Pastor plans to pitch resurrection of Blue Jays at pulpit this Sunday
Nobody in Calgary is more thrilled with the “resurrection” of the Toronto Blue Jays than John Van Sloten.
In fact, the pastor of the New Hope Hillside Church is so excited that the Jays are back in the playoffs for the first time since they repeated as World Series champions in 1993 that he will be taking their message to the pulpit on Sunday.
Yes, he insists, there is a strong connection between baseball and God.
“I got hooked on the Blue Jays when I lived in Toronto in the early 1990s and have been living through their famine ever since,” Van Sloten said on Wednesday as he watched on television the Jays clinching the American League East title to end a 23- year postseason drought.
“I certainly do believe in death and resurrection, although the Jays never really died. As a baseball team, they are coming to life again. There is something holy and invigorating as human beings and athletes and team. For the city of Toronto and Canadians, this is Canada’s baseball team . . . I think they’re going all the way.”
Van Sloten compares the perfection of the dimensions of the baseball diamond that brings out the best in elite players in turning double plays to the perfection of the rest of the world.
He has been speaking with the likes of novelist Hugh Cook and Calgary native and former majorleaguer Chris Reitsma to give him some tips for tidbits to put into his sermon on Sunday, and they have hit home runs.
“Chris brings out the point that baseball has such a diversity of players — not just big, but also small, to make up the wholeness of the team,” says the pastor. “We’ll talk about the beauty of athleticism, the joy of celebrating victory together. I know it’s just a baseball game and a baseball team, but as a theologian, it’s an amazing way of daily life and being together. I’m trying to take the game and the Jays and treat them like an icon, but also about something bigger.”
This is not Van Sloten’s first foray into sports and spiritual encounters. He also wrote about the Calgary Flames as they entered their Stanley Cup playoff chase in 2004 in an editorial in the Herald.
“When I preached about the Calgary Flames in their run in 2004, it was also about a sense of camaraderie,” he recalled.
Van Sloten says he spent the early part of the Jays’ season just watching and reading about them as they struggled to keep their heads above water. But as they started to challenge the New York Yankees for top spot, he’s “started to really tune in.”
The sermon is at 10: 10 a. m. at the Village ( former Rocky Mountain College facility) at 4039 Brentwood Road N. W.