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?

Every religion requires sacrifices of its members; yours would seem to be to attend the 8am service, plain or not. The intention to worship is the important thing, not the ceremonial. You are able to maintain your family worship, which is clearly important to you, and still allow your son to train for the sport which is important to him. Sunday school is not his responsibility; don't make him feel guilty.

hoppinggreen, you sound quite angry about my choices. As I've already said, I don't know how it is going to work out for my family but this is how we are doing things right now.

I can't see the centrality of our faith & church changing and know that this is different to the vast proportion of the population (2.5% of the population said they regularly attended an evangelical church in the 2005 English Church Census, 6.3% for all churches) BUT I've also seen how families and churches have done it and it really isn't either 'doom or gloom' or 'rose-tinted spectacles'.

I also think you sound like you'll get to a solution that works for your family OP. Your approach is very similar to mine.

Remember that prayer isn't always answered in the way we hope or expect. The current Sunday School arrangement MIGHT be replaced with something even better (and that's no reflection on you). At our church, one lady struggled on desperately for ages. When she finally had to stop, the PCC were forced to review everything and there is now a part-time Youth Minister and a growing youth church. Not saying that will happen for you, but we didn't expect it either. God works in mysterious ways. I'm sure if you keep praying the solution will reveal itself

I am really not angry at all, sorry if you are getting that from my responses.
The way you live doesn't affect me in the slightest so nothing for me to get angry about - I am just trying to say that you should prepare yourself for the fact that as they got older your children may want to spend their Sundays in a different way to you and if you force them it could cause resentment.
You think your Sundays are lovely but not everyone would, and at some point that could include your children.

you are a Christian. That is your adult choice - and so it should be.

your child is not a Christian, he is a child of Christian parents. (yes, I know this is Dawkins but it is true)

If you stop him having fun (and getting exercise) to sit indoors he WILL remember and WILL resent it. If you want him to view your religion at all positively, this is not the way. The fact that no-one else attends Sunday school is not his problem.

let him get outside, use the evolution/god-given body with evolution/god-given fresh air.

Goblin - a bit harsh! And rather black and white, don't you think? Why shouldn't church be enjoyable? What favours am I doing for BOTH my children waking them up early on a day of rest (how ironic) and going to a service that is almost empty, and not enjoyable? The ceremonial IS important for me. It DOES play a part for me. The manner of service is part of what brings a sense of peace to my soul. A 20 minute in and out service as a REGULAR service is inadequate.

How am I making him feel guilty? I am trying to square this away in MY head, not his. And I have a DS2 to consider as well. HE will have to miss out on Sunday school if we do this as well.

Although thank you. Your very disagreeable post is actually firming things up in my mind.

specialsubject - Perhaps you should read the thread a bit more closely? Or at least read MY posts?! You're accusing me of wanting to do something I have stated quite clearly I have absolutely NO intention of doing.

Gosh there is a lot of derailing going on here.

OP - have you spoken to your vicar about the issue? You and your family sound like stalwarts of your local church and he/she no doubt really appreciates your commitment to regular attendance and running the Sunday Club. He/she might have ideas or be able to help in some way.

Why not ask at the church what solution they think would work?
Seems odd to me they haven't come across this before.

OvertiredandConfused - Oh I get that about prayers. I think it's incredibly naïve to think that all you have to do is pray and you get a 'here is your answer' response. I am of the view that God knows what we are capable of, and thinks that a lot of our choices are up to US to make and work out. And part of making our choices is to ask others the same questions, see what resonates and what doesn't in their answers.

Oh and the vote on that youth worker position has been made, and it's a no.

Although we are funding some one to do a bit of work, thanks to my agitating, but not for Sunday School.

"But while they are a child living within our family, church WILL play a part in their life. Their input will be in the WAY it plays a part in their life."

Really? What if they don't want church to play a part in their lives?

