When I was a boy, another boy in my neighborhood observed of me that I was always playing the sport of the season. If it was football season, you could count on my backyard hosting our own mini-Super Bowl. Basketball was played some days when the ball felt like a frozen rock. A few windows became victims during baseball season. Football on TV was a big part of Sundays after church in our home. If you’ve attended GCC for any time period, you’ve heard the occasional sports illustration in a sermon. I really enjoy sports! Though I am only an average athlete at best, I enjoy playing sports and watching them quite a bit. I especially enjoyed watching my daughters Emily and Anna play sports, and we spent quite a bit of time watching girls’ soccer and basketball. To be honest, I think I made some mistakes in some of our choices there. I hope you will learn from that!
We live in a very different day in youth sports from my days of the unorganized backyard games. Those casual games in the neighborhood have given way to an all-consuming version of youth sports. Soccer, basketball, and softball have intense versions available in our community that require significant chunks of family time and money. Travel sports programs require a large financial investment and a large number of weekends away from home and church. Some families are likely to spend nearly as many Sundays on a soccer pitch or basketball court as they will in church worshipping together as a family. This relatively new shape of youth sports has led us to assume our children must have this consuming involvement for a full life. Many parents associate these all-consuming travel sports programs with success in varsity athletics in high school, and they see their child as a scholarship athlete down the road.
In her probing article Kids Quit the Team for More Family Time, Sue Shellenbarger introduced us to a sports crazy family who made a conscious choice with their three athletic sons to scale back their involvement in favor of more time as a family. The family decided together to emphasize more recreational level sports than the higher level. Shellenbarger reported the changes another family made:
Meg Searl and her husband Chris of Omaha, Neb., have ruled out elite travel teams for their four sons, saving both money and time for family dinners. This has enabled the Searl boys, 16, 14, 12 and 10, to start a summer lawn-mowing business. Ms. Searl's oldest son also has been able to hold a summer job. Many parents choose laid-back community leagues instead. Ms. Searl says her sons have as much fun, or more, on neighborhood-league teams, as other kids seem to have on traveling teams. "They laugh, they tease each other, the coaches are laughing. They get there 10 minutes before the game and throw on a jersey," Ms. Searl says. "It's like the old-fashioned sandlot." (Wall Street Journal 7/21/2010)
Shellenbarger’s article challenges our common assumptions about our children’s athletic future. The odds of a varsity athlete playing a college sport at any level is pretty small:
Only about 3% to 6% of high school basketball, football, baseball and soccer players make it to a college team, the National Collegiate Athletic Association says. Only about 2% of high-school athletes are awarded college athletic scholarships. Far more money is available for academic scholarships (WSJ 7/21/2010)
So for all the enjoyment sports can bring, and all the benefit it may have, only a few students get a large payoff for all the weekends away from home and worship. And what about the souls of our children? Are we teaching them by our practice that their physical body is more important than their eternal soul? If we spend so many weeks away from corporate worship, what message are they getting about the value of connection with other Christians?
Shellenbarger’s article doesn’t address the spiritual dimension of the equation, but it does suggest other options exist. The local soccer organization has recreational teams which involve only a weekly practice and a Saturday game. The YMCA sponsors a fun basketball league for children which is less competitive and more fun. Upward Basketball is a fun church-based league in our community. My daughter Anna greatly enjoyed playing YMCA ball her senior year while playing time on her Varsity sports team was challenging.
My encouragement is to refuse to let others ruthlessly dictate what your family schedule will be. Consider all your values - your soul, your family life - and weigh the value of physical fitness along with it. For so many families the wiser path is one which allows space for other valuable learning opportunities for children, including Sunday worship. For many of us, we allow the choices to be made for us without stopping to weigh the costs of all kinds.
Many years ago in the movie Chariots of Fire, many Christians were moved by the story of Eric Liddell, the Scottish Olympic star who passed up a chance for a gold medal because the race was to be run on the Sabbath (Sunday). Liddell would later give his life for the gospel in China. I could see many of us urging Liddell to run just this one race and discussing how God’s greater glory would be served by his winning testimony. We are a long way from Chariots of Fire and the choice of a gold medal over a worship service. We take a frequent pass on weekly worship in community for meaningless weekend tournaments, the details of which will quickly fade away. It’s time to reconsider our values and beliefs. It’s time to revisit whether for the benefit of our souls and our family, one day in seven should be reserved for God’s purposes and God’s people.
I love sports. I think there is value in children’s participation in them. I don’t think they are everything, or the only thing. When you stop to consider it, none of us really believes that. Sometimes we find ourselves in a place we never intended to be. The gospel gives us God’s forgiving love.
Here is a suggestion if you are going crazy with sports. Take some time to have a family meeting. Discuss together some key questions:
1) Are we enjoying life with this pace? What is this costing us? What are we gaining?
2) Are you (the children) having fun with this, or is it making life too stressful? Would less commitment made all dimensions of life better?
3) How is this affecting us in our life with God?
It’s probably another article, but these situations may present opportunities for the church. Perhaps we can send a few leaders to lead a Bible study on Sunday morning at a soccer field or local gym. I realize we have to meet people where they are. Those of us who follow Jesus as disciples have the power and freedom to decide how our family can best spend the precious years we spend together.
I hope you find it helpful to take some time to weigh the cost and benefits of your current commitments!
In Him,
Don