Bridges of Faith Church Partnerships Find Success Starting With
Basketball
BY MICHAEL OVERALL World Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Walking into a basketball game at a park in north Tulsa, the mayor waved for one of the adults to come over
to the side of the court.
"What's going on?" Dewey Bartlett asked in a friendly sort of way.
"Well," said Sheldon Houston, a minister from south Tulsa who was breathing a little hard from all the
exercise, "we're slowly figuring that out."
Nearly four months ago, Bartlett and his wife, Victoria Bartlett, asked churches in south Tulsa to pair up with
churches in north Tulsa to start something called the Bridges of Faith to One Tulsa initiative. More than 250
individuals signed up, representing more than 70 churches and ministries. But nobody knew exactly what
they were supposed to do for one another.
"I see myself as the matchmaker," explained Victoria Bartlett, who has taken the lead in organizing the
Bridges effort. "I find two congregations that would seem to make a good team and put them in touch with
each other. After that, it's up to the pastors to ask each other, 'What can we do for you?'"
Now that the ministers have begun asking and answering that question, south Tulsa congregations are
helping their north Tulsa counterparts with Bible camps, computer classes, food drives, even arts and crafts
projects. But by far the most popular activity has been basketball. Maybe that sounds a little too secular for
churches to sponsor. But idle hands are the devil's playground, as they say.
"We have kids playing around in here, not messing around out there in the streets," the mayor said while
visiting Chamberlain Park last week to see the Bridges initiative in action. "That's progress."
Kids turned out by the hundreds for weekly open gym nights, usually on Tuesdays, at community centers
across north Tulsa. Churches provided the Gatorade and the adult volunteers. The Tulsa Park and
Recreation Department and the Dream Center, a north Tulsa outreach of Victory Christian Center in south
Tulsa, provided the courts.
"Obviously, we're not going to change the world by playing basketball once a week," acknowledged Houston,
who's part of Living Well Ministries. "This is just the start - a way to establish a relationship with some of
these kids. We're going to have to keep building on it, but you have to start somewhere."
The Bartletts originally envisioned Bridges of Faith as a summer initiative to give north Tulsa youths positive
activities and role models. Now officials are talking about year-round activities, perhaps adding baseball and
soccer leagues. And at least some of the churches are looking for other ways for their congregations to work
together, or maybe just hang out together.
"We want to get our people in the same room together, talking to each other," said the Rev. Ray Owens of
Metropolitan Baptist Church in north Tulsa. South Tulsa's Evangelistic Temple helped Owens expand his
church's Vacation Bible School this summer.
"Now we're committed to taking the relationship into the fall and beyond, getting to know each other as
people," he said.
Open gym nights
Open gym nights ended this week at other locations, but they will continue year-round from 5 to 7 p.m. each
Tuesday at the Tulsa Dream Center, 200 W. 46th St. North.
Chamberlain Yellow Team
members trap Tulsa Dream
Center player Dustin
Shoplick during Yellow's
semifinal win over the
Dream Center during the
Bridges of Faith basketball
tournament Tuesday at the
Chamberlain Community
Center.
Mayor Dewey Bartlett talks
to young north Tulsa
residents during a break
from their basketball
games at the Dream Center
recently