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?

Sorry, that was a reply to Hakluyt. I just took my time about it!

I was forced to go to church as a child and missed out on lots of opportunities as a result. My parents never gave us the chance to have any input to this and as a result I ended up resenting having to go.

There must be a way to compromise around this and recognise the positives that your ds can learn from playing his chosen sport, not just the negatives of missing a particular service at church. If he expresses a keen desire to play this sport, then as parents we have a role in supporting our dc (within reason) in their chosen ventures.

Lift sharing with other parents, taking turns with your DH, attending other services and rescheduling the Sunday school all sound like reasonable options.

Frootloopy, I'm in your position too, as a practising Christian whose son is also keen on sport in my case, cricket where training sessions happen on a Sunday morning.

I disagree with previous posters who've said that you could simply either go to an evening service or start up a Sunday school on Sunday afternoon. I'm assuming your normal Sunday morning service is a communion service, in which case evensong, though lovely, is not at all the same thing. I know for myself that it would be a great loss to me not be able to take communion, not to mention the fellowship aspects of going to the main service of the week. Your church may not have an 8am service (did you mention this?) but it tends to be very different in style.

Also you may well not find that it's possible to set up a Sunday School in the afternoon -- though you might raise the possibility of an afternoon service on an occasional basis and see how that suggestion goes down.

What we do is that in the summer I go to church and take one of the children, as long as he wants to come, and DH (who is less bothered about regular church attendance than me) takes the other one to cricket, and then in the winter we all go to church. I take the view that church will mean more to them if they are not forced to give up other things to go, and that in the longer term it will all work itself out.

But it is tough on church-going families that in our secularised society Sunday mornings are generally seen as recreational time/sports club time, and it is one of the things we have to work our way round.

Hak - I often find myself glaring at one or more of my kids during mass and that's not just if they knock over the music but also if they yawn, fidget, 'jiggle' (DD1 has a nervous leg jiggle thing she does on occasion), breathe too loudly... as I said, grumpy. But I'd never dream of glaring at other kids and in fact when they were younger people always used to complement me on how well they behaved at mass (mad people or blind people I always assumed). But it is what it is - plenty of older people yawn and fidget at mass too (and knock over the music). The congregation is made up of people not statues so while I remain at the suggestion that kids wouldn't be welcome in a church I am also a realist and know that where there are people there are likely to be ripples of noise, fidgeting etc whatever age they are.

Hakluyt We also attend church in Sundays, if the dc are invited to a party in a Sunday morning we simply say "No can't do".

"on" not "in"

"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."

tryingnottolaugh, it is perfectly possible to do both. I think the Bible is really clear about the importance of Christians meeting together and that there is a special day particularly set apart to do that, which is all the more important in the increasingly hectic lives that we all face.

During the week, (speaking for my own church), we have other activities for adults and children as well: toddler groups for toddlers and carers, 'youth club' style group for 11-15 year olds, a very well attended Bible study group for 14-18 year olds, house groups, prayer meetings, lunch club for the elderly, Bible study for women with children with a creche, breakfast club at 7am for men before work, social and Bible study groups for international students/workers, coffee mornings, opening the church once a fortnight on a Saturday for local shoppers (we are on a busy street) to come in for coffee and cake.

"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!"

Well if my experience of going to church as a child is anything to go by it was largely defined as both deprivation and extreme boredom, and I know I was not the only kid who thought that at the time. I grew up in a small village and it was kind of the ‘done thing’ for about half the kids to attend church and Sunday school afterwards. Thankfully my father saw better value with my time socialising and enjoying myself playing mini rugby. As a seven year old I loved it and have far fonder memories of that then picking splinters out my arse on the church pew. I stopped playing rugby three years ago but I have a lifetime of great memories and close friendships as a result.

Out of all the kids whose parents dragged them to church each Sunday pretty much all of them started to rebel against going the moment they were old enough to stay at home unattended. I remember some huge rows and simmering resentment as my friends started to stand up to their parents and tell them they wanted to be kicking a ball around the park with all their school buddies as they felt they were missing out. You talk almost with rose tinted glasses about “Sundays are a lovely, special, family day” but I can almost guarantee that the moment your children start to think for themselves it will be a battle every Sunday to get them to church and they will start to view the whole exercise as some form of ‘deprivation’ rather them something from a John Lewis Christmas ad.

Were your children consulted on this decision?

Come on. Who consults their children on how they will be brought up? It is the parents' job to make decision for them.

My DHs family are very very into the church. When he was about 9 or 10 he was selected to play a sport he loved for the Scotland team. So a big deal. His parents wouldn't let him go because training was at 11 on Sunday and they wouldn't contemplate going to the evening service so he could train.

He has never forgiven them for it. Despite being a Christian he dislikes the branch of his church and rarely goes anymore. So he resents the church and his parents.

Surely your children come first?

