WooPeople of the Book, may I introduce you to: skateboarding for Jesus.

No, no, I’m not advocating, uh, skateboarding for Jesus, I’m advocating skateboarding as an outlet to bring us all closer to our Jewliciousness. Here, read how non-Jews are doing it.

ELIJAH stood atop the quarter-pipe on his skateboard, a lithe prophet in an electric-pink T-shirt. Below the curved ramp, a group of fresh-faced skate kids, their own boards under their arms, stared up at him in awe.

“Dude, you can do it!” cried the kids, aged 12 to 15.

“I know I can,” called down Elijah, a 25-year-old professional skateboarder with major sideburns. “And I say that out of confidence, not cockiness.” With that, he shot down the quarter-pipe, hurtled across the church courtyard and up a wedge ramp into the open air, his board flipping 360 degrees beneath him before his feet found its top again and he landed smoothly on a receiving ramp.

“Awesome!” the chorus of kids called out. “That was rad!”

Another skater might have basked in the praise. But Elijah – Elijah Moore, that is, a skate evangelist from Garland, Tex. – and the 14 other members of the King of Kings Skateboard Ministries team are quick to say that they do not skate for adulation or even for the thrill of catching big air. They skate for Jesus.

Now just replace that last word with, I dunno, Mashiach.

Shabbat shalom, dudes.

About the author

themiddle

8 Comments

  • it’s not about skateboarding, its about a thirteen year olds hero confirming that believing in God brings purpose to life.

  • Well, I guess people are easily amused. If I were an Xian, I would die of shame over this kind of nonsense.

    Besides, you guys never heard of a rhetorical question?

  • “More Moslems? Because if you didn’t convert, you were in deep doo doo.”

    Same for the Christians, those crusades, inquisitions and all that jazz.

  • More Christians? Because they didn’t need to circumcize.

    More Moslems? Because if you didn’t convert, you were in deep doo doo.

    Both of them proselytize, we don’t.

  • What is that nochri doing with a Magen David on his skateboard?

    It takes a goy to think up a bunch of narrischkeit like “skateboarding for whatsisname”.

    I mean, seriously: if this is our competition, how come there are so any of them and so few of us?

    Shtuyot.

  • Uh… skateboarding for Mashiach? That won’t work. What Jewish mother would allow her kid on a skateboard! He’ll take an eye out or break his hand and never be able to be a surgeon. But seriously. Skateboarding is cool but it has little or nothing to do with Jewish culture … pretty funny imagery though.