At the Beginning of Ministry in 2018

The ministry of Eagles Wings Disc Golf has begun in 2018. And while I have not been able to directly be present at any of the programs that we are running, it has been a blessing to support these events from behind the scenes. Even with just a few events done this year, ministry is looking like it is moving in a positive direction.

One of the tasks that I mentioned in my off season blog post was writing the curriculum for our major chapel services. At this point in the season, we have already hosted three chapel services. Each chapel service has seen growth over the same event last year. There are many more chapel services coming in the near future as well.

With the help of a pastor from Kansas that plays disc golf, we have also started a disc golf devotional series. We have had several people sign up to receive these devotionals over the weekends of big tournaments. I was even asked to write a series of three daily devotionals on the topic of rest. These were already sent out this year.

The ministry itself is growing. We have brought on a number of new staff over the past year with more interested parties applying all the time. We have a strong base of volunteers who have also stepped up allowing the staff to travel less and invest more time to the necessary tasks at hand.

We are hosting three big disc golf tournaments this year in Pennsylvania and Michigan. We will also be helping with the first two PDGA Junior Disc Golf Major tournaments. I am hoping to be at the PDGA Junior Disc Golf World Championships, which will be its own event for the first time.

I have been most blessed this year as I have spent hours working with our Junior grant program. We have found 6 kids from across the world who are striving to make a difference in their local disc golf community. Now, we will support them as they go to play in one of the two Major disc golf tournaments for Juniors. I will be working hard to promote these kids and the work that they are doing.

Please be sure to keep praying for the ministry of Eagles Wings Disc Golf. As we grow there are lessons to be learned. We continue to seek to improve our communication as a team as well as to the families who are interested in our programs. We are also presented with more and new ideas for new programs to pursue. We desire God’s wisdom to know what we should and should not chase after at the present time. Thank you so much for your prayers.

Eagles Wings Store Open

At Eagles Wings we are always looking for new ways to support our ministry and increase our name recognition. In the past we have made shirts for those working for or with Eagles Wings, but have not had an easy way for our supporters to buy gear. We are glad to announce that we have opened our own store with Eagles Wings Disc Golf logo gear. All the proceeds from the store will go to support the ministry. Click here to go to the store.

Still Working Through The Off Season

It may be the off season for disc golf, but that does not mean that I have been working any less for Eagles Wings Disc Golf. I have come to learn that most of the work we are doing now affects the way that our programs will run once the disc golf season starts up again. I am blessed to be able to work with several of the national programs this off season. Even in the circumstances where I cannot be at some of the national events, I will still have an impact.

A peek at the new look of the Eagles Wings website.

One of the biggest projects that I have been working on throughout the year and even more now is a new look for the Eagles Wings website. We have always known that our site was basic and that we needed to take advantage of any possible means of promoting this ministry that we can. There is a new look that is continuing to evolve with time and we have begun to link all of our social media accounts back to the website. We are reorganizing some things in an effort to make the website more functional. You should take a peek at the site for yourself here.

I am also looking forward to one of my favorite off season tasks. I will soon begin working on the curriculum that we will use at our national chapel services throughout next year. There is a hope to be able to connect this to all of our local chapels as well. We have talked about many exciting possibilities to keep disc golfers connected to each other as well as to stay connected to God.

One of our Junior Grant winners, Silas, hanging out with Jim.

On of the more interesting programs that I was able to help with this past year was our Junior Grant Program. Through this we were able to cover the entry fee of four deserving Junior Disc Golfers to the PDGA Junior Disc Golf World Championships. We found four amazing Junior disc golfers who have been working hard to help improve their local communities. Moving into the new year, I will once again be working on this program. This year we hope to be able to expand this program to reward even more deserving junior disc golfers.

In addition to all these wonderful national programs that I get to help out with, I am also beginning to make plans for the Eagles Wings program here in Colorado. We had a great start this past year with a chapel service at the Rocky Mountain Disc Golf Championships as well as other smaller chapels at some local events. While I am not yet sure what time might allow me to do next year, there are hopes to run more than just chapel services here in Colorado.

