Church vs. children’s sports

Chariots of Fire

Why do Christian families yield to Sunday morning sports?

Because they don’t fully recognize what Sunday means. They know ‘remember the Sabath’ and lots of fundagelical or Roman legalism that says ‘if you don’t go to church/mass’ and so they see Sunday as something they do. We do call it worship, don’t we, and a big God who loves all certainly won’t mind if we miss this one time. Or the next.

If they saw Sunday morning as Gospel not Law–I get too not I have to–and recognize its not about us or what we bring to the equation but instead it was about receiving God’s grace and Word of forgiveness again and again and again it would be a higher priority. Church, for the sinner, is like a doctor visit for the sick. Restore that practice and you don’t have about Sunday morning soccer.

Both of my children have played youth soccer, and I established a policy from the very beginning that they would not be available for games on Sundays before noon. None of their coaches ever had an issue with it, and neither did my kids. When I coached them myself for a few seasons, I informed the league that my teams would not be available for games on Sundays before noon. They always accommodated this when putting together the schedule. It is really just a matter of parents assertively taking a stand; most people will respect it and help them make it work.

Oh, one other thing. There is an LCMS church here that has Tues. 7:00 am communion service. So, when my son says he wants to go to something on a weekend including Sunday morning, I like to remind him that I can drop him off there for the service before taking his brother to school. So far, he has decided against such activities.

I remember a time when businesses were closed on Sunday, too. They’re not anymore. And the people who run them aren’t in church on Sunday morning, either.

Right or wrong, regardless of the reasons used to justify it, Sunday morning activities (whether work or play) instead of church, is a cultural reality of our generation. When Christians are taught by the Church in America – including many “confessional” Lutheran churches – that everything about Church practice is so-called “adiaphora,” and that in order remain relevant to contemporary culture Christians and the Church must follow the leadership of secular culture, why isn’t it expected that, in following that leadership, Christians discover they have more important things to do and are perfectly free to justify doing them? And what’s wrong with that? There’s no Ceremonial Law in the New Testament that says Christians are required to be in a church building on Sunday, or any other day of the week – such practice just a cultural artifact of a bygone era. Further, when Lutheran laymen are taught that “everyone is a Minister” regardless of whether they have a Divine Call, and consistent with this teaching, are granted license to write new liturgies for their congregations, to mount their church pulpits and preach the Sunday sermon, and to regularly teach adult Bible class (instead of the Pastor), who’s to say that, when the poor Lutheran layman gets a butchered rendition of Matins and a poorly executed puppet show on Easter Sunday, he’s wrong in thinking, “Gee, I can do a better job following the Matins Service, or some other informal agenda, and preaching for my own family and close friends in my own home. Who needs this stuff?”

The combination of this “adiaphora” run amok, and of asserting contemporary culture’s authority and leadership over the practice of the Church, has, over time, done nothing other than grant laymen “Christian freedom” to do something other than church. What else could one possibly expect? And what recourse have churches who teach and practice this stuff to keep laymen in the pews, so that they can afford to maintain their buildings? They certainly can’t use doctrine to compel practice, when they’ve been teaching all along that doctrine and practice are completely divorced, and that “all practice is adiaphora.”

It just so happens that I received an email from a pastor-friend of mine only yesterday, that supplies an example of the recourse such churches may have. A pastor-friend of his, with long experience in the Ministry, had become somewhat enamoured with teaching materials designed to encourage greater participation in the congregation, and wanted the opinion of his brothers in the Ministry. Those materials are entitled, 12 Reasons To Be An Active Church Member. I offered my response, as follows: Replace the word “Church” with “Free Masons,” “Boy Scouts,” “4-H” or any other club, social group or organization, and the reasons apply in the same way. These materials have nothing whatsoever to do with “church” or “being an active Christian” at all, but are merely a sales pitch to organization members encouraging them to do more for the organization. Geez… when I worked for big corporations, we got the same stuff during our semi-annual “all-hands meetings” with the CEO and VP’s, and even during the monthly Director’s meetings – “Reasons to be an ‘active’ or ‘engaged’ employee, etc…” was always a prominent part of the agenda. It was infuriating. They wanted us workers to put in more hours and be more productive, but didn’t want to offer additional compensation for the effort, so they tried to sell the “social benefits” of being “plugged-in,” to leverage the intangible benefits of being a member of a group of people working together to accomplish something. This guy better watch out. If he has middle-class members, they’ll know exactly where this stuff comes from and what it is intended to accomplish (free labor), because they have it shoveled under their nose every day at work.

Yes, following the leadership of contemporary culture, church membership and attendance means only only thing: organizational strength. And that’s the only recourse for today’s contemporary church.

My Opinion.

Sports provides greater benefits to children and parents know this. On the one hand you have children who are engaged in an activity which fosters essential life skills such as hard work, patience, persistence, goal setting, dealing with set backs, working together as a team, etc., etc., ….and on the other hand you have children in church, drinking blood and singing religious nursery rhymes. I think the decision is obvious.

“Why would Christian parents let their kids be in sports when that keeps them from going to church?”

Because “fitting in” and a slightly better chance at the 1 in a million athletic scholarships are more important than teaching their kids to prioritize their lives around Christ.

@11
Makes perfect sense, if the parents are not Christians and so do not know what is given in Christian worship</strong).
Doesw not make sense at all, if the parents are Christians and so do know what is given in Christian worship</strong).

A frequent poster here who goes by “Carl Vehse” probably spent every Sunday of his life in an LCMS church, and you can see the consequences every time he contributes. Perhaps playing sports Sunday mornings might have helped.

