Church attendance and sport

[FrootLoopy]

If you are a firm believer in attending church regularly, how do you square this up with your desire for your DC to play a sport regularly, when that sport happens to fall on a Sunday morning?

DS1 loves a particular sport (DH has passed on his passion for it) which isn't as common as others, and all the clubs around here seem to do training for it on a Sunday morning. Next school year (or perhaps even birthday if they allow mid season starts) he will be old enough to start training at the clubs. Games don't actually start until he is a few years older though.

But I run Sunday club for half the month, the DC attend it with me, both DH and I are firm Christians and do lots of extra duties at church. The church is quite central to our lives in the community.

I'm finding this difficult to square up. I know there are evensong services (CofE) but they're not the same as communion services at 10 am and we don't have them at our local church so would have to go further afield anyway, the 8 am services are just too early and too 'plain' for the DC - and for me tbh.

We used to attend a cathedral, but have moved to a local parish church when our DC were old enough to understand things, so that they could be part of a church community.

There aren't a lot of other children at church, so if mine suddenly don't attend I think the Sunday school would close, tbh.

But I really want him to play this sport, and if he doesn't start training at the same age as other children, he won't ever have the chance to progress in it.

How do others deal with this?

Sports can lead to life long injuries.
As for the rest, a religious education can do just as good. In fact, sports can become so competitive that I'm not sure children actually learn how to lose. Or win.

But, as I said, it doesn't have to be one or the other.

For many people a spiritual life can be just or more important and that should be respected.

Oh dear Dino.

I think sport and religion overlap a lot in terms of what they teach children actually. Turning up regularly, regardless of whether you fancy it today, respect for others, following the rules etc.

I also think sport is more likely to keep teenagers on the straight and narrow than church is. Even if you can/do make them keep going through their tweens you can't control them to that degree forever. They're far more likely to come back to it if they feel they've had a choice than if they think church going deprived them during their youth.

Dino- are you going to review that at any stage? What about friend's parties? What if they want to play a sport seriously?

Dino - that might sound like your idea of a lovely Sunday but as the children get older it might not be theirs and it won't be so " lovely" if you have 2 bored whiney kids there who would rather be somewhere else.
It might work for now but by the time the oldest is 7 or more you might have to have a rethink.

Try and find someone to share lifts with and you and dh take it in turns too so each of you is only doing 1 week in 4. School term time is only 38 weeks so that is only 9 or 10 weeks you miss each.

Once they start playing matches make it known that you are totally willing to take a car load to the away match that is 40 miles away down horrible country roads and use this to swap for extra lifts to local matches / practices.

I feel that people on this thread do not understand the significance of the OP religion. If anyone tried to trivialise Islam in this way they would get a roasting. If you are a christian then taking your children to church is not an option. i don't see how you can compare christian teaching with playing a sport.

Does the OP prefer high church or a more evangelical church? Some of the newer churches have sunday afternoon services or youth clubs in the middle of the week. If the OP lived in my area then I could make some constructive suggestions.

What is the sport that your children are keen on? Surely there are other opportunities for sport other than sunday morning.

"I feel that people on this thread do not understand the significance of the OP religion. If anyone tried to trivialise Islam in this way they would get a roasting."

No they wouldn't. People have suggested ways of the OP's son going to church (the early service) and also playing his sport, but she doesn't seem to like that idea.

Of course, there is a wonderful overlap in the moral lessons that sport and church can teach children, but church is more about a relationship with God and his people than just moral lessons.

www.christiansinsport.org.uk/ is a great organisation

We've got no real plans to review our thoughts at the moment.

We believe that Sundays are to be set apart in a lovely way. So many people see church as a form of 'deprivation', as explored has suggested, but I see something very different in our own children, who are admittedly little, and in the children who attend our church. I think it is really important that we ensure that Sundays are a lovely, special, family day, not one that children would associate with deprivation!

oh i can see WAY more use to team games than church

personally and i have done both

So if your child wanted to go to a party on Sunday you would say no?

i would also trivialise ISlam - that hoary old cliche

hoppinggreen, seeing the families with older children who have had the same 'policy', why would things need to be different? Why would children be bored with a morning at a vibrant church with active children's work, a tasty lunch and afternoon with friends and family of games, reading, playing in the garden?

I know parents from some of the church schools round here set up mini-rugby clubs that run on Saturday mornings (most mini-rugby seems to run on a Sunday morning) specifically to avoid the clash with church. Would that be an option for you? In the case of rugby, for example, you or your DH could easily qualify as a Level 1 coach in a year. And there are probably other families around who would like to find a Saturday club.