As the possibility for ministry increases locally and nationally, I am always looking for people to partner with me. If you would like to know how you can support my local and national work with Eagles Wings Disc Golf, I would be glad to speak with you. Please email me at sleader@pushtherock.org.

Season Winding Down

The weather here in Colorado is starting to feel a little bit less like summer. One of the sad realities of this is that the disc golf season is slowly coming to an end. It has been a year of many adventures and exciting new experiences. It has been a year where ministry within the disc golf community has been a bigger focus for me. It has been a year when things have changed.

I have always loved disc golf and playing in tournaments. But this year for the first time, now that I am working with Eagles Wings Disc Golf, My focus was less on my game and improving and more about meeting the right people and asking if there is something that we as Eagles Wings can do. I know that I have been giving updates along the way, but as I sit here today, I am intrigued by all that has happened. The truth is that I have played way less disc golf in general than I used to. Not because I don't like disc golf any more. But more because I see more value in trying to serve rather than play.

I always enjoy being part of our chapel services. From hosting to planning to helping in one of many different ways, I am always blessed to see Christians in the disc golf community gather to encourage each other. While it is easy to measure the success of our chapels by the number of people that attended, the joy for me was found in simply seeing the reality of how the body of Christ works. It is so great to see different parts of that body. I am already looking forward to next year and hopefully growing the local chapel ministry here in Colorado.

One of the other things that I have always enjoyed is teaching. In particular, I enjoy teaching others to enjoy something that I enjoy. Last year I had plenty of opportunity to teach other to play disc golf. This year the opportunities seemed did not seem to be as prevalent. I did enjoy the few opportunities that I did have. Needless to say, I am looking to create more opportunities next disc golf season. I hope to do this by being able to take time to teach at the outdoor education program at a local camp and by helping more camps get courses put in.

Recently I had the joy of dreaming big for next year as I was tasked with creating objectives and a budget for Eagles Wings Disc Golf in Colorado. Being able to dream big is always a fun exercise for me. I am honestly curious to see exactly what God is going to do. I know I will have some great opportunities to serve with Eagles Wings outside of Colorado, but now that we have our start here, I can very easily see myself traveling out of state less and building the ministry locally. At the end of a season, there is much excitement for what is to come next.

Going Local

I have had a lot of fun working and helping out with the national programs of Eagles Wings Disc Golf. It has been great to help with clinics and to be part of the chapels at the big tournaments across the country. We have had a great time celebrating the contributions of youth to the Disc Golf community and seeing them growth with us through disc golf.

But I have had a great opportunity to start the process of bringing the great things about Eagles Wings Disc Golf here to Colorado. It will be a long term process to build the ministry here in Colorado. I am thankful to have likeminded individuals to work with and am sure there will be a great kingdom impact made.

The recent biennial Rocky Mountain Women’s Disc Golf Championship provided the perfect place to host the first big Eagles Wings event in Colorado. We hosted the first Eagles Wings chapel service prior to the start of the event. With the help of friends from church, we made it happen just before the rain started to fall.

We had multiple people thank us for running the chapel and even one that asked if we were going to do it again the next day. As a result of the success of this chapel we were even invited to host a chapel at another event coming soon here in Colorado. So, if you will be at the Peak One Open, let’s find a time to get together and connect as a body of believers.

Getting Back To Ministry

It has been such a blessing to working for Eagles Wings Disc Golf over the past few months. It always feels good to be doing work that feels directly related to the ministry over doing personal support raising. I have rather enjoyed writing curriculum for the programs we are running across the country. But with limited time and so many ways to help the ministry, my time actually running program has been limited. This is part of the reason why a chance to go to a disc golf tournament and actually run program is a huge blessing to me.

Every year Eagles Wings Disc Golf picks one or two big tournaments to go to as a team. These are times where we get to be together as a staff and to run program together. It is always a blessing to be with the team. This year we all decided to show up at the Glass Blown Open in Emporia, KS. This tournament has become one of the biggest tournaments of the year with over 1,100 disc golfers signed up to play in the tournament and many more that come to be part of the festivities. This provides an amazing opportunity to make an impact in the community that we all love.

