The Director's Chair - News from Our Director of Youth/Family Ministries

When thinking about recreation, sports is what comes to my mind. Obviously recreation covers way more than sports, but sports and the dedication we give to it as Americans is my proverbial dead horse I shall beat upon today. (Almost sounded King James-ish didn’t it?)

How important of a role do sports play in our society? I did a very in-depth study and checked many statistics as to the positive affects that sports has in our world and where we might be without them. Here are my findings. Without sports we would have people starving, the global warming rate would increase by 65%, and thanks to sports in America the homeless rate is near zero. Also thanks to sports, our nation is a godly nation, biblical literacy is at an all time high and people are reading their Bibles at an alarming rate so much so that the ACLU is considering the thought of fighting to have Creation taught as a school subject and prayer put back in schools as well. (These finding are based upon articles from Polling Phones Magazine. Facetious Pole Jan 07… GLH Pole of make believe July 06… and Sarcasm Pole 08)

I have found these facts very hard to believe when considering the fact that sports are cutting into the time that for generations has been set aside for families to go to church (at least in this part of Pennsylvania). But nevertheless the positive things happening because of sports continues to grow. Due to sports, drug and alcohol usage is almost a non-issue in our schools, and especially in the professional sports arena. (Steroids Usage Article USA World-Newspaper Issue 44) Because of sports, school violence no longer exists and our children are taught to respect one another. Unfortunately you can believe everything you read and from what I have heard from athletes and first hand as well, coaches’ pre-game pep talks seem more like interrogations at boot camp preparing them for war not a game. Football and basketball are just a game are they not? How about the use of foul language by coaches? I am so thankful that doesn’t happen. And telling young men to play to hurt the other team… certainly that would never come from the mouth of any high school coach.

Unfortunately the speeches I hear about that are given by coaches are not so wholesome or well articulated or useful for building boys into young men. It almost seems that these negative types of talks are too often the norm. Hopefully I am only hearing the negative side of this subject and there are way more positive reports that don’t get told.

I love participating in sports more than most people I know. I think sports can be an amazing builder for young people to learn and grow and it can even be an amazing tool for Christians to use to minister to peers. Being involved and dedicated to a sport is not a sin by any means, but when it starts taking precedence over family, community and biblical values, I believe a serious examination of priorities is due. It seems now that sports take a place of a more important role than any activities being sponsored by the church body. How long will it be until you are attending your child’s soccer game late Christmas eve and running them to a tournament on Easter morning?

Priority and balance are the key. Where do our children get their teachings from that are going to make them into the kind of “God-Seekers” and “Christ Followers” that we would like to see them become?

Proverbs 22:6 comes to my mind on this subject, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” It comes from the family. Unfortunately the training that many children are receiving is a training of dedication to numerous things with exception to church. If we get home late on a Saturday night, we consider it okay to sleep in and skip church, but get home late on a school night… Well let’s put it this way, we place a priority on school AND there is no penalty for skipping church… actually I am afraid there is; Proverbs 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.

To be continued in the April Newsletter but from a TOTALLY different angle. (Which by the way makes Pastor Mathna jealous because I already know what I am going to write about for the next newsletter. I bet he doesn’t.)