Tbh the answer will probably lie in some complex but not impossible juggling. E.g. once a month DS misses hockey for the family service, occasionally you go to the 8 a.m. by yourself to take communion before taking DS to hockey, you find liftmates to take DS every other time, etc etc.

Bit of a pet subject here but don't rule out Evensong - of course you won't want to go every week but it is a beautiful and IMO very spiritual service - giving children from the age of 6 or 7 an occasional exposure to the music and ritual can be a really nice thing to do (while having a couple of books to hand in case of major-league fidgeting).

hakluyt using that argument should we give children the choice about attending school?

As parents we make daily judgment calls about what we feel is best for their well being and development. Others may not agree with it but it's not your call to make

Dino ignore the negative comments. We set our Sundays aside in the same way. Our eldest dc is now 16 and not at all resentful.

Irene - I'm hesitating. The Vicar is of the view that anything that is organised, has to be run by those within the church and not him and his wife. It's a retirement position (part time, house for duty position) and he believes that anything established has to be able to run independently of him, otherwise it would just fall down when the next incumbent comes - and actually that makes sense to me.

higgle - I guess they have, and their coming across this is why I am running Sunday school service, there are between 3 - 8 children there, and it didn't run for about 8 months until I took it up. While the youth group has about 20 in each of their 2 age groups on a Friday night - so the difference is numbers is NOT due to a lack of children but rather Sunday worshipers. But is struggling to run group 1 because no one is able to run it.

It may well be that the Sunday school will shut down when DS1 starts hockey, in fact I think it's likely. If it does I will feel guilty, I won't be able to help it. But feeling guilty won't make me stop DS1 from playing hockey.

There is no real 'win' here. There is no 'here is the answer to all of your problems' solution. It will be a case of choosing the least worst option, and making it work as best as I can, and then somehow making peace with myself for it.

Irene - I was a regular at one of the major cathedrals, on the rota as a server and Eucharistic assistant, and have attended many Evensong services. I do understand what you're saying about them, they are beautiful. But they don't feel like a family service to me, so wouldn't be my idea of a suitable REGULAR service. But, just checking the Evensong services around here (not at my local 2 minute walk church sadly), they seem to run at 6.30 pm. A bit late for a Sunday night for DS2, but doable for a few split services, ie taking DS1 to them and DS2 to the morning service, perhaps.

"hakluyt using that argument should we give children the choice about attending school? "

No of course not. School is not a matter of personal belief. I think a 9/10 yeqr old is perfectly capable of making decisions about their own beliefs.

I wonder if it might help to think ' this is what we will do for now, but things will change'. You might be able to start up Sunday School again later; or someone else might step in; or you might end up sharing lifts to hockey; or something else I can't think of at the moment. I often say to myself 'I can't see the whole plan, just the next step' - and often that's all we need to see.

Niminy -that's probably what we will have to do.

I was just hoping to chat it through with a few people. Accidentally chose the wrong board though .....

Hakluyt - I'm sorry, but that's not actually what I want to discuss. I've responded to your initial question, but that's it I'm afraid. If you want to keep it up with other posters I can't stop you, but I'm not going to continue it with you.

Ok - slightly off the wall but does "Sunday club" have to be on a Sunday? If you are running it and your kids are 2/3 of the regular members then could you move it to whenever suits you? Ie a Saturday? Or Sunday afternoon?

Mumoftwoyoungkids - I'm afraid it does need to be Sunday while the service is on. These are the young ones, 3-7. So Sunday club needs to be when their parents are around. If I move it noone else will come kinda pointless running it just for my 2!!! And it will just be another play group session, and that is run during the week already, adjacent to our brilliant nursery.

The older ones are catered for with the Friday early evening/late evening sessions.

"Have you seen the film 'Chariots of Fire'? It might help you."

If I remember correctly, it was the athlete concerned's decision not to train on Sundays. Not his mother's.

amicissimma - a VERY long time ago, don't really remember it. Care to elaborate or am I meant to hunt it down?!

Aah, that's what that was about. Thank you Hakluyt.