School related activities are also encroaching on Sunday mornings. We have high schoolers who are missing on Sunday morning because the local high school band decided to have mandatory practices on Sunday morning.

I think the issue is multifaceted.
1. Parents have grown up hearing the mantra involving your kids keeps them out of trouble/gangs.
2. Their sports heroes almost to a person started dedicated work very young.
3. As parents filled schedules, additional activities moved to traditionally less busy days in order to survive.
4. Parents felt powerless over the move because they want the best for the kids.
5. We forgot the value of downtime.
6. We are collectively a screwed up, messed up, sinful people.

kempin @ 20

How did I make the law into Gospel?

The world doesn’t care, for the most part about the LORD, how can we as Believers expect them to deny poor little Betsey and Bobby of baseball, soccer, swim meets, and host of other sports, taking place on Sunday?

The new parents today didn’t go to church as children, they don’t know the difference. They WANT their kids to compete, it fulfills their wishes, that never came to fruition. Lots of parents have nothing else to do, except live thru their children – sports is the perfect venue, especially if they aren’t interested, or excelling academics.

Parents often bemoan the morals of today, their childrens lack of character – the answer can only be found in Christ –

I can still taste my mothers Sunday dinners, hear the music in church, hear my mothers dear friend sing the solos. I thank God for my parents. We didn’t just do Sunday, our lives were wrapped in Christ.

Growing up in the Midwest, Wednesday nights were also off limits to school activities because it was prayer meeting night for many churches.

We took the music rather than sports route with our kids. Even with private lessons, competitions and advanced ensembles, there were very few Sunday conflicts and some options to use their music skills in worship. It’s an option worth considering if your children don’t have a strong drive to play sports.

John H. @17. That is an incredibly rude remark, which has no place on this blog. Issues – by all means, but please no attacks on persons.

George A. Marquart

@8
“What about chapel services at school? Most schools have weekly, but others have daily or bi-weekly. If the child is going to these services, then doesn’t that sort of count?”

It counts in that they are hearing God’s Word, but I think it is also important that families worship together, and that they worship with other Christians. This is the mutual consolation and conversation of the brethren.

kempin @ 24

The same Word delivers Law and Gospel. When God said “remember the sabbath” before Christ came it was a work of man, an obligation of the Law. But now that Christ has come, He is our sabbath, He fulfills the Third Commandment. When we “remember the sabbath” now we do well to receive His grace and forgiveness, to call to mind what He has done, that we rest in Him. It’s no longer our work but His.

I’m not arguing that this removes an obligation or need to observe the sabbath. But remembering the sabbath is now much more–it’s no longer “have to” but “get to”: I “get to” take communion, I “get to” sing praises, I “get to” receive forgiveness, again and again and again. The world sees Sunday going to church as obligation. The faithful Christian should see it as privilege.

We spent 10 years in the club travel soccer world. Out of town weekend tournaments and games are part of the package. My sons are now graduating from high school. I will be interested in their perspective on it all when they look back in a few years. At this point their faith is still alive and active and growing and the lessons they learned in the club athletic world were pretty valuable. The realities of youth/high school athletics are a lot different than when many of us grew up. I respect people who have made the difficult choice to opt out of the demanding athletic world but I have a problem when they still have the expectation that their son should be getting more playing time in high school over kids who have invested and made the sacrifices to develop their talent. It isn’t about the college scholarship, most people get that. Now it is an important piece in even high school participation. Thankfully we have a divine service every Monday evening. It’s not so clear cut for many people who are trying to figure it all out and attempting to maintain growing faith while supporting their kid in a highly competitive environment.

This is a serious issue and I appreciate the concerns and comments, but especially your comments Bob @33. We are struggling to maintain priorities with our last child at home, a middle schooler who has a strong athletic bent. Anyone with this type of child knows that they have a mental and physical need to participate in their sport, in the same way that a child with another bent can’t help but to draw, or to sing. Our boy’s sport is hockey; ice time is precious to come by, so you take what you can get. That said, we manage to attend Sunday School and/or worship every almost every Sunday, even if it means playing a 6:30 AM game and heading to Sunday School and worship afterwards, or going to Sunday School and leaving for a game, or going to the 8:30 AM service and heading out to a game, or missing Sunday School for a game but making it back in time for worship. The conflicts don’t happen most Sundays, but maybe 20-30% of the Sundays during the season. I feel like the Sundays my son and either my husband or I miss (only one parent goes to the game during a worship time), even due to a few tournaments, don’t make as big of a negative impression on our son as the positive example of our absolute commitment to attending Sunday School and/or church on the Sundays where it would be a lot easier for us to just skip church for the game. That said, we will on occasion skip a game if we know we will be missing church the next week or so because of traveling for the holidays, etc. That may sound like rationalizing, but I can’t see the positive benefit of being hardline on never missing church, and consequently missing out on the valuable lessons and close friendships (our son is home schooled with no siblings left at home) as well as the pleasure of developing God-given skills. I also make it a priority to have Bible/catechism study several times a week, if not daily, which frankly takes a lot more discipline for me. This and the daily spiritual/theological discussions and prayer we have, I hope, are a model of a life of faith that I hope he will desire to pursue on his own as he grows into adulthood.

A frequent poster here who goes by “Carl Vehse” probably spent every Sunday of his life in an LCMS church, and you can see the consequences every time he contributes. Perhaps playing sports Sunday mornings might have helped.

Okay, kids. It is time to play Name that Logical Fallacy.

@30

Grace,
I was quoting, then responding to the poster at #8.