"You talk almost with rose tinted glasses about “Sundays are a lovely, special, family day” but I can almost guarantee that the moment your children start to think for themselves it will be a battle every Sunday to get them to church and they will start to view the whole exercise as some form of ‘deprivation’ rather them something from a John Lewis Christmas ad."

That's not been our experience from childhood or the experience of most of the families within the churches we've been part of, thankfully. I'm so grateful for the many families while I was a student who just grafted me into their families on a Sunday and showed me how it could be done.

It gives us a huge responsibility for the church leaders to ensure that the services are understandable and relevant for children and we are incredibly grateful for the time and effort that those who run Sunday school and the children's work put in, both our paid children's worker and all the volunteers. (We have about 100 children in our Sunday school classes from 0-18, so there are lots of volunteers!)

It also gives us a huge responsibility as parents to ensure that it isn't a form of deprivation, that we teach them by our own example and by prioritising the day of the delights of having a day set apart, so that they come to really enjoy it themselves.

"
"Come on. Who consults their children on how they will be brought up? It is the parents' job to make decision for them."

Well, I would certainly expect a 9 or 10 year old to have some say in whether they went to church or not, or whether they wanted to play sport on a Sunday..................

DinoSnores overall, I do actually see where you're coming from - I wasn't dissimilar when my DC were smaller. Can I just gently suggest that you don't set yourselves up for a fall?

It may work beautifully, with your children happy to be the ones missing 50% of the parties / playing in the park with friends / doing joint homework projects because they love their Sunday family activities and have a well-developed personal faith very young (and I mean that sincerely). But there is a chance they will resent missing out, not to mention get teased at school or even simply not invited because their friends learn they won't be allowed to go. If that happens, it'll be a real test of faith at a very young age.

Worship and practising your faith is also compatible with daily life. Yes, there are sometimes conflicts but, as other posters have said, God can be worshipped at times other than a Sunday morning. My faith is a part of my life every day and what is important is that I find space each week to prioritise my relationship with God.

"Surely your children come first?"

Indeed they do, which is why we are prioritising the importance of God and our faith. We believe that it is the most important thing that we can share with our children. We can't make them become Christians, only God can do that, but we can share the joy of being a Christian and of having that relationship with God.

Cuchullain I think you are assuming everybody's experience of church is like yours. It is not. our Church is lively and engaging to all age groups, the children enjoy seeing/hanging out with their friends, there are a myriad of activities which the children look forward to and some they run themselves.

I know many children who were raised attending church every Sunday and continued to do so right into adulthood. Of the last bunch of teens I taught, every single one of them went on to find a new church when they went away to university, today they are serving in respective churches. This mass exodus of children from church once they grow up is not something we have experienced, However I am aware of churches where this happens and i can see why also. On the odd occasion that we miss church, my dc moan about all the fun they're missing.

My son has always done two different sports and has attended church.

But we have masses on Saturday and at three different times on Sunday, plus other relatively close churches (within 5-10 min drive)

Well exactly, it is possible to do sport and attend church, and the idea the dc will be missing 50% parties, playing with friends in the park etc, does all this only happen during service time on Sunday? my dc certainly do all these things.

But dinosnores my DH wasn't sharing the joy of being a Christian when he was forced into going to church instead of training for something he loved.

He is very very bitter towards his parents for their insistence to put the church first throughout his life... His life could have been so different, he has sporting potential, and it was squashed. By his parents and the church.

It breaks my heart to watch him watching and playing his sport now, he knows he could've gone far and it's so sad to see.

overtired, I am sure you didn't mean to come across as being a little patronising but the "gently suggesting" does feel like it comes with a head tilt!

Of course, "worship and practising your faith is also compatible with daily life". Our whole lives should revolve around worshipping God in everything we do. Part of worshipping God is making meals for my family, doing my job well, loving and serving our neighbours. Each day we start with praying with our children, at dinner we read a Bible story, my son loves his bedtime Bible story. It should be a part of every aspect of our lives, sometimes explicitly (like giving thanks before a meal), sometimes implicitly.

It certainly isn't something that should be left just for Sunday, but we believe that Sunday is a day given to us as a gift for rest, for worship and for being together.

@ Fletch

I was being facetious in response to Dino's statement:

" We've made the decision that we all go to church on a Sunday, with only the very occasional exception."

which seemed to suggest that the kids had some kind of input on proceedings (which clearly they didn't)

Not read whole thread but this seems quite simple to me.

There is church at other times (8am/evensong) - albeit less fun/less DC friendly, but still church. There is not sports practice at other times.

It seems like a no brainer that you would go to a different service and allow your DS to do the sport he loves.

This is not about church vs sport. It's about the particular church service you prefer vs sport.

But surely the OP has asked this question because they want to avoid the awkwardness and resentment so many of you are mentioning?

CuChullain, "we've" is my DH and I. I can ask my 4yo what he thinks after school and will report back...