Relentlessly pursuing Christ and His Cause
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Brian Ford, a friend of mine and a fellow Deep and Wide youth ministry advocate, is having a great discussion on his blog about whether or not high school sports are interfering with teenagers growing deeper spiritually. Check it out here and join the conversation!
It seems very interesting. I personally had a hard time with this. I do Cross Country but the time interfered with our young men study on Mondays so I asked the Coach and thank God she lets us go early to our church (by running) so we could still have the study. I always put Church before I do sports though and I tend to get ridiculed or condemned for it
I think school activities tend to take priority over church activities in the minds of a lot of parents. The most frustrating thing for me in my first youth pastorate was how football practice went so late on Wednesdays. I had guys who were always late, or wouldn’t come at all. The sad thing was – this was a Christian school that should be supporting church activiites.
Yes, as a Youth Leader I do believe that sports can interfer with the spiritual growth of teens. Even “Christian” families seem to put more emphasis on sports then their children’s spiritual development.
To many extents, yes they do. As a youth leader it is really hard to plan for events and around practices. We used to have early morning bible studys but as soon as basketball season hits, the kids are gone due to practices. I reside and work in a community where sports are everything and at times it can be a huge blob on the spiritual practices our church tries to instill in the youth. However, sitting on the sidelines of those games or alongside the track and seeing what amazing abilities God has granted them mixed with sportsmanship and attitudes that could only be graced by Him also make me aware of how our sports revolved community can reach out and be witnesses to the other communities around. It is such a reminder that for those practices to be planted in the kiddos, it has to start by making their church practices a priority just like their sports practices.
in my opinion they don’t interfer. i run cross country and the team is really close. we pray before every race. we pray for each all the time. we get in discussions about God while we run. a lot of people on my team say they get their strength to go harder and father only through God and nothing would be possible without him. if anything we just grow a closer relationship with him because will build these incredible bonds that a lot of sports don’t build, and we make ourselves accountable for each other in running and spirtually.
I think it greatly interferes with the youth pastor’s ability to maintain large numbers in the youth meetings, activities, etc…
But I don’t see in any way how it interferes with the spiritual growth of teens and in many cases I think it helps. Great sportsmanship goes hand in hand with the character traits taught by Jesus Christ and those that are expected of God’s children.
Spiritual growth is the application of what we learn spiritually. Sports is an awesome avenue for teens to grow spiritually in their own personal life and work on that personal relationship with God. It gives teens a chance to apply what they learn in a somewhat controlled environment that encourages the traits all good Christians should learn at one time or another.
Work hard, we reap what we sow (practice), sharing, selfishness is no good, be thankful, work together, help others, and on and on with the lessons of teamwork and sportsmanship.
I’m enjoying everyone’s thoughts on this subject both here and on my blog. It’s given many of us a lot to think about and hopefully use in our youth ministries and churches. The key word I’ve seen throughout the comments is “balance.” As I said in my article, there is nothing wrong with teens playing sports, but like anything they do (sports, band, part-time job, chess club) there needs to be balance and there needs to be adults (parent first) committed to teaching our teens what comes first in their daily life (Matthew 6:33, Matthew 22:37-39).
This one is easy… I can’t get kids to sign up to come to the d2s conference because it will interfere with a basketball game! I’m extremely frustrated because even the parents won’t consider letting their children miss a sports activity. And some of the parents are youth volunteers!
I used to play high school sports when I was in high school. My practice days were not a problem because our practices never went past 6 pm. Our games days were on church nights and that was somewhat of a problem to my mother. At one time she kept from practice because she felt that it was consuming my life and in a way she was right. What she did was help me put my faith in its proper place. After that I still continued to play sports but with a renewed understanding of who comes first. Think of it this way. If God blesses you with a job that sometimes has you working on church nights or during special services what should you do? Go to work! The reason is that no matter what your activity, even if it sometimes prevents you from going to church services it doesn’t negate you still reading your bible on a daily basis and prayer. Those things should take place without question. Let us not start to blame any activity from stopping us communing with God. Why not take the youth groups to the games as a way of supporting those who do play sports to show them that they are not going to allow anything to separate their fellowship? There is always another alternative.