The clinic with Emporia Baptist Church

The Sunday before the tournament began we were able to partner with the local Baptist church to run a disc golf clinic. The church helped us spread the word and we ended up with a good turnout of young and old from the local community who were interested in trying disc golf out for the first time. Everyone had a great time, but there was one young boy who threw an approach shot into the basket from about 100 feet away and appeared to be on top of the world. We hope that all of the people at this clinic we blessed during the time and continue to play and get involved with community at the Baptist church or one of the other great local churches.

Building a temporary bridge.

In preparation for the Junior Challenge event to be run after the main Glass Blown Open, we as a team at Eagles Wings prepped the course and the local middle school. We picked up trash, painted lines for out of bounds and marked tee pads. We also did a little bit of yard maintenance on some over grown trees and rebuilt a temporary bridge over a little stream that runs through the course. The course looked great for the kids who were so excited to play.

The announcement of the Eagles Wings Chapel

After the players meeting on Wednesday night we also partnered with a local Presbyterian church to host a chapel service. We also partnered with a group from a camp in Colorado who came to the tournament to volunteer. We had a speaker and musicians from the camp who were part of the service and helped us connect many of the Christians who came to this year’s Glass Blown Open. We had a great turnout for the chapel service. There were many old friends who had been to one of our chapels before and many new friends who we met there. It was super encouraging for everyone.

I was blessed to play in the tournament and watch many of the people who attended our Chapel service play really well. I always have fun play and meeting new people on the course. We had really good weather until Saturday when the final round of the tournament we canceled due to excessive rain and lightning. The weather was such that we almost missed out on the opportunity to be part of the end of tournament celebration which had to be moved indoors. But we were still able to be present and share with others from the tournament what Eagles Wings is up to.

Glass Blown Open Junior Challenge

While I did not personally get to be part of the Junior Challenge, Eagles Wings had a big presence at the event. Despite moving half of the festivities inside because of the weather we had three staff from Eagles Wings there helping out. I heard there were plenty of smiles to go around and that Eagles Wings might be invited back to help out with future youth events in Emporia, KS.

It was a great time for Eagles Wings to continue growing and meeting new people to partner with moving forward. What a blessing it is to be part of the Eagles Wings Family.

The Start Of Something New

Over this past year I have been through all the emotional highs and lows of support raising. God has been there helping me grow through the whole process. I have felt the sting of failure and the joy of moving towards an incredible opportunity to impact the kingdom of God. I am blessed to announce that Push The Rock has offered me the opportunity to begin working with Eagles Wings Disc Golf on a part time basis.

It was never really the goal to just be working part time with Eagles Wings Disc Golf. But I have to remember that my plans for this may not exactly be what God’s plans are. In the present moment I do feel like a failure. I wonder where the provision I expected is. But, as I look back at where I was when I started the support raising process and where I am now, I can very easily see how God has shaped me to be someone more closely walking with Him. I am more surrendered to what God wants to do through me and saying yes to the opportunity with Eagles Wings Disc Golf was only the first step.

Chapel service in Las Vegas

Part time means that I will get the opportunity to work about ten hours per week in support of all the programs that are being run by the full time staff. Most of the work I do will be administrative tasks that will free up the other staff to connect with people and impact the kingdom. I will still get to work with program as well. I have already helped with one chapel service at the disc golf tournament in Las Vegas this past February. I may get the chance to help out with two to four more this year. I will also continue to work on smaller programs here in Colorado. This will include working with Ponderosa Camp and Conference center as well as helping support local tournaments.

The challenging part of the reality of what is happening right now is that I will need to find some other work that will continue to allow me the spare time to work with Eagles Wings. Yes, I will still need a team of supporters for the work I am doing with Eagles Wings Disc Golf. I am hoping the second job will be something that looks more like a career and will hopefully still be ministry focused. Please keep praying for me as I go through this process of finding a job. I can only describe that reality as not exactly the most fun thing in the world to be doing. Also keep praying for Eagles Wings Disc Golf as the ministry continues to push forward. We have already hosted two chapel services and are about to send a team to Costa Rica.

If there are any questions you would like to ask me I am open to discuss what God is doing in my life. I am genuinely excited to be doing what I am doing and I am grateful to once again be feeling like I am making a difference for His kingdom through Eagles Wings Disc Golf.