Community Hero Stories
Community Hero Stories
What is a Community Hero?
An individual who brings their community together with an innovative approach to sports ministry while serving selflessly and inspiring life long change on and off the court. We want to celebrate these difference makers who labor in the Gospel work of making Jesus known through the power of sports.
Chris “Tiny” Seely – From the Sidelines to the Sanctuary
At 6’6”, Chris Seely isn’t exactly short. But for years now, the Kingwood, TX, league director has answered to the nickname “Tiny.” It started when he was volunteering in children’s church. One of the kids came up to him and proclaimed, “Wow, you’re as tall as God!” Chris (Tiny) responded, “You know, compared to God, I’m really tiny.” The name stuck.
Since 2018, Tiny has served as the Children’s Pastor at Woodridge Baptist Church on the northeast side of Houston. His responsibilities include running the church’s Upward basketball/cheerleading and volleyball leagues, among other sports programs. Like Tiny himself, the impact of sports ministry on Woodridge has been anything but tiny.
Woodridge averages around 1,100 people for Sunday morning services between in-person and online attendees. The church has been an Upward partner for almost 25 years, but in the past seven years, they have gone from 250 Upward participants to nearly 800 unique kids in their leagues. And in the past 13 months, about 130 Sunday visitors first connected to the church through Upward.
An Intentional Ministry
The truth is, starting a sports ministry doesn’t mean people will automatically begin attending your church. It takes intentionality and hard work. Tiny, his team, and the Woodridge congregation have done many things to build strong connections with their community through the opportunities their Upward leagues create.
When athletes register for Upward, they are asked what church they currently attend. Woodridge tracks which families don’t have a church home and asks their congregation to pray specifically for those families. Another staff member other than Tiny follows up with each family to make an additional connection between them and the church. Upward participants are also invited to other church events throughout the year, such as Vacation Bible School.
Meanwhile, Tiny and his team work diligently to make Upward an excellent experience for everyone, prioritizing good communication, organization, and logistics. With two gym locations, they set up their game schedule so that siblings never play at the same time. Tiny says, “If we can work out a schedule that works within families, and then also while they’re here they know that we’ve done our best to make the teams level, we’ve done our best to value their time . . . they love that.”
A Community Effort
At Woodridge, Upward is very much a community effort. For their most recent basketball and cheerleading season, only 10 out of their 56 teams were coached by church members. However, this creates an opportunity to connect coaches to their church, and to share the gospel with any coaches who might not be Christians as they hear devotions every week along with their players. And while most coaches are not church members, the devotions are all presented by church members.
For basketball and cheerleading, Tiny has a committed group of senior adults who come on practice nights to lead devotions. For volleyball, a group of high school students leads devotions, each leading 44 devotions over the course of the season. Several of these teenagers have gone on to give sermons and speeches, or to go on mission trips—leaning on the skills they learned during the Upward volleyball season. Tiny says, “It’s been discipleship as well because they’re able to learn how to speak, but also learn how to share their faith in front of people that they didn’t know.”
Other members of the congregation are encouraged to come and be a presence on game days. Tiny tells them, “If you can come in, just sit down, and somebody is going to sit next to you that you did not know that God has planned for them to sit there. I just want you to have a conversation with them and show that church people aren’t weird, that we care for our community, and that we love being here.”
Tiny himself serves as a substitute teacher in the local school system on Fridays and gets to know many of the kids and families in the community that way, as well. When a family visits Woodridge on a Sunday, Tiny and the other church staff make sure to welcome them and make them feel like they belong.
All these different touchpoints add up and help build connections between the sidelines and the sanctuary. Families know they are valued and that Woodridge is a church that cares about them, which leads to many of them coming not just on Saturdays for games, but also on Sundays. Tiny says, “We’re just making sure we can do everything we can to the best of our abilities, because we’re not doing it just for our community, but we’re doing it for the Lord.”
A Way to Reach Families
Kingwood, where Woodridge is located, is an affluent Houston neighborhood. One of the challenges of doing ministry in a place like Kingwood is that being well-off financially can often make it harder for people to recognize their need for God. When Tiny started at Woodridge, the church was asking the question, “How do you reach people who don’t think they need anything?” They found out that one of the best ways is actually through sports.
Parents in Kingwood are very invested in their kids, especially in their kids’ sports and activities. Parents will come to their kids’ games even though they have busy schedules, and this is a great way to connect with the whole family. Tiny says that through Upward, “We’ve been able to speak to them about their need for a savior and their need to get their family into church . . . and through that we’ve been able to reach quite a few families . . . God has shown me a lot of things that you can do through sports and how you can really reach families.”
All On the Same Team
Over the years, as his kids participated as players, Tiny has been involved with Upward leagues at five different churches—serving as a coach, a referee commissioner, and currently as a league director. Even now, Tiny knows that sports ministry can make a difference beyond just Woodridge and the Kingwood community. He has been a helpful resource to two other churches in the Houston area as they got their leagues off the ground. Tiny is also an Upward Ambassador and loves offering advice and encouragement to other league directors. He says, “We’re all on the same team. We’re trying to help each other.”
Tiny has seen how intentionality and a high-quality sports ministry can reach people with the gospel and connect them to the church. He wants to see other sports ministries thrive in this way, but he knows it is a lot of work. Still, Tiny believes it’s worth it. “If you had Upward one season and you got one family across, that’s huge. That’s massive because it takes time. They want to know that you can be trusted . . . You’ve got to prove to them that they need it, and God can use you through that.”
Written by Laura Coulter, Content Writer at Upward Sports.
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