Basketball ability keeps Sherbino jumping
Skills used for ministry year-round
By Patrick Erskine Special to ChristianWeek
LENNOXVILLE, QC–A chance to play basketball, not the likelihood of glory, convinced Joel Sherbino that Bishop’s University was the place to pursue a Social Science degree.
Three years later, he has played and won. The Gaiters, competing in university men’s final-eight play for only the fifth time, beat McMaster Marauders 74-71 March 22 to claim their first-ever Canadian championship.
Ironically, it was coach Eddie Pomykana’s coaxing that helped Sherbino choose Bishop’s over the vanquished McMaster campus.
"He said I might get to play in the first year. The school’s size (only 1,700 students) meant I’d get to know everyone," Sherbino recalls. "The largest part of my choice was basketball."
Now 21, the 6’6" guard/forward is taking an extra year to earn his degree before heading to Tyndale Seminary to prepare for youth ministry. But his basketball prowess has already helped indulge his other passion: serving God.
Respected on the court, he has influence off-court due to consistent Christian living. A home-game chapel program open to interested players is his doing. On road trips, he and the physiotherapist, also a believer, provide a biblical perspective for many back-of-the-bus discussions, like after a recent on-board screening of Contact, a Jodie Foster movie that explores the relationship between science and faith.
Back home, 20 minutes north of downtown Toronto, Sherbino has spent the past few summers ferreting out junior high youth in hang-outs around Woodbridge. He, two volunteers and Woodbridge Presbyterian’s youth pastor, Dave Martin, run a sports drop-in and follow up interested youth with relationship-builders like waterslide excursions or provincial park campouts that draw a vanload or two for the weekend.
Besides his home church outreach, he plans to provide basketball instruction at a secular sports camp run by high school friends in Aurora.
Globetrotting
Then there’s the globetrotting, coming up May 19-June 28. Friends connected him with Athletes in Action (AIA)/Campus Crusade for Christ which is assembling a team of Canadian all-stars to play exhibition basketball, give testimonies and run skills clinics around India. On the way home, the group plans to spend a week working with missionaries in Thailand to screen the Jesus film in remote jungle villages.
Sherbino is raising support for the short-term missions trip through letters to members in his home church and by speaking to his adopted Lennoxville congregation, Greenridge Baptist, and elsewhere in the eastern townships.
One indication that Sherbino is glorifying God while doing something he enjoys came during the locker room hoopla following the big win. Coach Pomykala called for silence from excited players, alumni and well-wishers and asked the young player to lead a thanksgiving prayer for the "magical season of 97-98."
