How Churches Failed the Youth Sports Test

And what we can do about it now

The role of youth sports in church attendance has long been a sore subject. When soccer or baseball or whichever other season rolls around, the pews get a little more empty as mom and dad pack their kids up to head to the field for that week’s matchup.

Whether it’s for scholarships or the ever-so-slim chance of a shot at professional glory and fortune or just because it’s a fun time, countless Christian parents have deemed their kids’ sporting events as more important than Sunday worship.

My aim is not to write to try to convince anyone to put worship over youth sports and any other hobby. Deep down, I fully believe every Christian knows what they should be doing every Sunday morning. I refuse to pretend there’s a debate to be had.

Instead, I want to view the rise of Sunday youth sports as a case study in church leadership.

Sunday games were not always the norm. I’ve talked to plenty of older people who can remember that a Sunday at the kids’ ballpark was just not something that was done. That means in communities across the country, somebody had to float the idea until it caught on.

But if every churchgoing parent said no, in many (if not most) cases, the leagues would not have enough players to continue the practice. In other words, the only reason youth sports on Sundays became a thing is because Christian parents went along with it.

Even today, despite the fact that Christianity is not the cultural powerhouse it once was, Sunday youth sports could be stopped almost immediately in many places if every family that claims to be Christian (in some form) said no. This isn’t just a hypothetical—in my teenage years, my parents, coaches, and teammates’ parents drew the line in the sand and got our hockey league to redo the schedule to remove all Sunday morning games.

So why doesn’t that happen more often?

Why haven’t Christian parents felt compelled to throw their weight around and make Sunday games impossible by pulling their kids off the field? Because they went along with the world. Why did they think it was acceptable to go along with the world?

Because the church didn’t stop them.

If church discipline* had been enacted, some would have repented and come back to church. Others would have left, but with the clear knowledge that what they were doing was wrong in the sight of God and jeopardized their walk with Him. Even today, if we started practicing this right now, we could turn this around.

Instead, our churches have led them to believe they can continually disrespect Christ by shirking the assembling of the saints (Hebrews 10:23-25) for “more important” things and still call themselves Christians. How many youths have fallen away because their parents put a hobby over Christ, and because their church leaders looked the other way as it happened?

Downstream from that, how many worldly families and youths have tripped over the stumbling block of Christians who have set the example that church is less important than a soccer game?

To be honest, as a young preacher years ago, I failed this test myself. In a situation where we had multiple youths missing for sports, I was once asked to preach on the importance of attendance and prioritizing the church. So I did… and you’ll never guess who wasn’t there to hear it, because there was a game that week. Though I wasn’t an elder, I and the men of the church should have been much more direct than just trying to preach a lesson in hopes that they would pick up the message. Given a do-over, I would instead go to in-home visits with other faithful men to handle the matter. Just saying it from the pulpit is not sufficient to handle open sin.

Doing better will be awkward, and to some it will come off as unkind. But as is often the case, the approach that sounds so harsh and unloving—discipline—is the one that could snatch souls from hell, and the nice, soft-pedaled approach has led multiple generations toward condemnation.

Youth sports are but one case study of what happens when clear guidance and direction is not given to the church. So much can be improved when we let our people know what God commands of them and how the church expects them to rise to the occasion.

*As always, when I say church discipline I don’t mean “one strike and you’re out.” I mean the eldership visits the family and tells them why what they’re doing is not okay, and how it needs to change. If it continues, subsequent visits would follow. And, if they continued to refuse to give up Sunday sports, they would then be removed from the church’s fellowship.

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Notes

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