What is Sweaty Sheep?

We are the playful, passionate, & colorful sheep who wandered from the flock.

  • Our Mission:    ‘To embrace RECREATION to break down social, economic, and Faith barriers.
  • We value:   The unique gifts of each individual and seek to create a community of mutual growth.
  • We believe:  There is not one ‘right’ spiritual path… thus we strive to empower and support the unique faith journeys of each individual without proselytization.  So, though rooted in the Christian tradition, we see value in all faith teachings and encourage interfaith dialogue and co-learning.  We never exclude any genders, sexual orientations, religions, species (we are super pet friendly!), etc…     We like to focus on what unites, not divides us!

What does Sweaty Sheep do?

  • Celebrate unity through diversity (because we believe that oneness is far from sameness!)
  • Move beyond the blind acceptance of “second hand religious” rituals, rules, and practices of the past… and seek out the omniscient in passionate and personally relevant ways
  • Cultivate authentic community unrestricted by labels of homelessness, disability, faith affiliation, gender, age, race, etc… 
  • Laugh at ourselves (life and religion are far too important to be taken seriously!)
  • Have fun!   Be it a surf, sail, hike, boardgame, ski-trip, etc… As the late Plato wrote, ‘we grow more through an hour of play than a life of study and conversation.’

Enough reading… let us show you what we mean!

Pastor Ryan Althaus

I’ve never been a “churchy” guy ( that may be the understatement of the year.)   So several years back, while attending seminary, I decided to heed my call away from the stained glass sanctuary and seek out the deeper meaning of Worship.  I stopped seeing “Church” as a place and instead embraced it as a people.   I grew weary of trying to understand and explain God and started seeking new means of experiencing God.        

Sweaty Sheep Ministries, with its belief that the best means of spiritual growth comes through our ability to match our passions and play with relevant faith teachings and fellowship, was the answer.  In our particular community that passion was rooted recreation,

Yes, this is a Christian group… however, one that embraces doubt and questioning, so we welcome (and grow alongside of) all religious traditions and do not push any one belief (because we don’t claim to have he faith thing all figured out!)  Recreation has the unique ability to break down Spiritual Barriers that we have constructed over the millennia and allows us to experience God rather than limit God through names and labels. 

We hold strong to the belief that core belief that worshiping and/or knowing God is only possible through our experiencing God, and as a community we understand that does not always happen in a church pew!

Our program is fully inclusive and lifts up our uniqueness as individuals.  Following the Indonesian philosophy of “unification through Diversity,” we embrace the various views and experiences each of us bring to the table… because we all grow and learn through one another.  Furthermore, our individuality demonstrates the need for each person to seek and develop their own personal, and indeed “unique,” relationship with God.
Our services and outreach opportunities aid in this by providing safe places to grow, relevant worship and mission opportunities that facilitate the development of each individual, and a community of individuals with similar passions of which to travel in fellowship with.  Sweaty Sheep helps to make religion not only relevant, but fun, emphasized through our motto of “re-Creation through Recreation,” and we truly believe that play is an essential component of spiritual growth. 

              -Pastor Ryan Althaus

      

    I wonder when…

    …I wonder when,
    in the course of the Christian experience,
    we decided that church,
    that worship,
    meant sitting still?
    When did we decide that faith
    was a passive experience?

    If you believe that worship is movement,
    in the acting out of our faith
    through a mixture of service and play,
    then maybe you are a
    Sweaty Sheep.

    If you connect with God
    through laughter and activity,
    through hiking a trail as well as sitting in a pew,

    …if your understanding of ‘baptism’ is the crest of a crashing wave
    then maybe you are a
    Sweaty Sheep.

    If you believe that God is bigger than a name and calls us
    to squeeze every ounce out of life,
    smell every flower,
    and dance every chance we get,
    then maybe you are a
    Sweaty Sheep.

    We invite you to join the flock and be part of a
    spiritual MOVEMENT,
    through which we actually MOVE.

    There is a certain fellowship built through sweat, through play, some healthy competition, and a celebrated diversity. We embrace the Christian faith, but without neglecting the beautiful wisdom of all faith traditions…

    We believe that no one tradition has things all figured out and we pursue the path of a guy who turned water to wine, hung out withbthe homeless, and called out the hypocrites!  A friend who shone with a rich and nondiscriminatory love, who stepped out of boats onto the water, and knew how to find meaning in this life (though giving his so we could live ours…

    We believe theres a difference in being alive and living life.   We chose the latter!

    Lucia Capocchione states:

    “Play keeps us vital and alive. It gives us an enthusiasm for life that is irreplaceable. Without it, life just doesn’t taste good.”

    We are under no false presumptions that a church has walls. Some churches do have walls and that is fantastic; beautiful things happen inside those walls and in those pews. But we certainly do not restrict the “Christian practitioner” to a certain gender, race, orientation, etc. As well we do not restrict our personal capabilities to any mortal standards. If God Created us, God is certainly capable of being the judge, we just need to love

    FAQ

    Is Sweaty Sheep a church? What denomination?
    Yes, Sweaty Sheep is a church. A church isn’t a building, but a group of people who have been called by God for a purpose. Sweaty Sheep is supported by the Presbyterian Church (USA); however, we partner with a variety of churches and denominations and do not put any particular denominational label on our community.  No matter what denomination or religion you belong to – or if you don’t belong to any at all- your welcome here!

    How do I get involved?
    Check us out on Facebook to look out for upcoming Sweaty Sheep events!

    Does Sweaty Sheep have a central location?
    The world is our playground…      We have launched Sweaty Sheep Santa Cruz (and would love your participation in its formation). In Louisville we work alongside of St. Vincent DePaul with our runPossible program and our monthly services are often in Cherokee park.  Keep up to date on both programs via Facebook:  Louisville and California