streets of Ventura, Calif., homeless, an alcoholic, sleeping on beaches and landing in the local jail.

Getting locked up, he said, is what saved him.

“I cried out to God one night and someone gave me a Bible in jail,” Fain said. A week later he stopped drinking and in 1995 he convinced Sap Skateboards, a Christian skateboarding company with religious-themed boards, to sponsor him.

He traveled around Southern California demonstrating the company’s religious-themed boards and telling his story.

Now the owner of Sap and a youth pastor at Ventura Assembly of God, the 43-year-old Fain considers himself “a cutting edge type of a Christian.”

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The Palaus want to be on the cutting edge of evangelism.

Since 1999, the ministry has been using skateboarding to grab the attention of the new extreme-sports generation. It builds a 10,000-square-foot skate park at each of its U.S. festivals, which have seen nearly 2 million attendees in the past six years. About 30 percent of those are young people.

“Our vision was to take an evangelical celebration outdoors and make it more appealing to not just the Christian community, but the community at large,” said Craig Chastain, director of communications at LPEA.

By their count, about 52,000 people have converted to Christianity at these revivals. They want to add as many teens to that number as possible.

“More kids are riding skateboards now than are playing organized baseball,” Chastain said. So to extend their ministry even further last year, the LPEA got together with recently converted actor Stephen Baldwin to direct “Livin’ It.”

But there are some Christians in the skate community who take exception to selling evangelistic skateboarding videos, arguing they should be free.

“There’s a lot of people right now trying to jump on the Christian skateboarding bandwagon to make a buck,” Fain said. “It’s kind of sad. It’s almost like they’re compromising their beliefs.”

The LPEA said that the $10 retail price of their DVD is about one-third the price of most skate videos. Proceeds are re-invested in the ministry and the production of more DVDs. Kevin Palau said that of the 100,000 DVDs distributed so far, about one-third have been given away, including shipments sent to soldiers and chaplains in the military.

The “vast majority” have been distributed to churches and other ministries “at or below cost,” he said.

“It’s very much a nonprofit ministry type of venture,” Kevin Palau said. “But our people have told us that if you just give something like this away it’s not perceived as having value.”

Glen Darcey, a Christian skater since the 1970s who is shooting a DVD that will feature several pro skaters, said he doesn’t plan to charge for his production. He said his goal is to go beyond the impact of the Palau DVD to get “reviews in Trans World, Skateboarder magazine or Thraser _ the legitimate skate outlets where non-Christian skaters would actually find out about it.”

While DVDs and their pricing will differ, there is agreement that skateboarding has become an effective vehicle for evangelicals to reach today’s youth culture.

“People right now are hungry for something spiritual,” said skater-turned-pastor Fain. “The method of reaching them constantly has to change to (adapt to) our culture, but the message we’re delivering never changes.”

MO/JL END RNS

Editors: Search the RNS photo Web site at https://religionnews.com for photos of Christian skateboarding. You may want to particularly take note of a photo of professional skateboarder Jude Heald that moved on June 15, 2005, in a story slugged RNS-LUIS-PALAU.