The Impact of Travel Sports on Church Attendance

Never There: How Sports Impacts Youth Ministry

We've all been there…

You meticulously program an outcome around the diverse school sports schedules only to accept an unforeseen tournament pop up that knocks out a 3rd of your students.

You have 50 students on curlicue, but yous struggle to get xx to attend on Wednesday nights because of one practice or some other.

You lot have conversation afterward conversation with parents: "My girl won't be able to make the retreat because she's traveling for a meet." "My son will miss Bible study considering of pitching do."

You push button, pull and prod students to grow in their spiritual habits, just they struggle. Do before school, school, practice later school, homework…They're legitimately worn out.

In that location may not be a single conversation that's beingness had more frequently in youth ministry civilisation than the conversation surrounding the bear on that sports have on teenagers and youth ministries. Our teenagers' participation in athletics impacts big churches and small, rural and urban. Based on our civilisation's obsession with sports, it's not a conversation that'due south going abroad anytime soon.

I need to offering a caveat: I love sports. I played football, baseball and basketball in high school. I played intramural sports in higher. A lot of my family unit time is sports-centric. We're flavor ticket holders for Auburn University Football. Our family loves spending autumn Saturdays tailgating with friends and watching the game. My oldest daughter plays softball. My heart and youngest daughters are involved in gymnastics. As a family unit, we're very aware of the positives and negatives of playing and watching sports. I say all this so you know I'm not someone who is anti-athletics. On the contrary, it's always been a pretty important role of my life.

Attendance = Spirituality?

A while ago, a youth worker dropped by the youthministry360 office. He'due south a competent, passionate youth worker, the kind of guy you lot'd dear to have on your squad. Equally he talked about his electric current struggle, I heard frustration in his voice. He's having a really hard time competing with sports for his teenagers' time. He has shut to 50 kids on coil in his youth ministry. He'southward struggling to get 20 to prove upward on Midweek nights, and the main culprit is do—all sorts of practice—football, basketball, cheerleading, you name it. Furthermore, it's not but Wednesdays. Sunday numbers are down, too. AAU basketball, cheerleading, baseball game and softball take up a lot of his students' weekends.

I can relate. My church building's summer camp numbers were impacted by the high schools in our community and its football exercise. Additionally, I know several students who won't attend our winter retreat because of able-bodied commitments. While our numbers are healthy overall, information technology's quite common for students to miss youth group functions because of sports commitments.

It's pretty easy to point out that youth grouping attendance doesn't define our students' spiritual identity. While this is essentially true, I call back there is something we should consider: The Bible is clear that God designed spiritual growth to happen within customs. In the New Attestation, Jesus called a distinct people to Himself. We see ample show of this with the emergence of the New Testament church. For many of our students, youth group is the but source of a truthful community in which their faith tin can grow. They simply don't have another option.

When a significant number of teenagers consistently miss youth group because of sports, not just does it present logistical problems for you, but it deprives your other students of vital members of their faith community. I wish our students and their parents were in a place where church participation was seen equally valuable as sports participation, but it seems that in well-nigh cases it's non. I don't think that will alter.

Moving Abroad from Program-centric Ministry
And then the question is: What are we to practice? I think we have two choices. We tin can stay married to the program-centric models that are challenged to meet the needs of students who spend nearly evenings at practice; or nosotros tin can adapt certain aspects of our ministry model to meet students where they are.

Accommodation is the way to go, but how does that look?

If you have a large number of athletes who can't arrive to your Wed night service, consider creating new opportunities for them to plug into your ministry. The guys in my small-scale grouping can't oftentimes come to Wednesday nights, but Dominicus nights are open. Nosotros meet for an hour to an hour and a half on Sunday nights, and nosotros get full participation most of the time. Remember, your programs aren't sacred. You don't serve them. They serve you lot. You may need to embrace a less formal, more relational model.

If your numbers are dwindling because your athletes can't come to yous, figure out how to go to them. Meet in small groups before school. Show up with dinner later practice. If you do this, you may discover yous accomplish a group of students who previously weren't reached.

Retrieve, their absence isn't personal. While it can feel personal at times, teenagers aren't choosing sports over you personally. For some of our students, beingness at the ball field every night of the week isn't their choice. We should feel empathy for these students, whose parents who push button their kids to over-nourish sports activities. It'south a recipe for exhaustion, and it does more than impairment to their family unit relationships than edifies.

Sports vs. Spirituality?
For many of our students, a team provides a rich surround for sharing the gospel. Sports teach discipline, teamwork and respect for authorization amidst other things. These are attributes that can serve to enhance faith with lessons learned on the field or the court haemorrhage into their spiritual lives. We need to keep in mind that for many youth workers, sports are the backbone of their communities. In many cases, the support system that sport provides is the only 1 a educatee might have. Furthermore, it provides youth workers with a built-in environment in which to appoint teenagers and their families.

It'southward such a fine line to walk. I take led a small group of guys who are at present 11th graders. I accept discipled them since they were in 7th grade. All but one is an athlete, and I would say their families have a pretty good for you view of sports. Yet it's still a huge challenge. Nosotros've talked before about the biggest obstacle to their faith. Every bit a group, they said that having no time in their schedules was the biggest claiming. They are so maxed out.

Six a.m. lifting and cardio starts for football runs from January through May, with ii weeks of afternoon do in the bound. They'll become a few weeks off and resume morning exercise all summer. Then school starts in the autumn when they will do football-related activities six days a week from August until November. Iii of them play other sports that overlap with their morn football game workouts. They're all good students and have their grades seriously. They have two or three hours of homework well-nigh nights, not to mention increased loads around exam times and special projects.

Equally are most athletes, they are tapped out. They all say their prayer lives are in good places, just their time to devote to meeting God in His Discussion (when they are focused and non wearied) is slim. Information technology's hard to believe sports participation isn't affecting their spiritual lives.

For many of our students and their families, their involvement with sports is unhealthy. Family unit life centers around the next game, the next tournament, the adjacent practice, the side by side private coaching session. On a list of priorities, sports come start; everything else, second. For these families, athletics dominate their cultural landscape. Their commonage identity revolves around the ballpark or arena. They have a problem with what they have chosen to attach value.

Information technology occurs to me the unhealthy pursuit of sport is, at its core, a discipleship issue. Recall in Matthew 19 where Jesus has the substitution with the rich immature man. Jesus told him that in order to follow God he must requite away all his possessions. We know Jesus isn't categorically opposed to wealth. However, Jesus knew that for this immature human being, his wealth was the thing keeping him from following Him. Jesus told the human being to prune away the most inhibiting obstacle in his life, and it acquired the man great consternation. I wonder if nosotros were to substitute sports for riches, what would some families' reactions be if Jesus were to ask them to walk away from the ball field?

So our verdict must be that sports tin can impact many youth ministries negatively—but only if we fail to conform. Trying to fight sports culture probably is wasted effort. The challenge for us as youth workers is to wait for how nosotros tin can alter our methodology to attain a civilization that more often than not puts the fields and courts before the pews (or edible bean bags).

Andy Blanks has been didactics the Bible and discipling teenagers weekly for the past 14 years. Andy lives in Birmingham with his awesome wife and their four children. He is an avid runner and loves being outdoors. Follow him on Twitter.

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