Kenneson (1999:242-245) tells the Japanese story of an old barren, aged and wardamaged cherry tree and an old man who attempts to nurse it back to life. One day two children stumble upon him. They were puzzled by his devotion to a tree that already appears to be dead. They inquired about this and he explained that he realizes that she hasn’t blossomed since before the war but one day, with a little kindness and patience, she may again. The children were inspired by the old man’s devotion and hope and agreed to join him in his efforts to nurse the tree back to life. They worked hard, but much of their time they spend waiting and hoping. And then one day a single pink petal appeared, followed by a rapturous display of fruit-producing blossoms. The Church can be compared to this dying tree that needs to be nurtured back to life. We are called to devote our lives to nurturing this tree called the church even when she seems dead and even when we have no guarantees that we will see a bountiful harvest of the Spirit’s fruit, in our lifetime. We may or may not see the church bear abundant fruit in our generation. But we must not give up hope that God will do what God has promised to do. What is also important is that we will inspire children and youth by our example and that they will be willing to continue to nurture this “tree”, no matter how hard the work to be done or how much waiting and hoping they have to put in. Unfortunately our catechism does not always provide them with all the “tools” they need to nurture the “tree” back to life. This study is about finding new ways. I looked into sport programmes, especially Ubabalo to see how their program works and what they do to keep the youth captivated and committed. I used the practical theologian RR Osmer’s model to guide me through this study. He works with the four tasks of Practical Theology and suggests four questions to guide a researcher. The questions are: <ul> <li>What is going on?</li> </ul> Gathering information that helps us discern patterns and dynamics in particular episodes, situations, or contexts is the descriptive-empirical task of practical theological interpretation. Here we look at sport programmes and three patterns and categories from the Catechumenate that Kreider (1999:xv-xvi) identified. They are belief, behavior and belonging. To this I added values. <ul> <li>Why is this going on?</li> </ul> Here we try to make sense of what we’ve found. What theories might help us to better understand and explain the patterns and dynamics we’ve begun to discover? These are the key questions of the interpretive task of practical theological interpretation. Here I’ve used theories from the arts and sciences to better understand and explain why this is going on. <ul> <li>What ought to be going on?</li> </ul> This is the normative task of practical theological interpretation. Here theological concepts are used to interpret particular episodes, situations, contexts and in this study, the patterns and categories identified. The aim of this task is to construct ethical norms to guide our responses, and to learn from “good practice”. <ul> <li>How might we respond?</li> </ul> This is the pragmatic task of practical theological interpretation. The aim is to determine strategies of action that will influence situations in ways that are desirable. Here I looked into the possibility of using the principles of a sport development program like Ubabalo for liturgical catechesis. Practical suggestions were made. Ubabalo is practical and based on sound educational and sport science principles. Their aim is to transfer Biblical values while coaching different sports. They want to assist a fatherless generation. Sport is a tool, a vehicle to establish discipleship groups introducing Discovery Bible Studies. Ubabalo and Liturgical catechesis can interact in a useful way to help our youth understand what we belief, how we should live as Christians (behavior) and how we should interact and be a faith community (belong). In all of this our values play a very important role. We should inspire our youth to join in our efforts to keep the old tree (the Church) blooming for many generations to come. / Dissertation (MTh)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Practical Theology / unrestricted