Fall is among us in full swing! How is your schedule looking these days? My guess is it is full, really full. It seems to me we shuttle our children from
event to event at a ragged pace. Why do
we do this? At what cost do we do
this? Is it really worth it? These questions have been tinkering around my
mind for some time now as I look around me and see the crazy pace of parents
hauling their children from one even to another. Please don’t take this as me judging you,
or anyone for that matter; this is really just my pondering the issue of extra
curricular activities as it relates to my family's relationship with God.
This summer our small group Bible study explored the book of
Joshua. We came to this verse at the end
of Joshua, just as summer was coming to a close, “If it is disagreeable in your
sight to serve the Lord, chose for yourselves today whom you will serve:
whether the gods of which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or
the gods to the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my
house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15).
This verse really struck a cord with me as it related to sports and the
craziness of our schedules today. I
can’t help but think that the mad dash of life leads us away from God and
towards the things of this world. I
really want to give God priority in our home and I fear that small pulls will
lead me astray.
Growing up there was never any conflict between sports and
church because I wasn’t in church. That
made things easy. Now, I’m a Christian
and church is important to me. It is a
priority for my family and me. Yes, I am
a pastor, but that’s not why I go to church—if I ever reach the place where I’m
going to church because I’m a pastor, I’ve got some big problems. I love church. I’m committed to worshiping,
serving, and being a part of my local church because I’m a Christian. I doubt it’s exclusive to Southern
California, but with our great weather there is a great pulling of people
toward all sorts of events. It seems to
me there are many Christian children absent from church on Sunday regularly
because of commitments to athletic teams of all sorts.
Really, I’m not being legalistic at all in this. I’m simply wrestling through questions and
concerns that I have. Is it okay to ever
miss church? Sure, of course there are
times. Will a sports commitment take priority over my
commitment to church? I’m feeling more
and more convicted that I need to respond, “No.”
Maybe this post is more for research. These are questions I’ve been struggling
with: Can my kids participate in sports
without having to decide between the sport and going to church? What happens to kids who don’t participate on
Sundays? If I encourage my child that it
is okay to participate in a sport that requires them to ditch church on
Sundays, am I demonstrating to them that sports are more important than church?
I’m curious how other Christian parents handle these
questions. I don’t think there are easy
answers, but I’m starting to think that without careful thought, it is easy to
get sucked into this vortex.
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