"hoppinggreen, seeing the families with older children who have had the same 'policy', why would things need to be different? Why would children be bored with a morning at a vibrant church with active children's work, a tasty lunch and afternoon with friends and family of games, reading, playing in the garden?"

It sounds lovely, and actually, without the a church bit, quite like what our Sundays used to be when ours were little. What I'm wondering is what you will do if one of your children is invited to a friend's party on a Sunday afternoon. Or if, like mine, one turns out to be an incredibly keen footballer, and matches are on Sunday afternoons. Will you say no? At what age do you think they should be allowed to decide for themselves?

I would have a word with the vicar and see if there is much call for an afternoon Sunday school. It's not unusual for clubs to dominate Sunday mornings so maybe others are in your situation

Otherwise if church is that important to you then you'd make it to the 8am service or evensong

I'm a church children's worker. One family were in a similar position to you. Currently one parent alternates with taking the child to sport, the other is in church. We've set up mid week house groups for the children so he still meets with them each week. Their activities are often around a theme, rather than the bible readings from the lectionairy (like Sunday children's church is).

As a church community we felt we wanted to support the sport happening in the parish, so each week we take hot drinks and snacks to the park where they play. The parents suggested it (one ones whose child was playing the sport) and we've done it for a year now.

I think you would find that most churches do not want children to attend the early 8am service or evensong. These services are popular with elderly people who want time for quiet prayer and complemation.

Many churches have a dedicated family service with children's activities at 10am because they know that small children can be noisey and don't always want to sit still.

Prehaps the OP should ask this thread to be moved to "religion and philosophy". This thread should not be questioning whether the OP beliefs are unreasonable, but how she fit all her commitments into her family life.

My two children love going to church. Clearly I have weird kids.

Go at 8. Or go to a different parish. Or don't take up a sport you know will clash. Decide what your priority is. Your kids going to church is important to you, but you are not responsible for the continued existence of the Sunday school in your parish. My DCs do drama/dance stuff and sometimes rehearsals class with mass - if this happens, we go to another mass (or some of us do). If we all go to another mass, then the music group at our usual mass loses 5 people and is pretty much decimated (except we form more than half the people, not one tenth) - but if there's nothing we can do about it, then that's what happens.

"This thread should not be questioning whether the OP beliefs are unreasonable, but how she fit all her commitments into her family life."

And that's what people are offering suggestions on, surely?

"I think you would find that most churches do not want children to attend the early 8am service or evensong. These services are popular with elderly people who want time for quiet prayer and complemation."

Surely a child old enough to go to rugby training is also old enough to behave properly during a a Church Service?

reallytired if they're weird then I was too! I used to love it and yet I went to a proper 'vicar of dibley' style Church of England village church. It was an integral part of the community and was busy 7 days a week with various activities from mum and baby groups to elderly lunch clubs, brownie and scout packs, church choir, church band, 3 children's services on Christmas Eve due to their popularity...

Perhaps the OP's church needs to become more hands on in the community and become the place a church should be which would in turn encourage a wider range of activities and service times.

Saying that it's not unusual for children to take a few years out then come back to the church so I hope the OP doesn't beat herself up too much about it!

Really tired - every parish I've ever belonged to has always welcomed children at any mass. If I found myself in a parish that didn't welcome children I'd find a new parish. And mine are no longer little and I'm quite a grumpy (old) woman. The church is a family, kids are part of that family.

Remember my eldest is 4, so this is all early days for us, but our thoughts are that we'd generally decline party invitations on a Sunday afternoon unless it was something that we were all invited to, so from and to another family.

As for regular matches on a Sunday afternoon, that would be a no, probably until they are of an age to get themselves there independently. As I said in my first post, there might be occasional exceptions (say, DD normally has swimming competitions on a Saturday morning, but one time there was a gala on a Sunday) but it wouldn't be a regular thing.

I am sorry that so many people here obviously haven't had positive experiences of church whereas we really see Sunday as one of the highlights of the week.

frootloopy my son also plays a sport on a Sunday morning. Although this isn't the main reason why we don't attend church regularly, I find that there is nothing more uplifting and spiritual than watching my healthy child running around a green field.

I have a lot to be thankful for, and watching him for that hour enables me concentrate my thoughts and be grateful. Being outside with the sounds of birds, people, dogs, the river; feeling the sun, the wind, the cold, the rain. It all just adds to it for me.

Could you take your church and your beliefs outside on a Sunday? There should be other activities throughout the week where can still be involved in the church community.

I used to be in my church choir as a child, and sung at each service on a Sunday. So id say if children were ok in the choir then they're ok to attend the service.