The church vs extra-curriculars: Changing a culture

I just came from a rather good ministerial meeting in Hallock where I was encouraged a good deal about the pulse of the wider church. We are getting together and doing things--gasp--across denominational lines. This is all very exciting, and for this idealist it is a great sign for a future where most everybody can learn to get along. However, there was one point of contention that concerned a statement crafted by a local pastor pertaining to times set aside for the church in the community.

In many (probably all) places, sports and other extra-curriculars have made family attendance at Sunday worship--shall we say--spotty. Sports now occupy a more valued place in the hierarchy of event scheduling than do religious traditions. You would probably not be surprised that most leaders in the church, myself included, take issue with this trend and would love to see it reversed. How to change the culture, however, remains in dispute.

The statement we were presented with today was, in my humble opinion, fantastic. It was designed to be a tool for parents to use so they would have words to speak against the organizations that have put strain on their ability to participate fully in the life of their religious community. It is supposed to be a help to parents who feel helpless raging against the machine that is club athletics in America. But, even at our meeting of religious leaders, it was controversial.

The concern was over the methodology. One church leader felt it was a matter of strong families picking themselves up by their own bootstraps and saying, "Enough." He felt this kind of statement was a waste of time, since parents were ultimately responsible for their children's priorities.

In a sense I think he's right that parents may be the most integral factor in determining their children's priorities, but let's not pretend that we live in a vacuum. Suggesting that parents alone can determine their children's participation and prioritization in activities without any environmental influence is both ignorant and a potentially dangerous policy of isolation. Such a policy creates young people who have a chip on their shoulder because their families were, depending on their view of it, either crueler or more pious than the families of other kids.

Sometimes a culture does change when individuals take a stand, but more often what is needed is the combined efforts of a group. Individual families have been upset about the trend toward sporting events on Wednesdays and Sundays for years. Some have given in and their kids are often absent on Sunday mornings; others have forbade their kids from playing. Neither of these choices is ideal. What we need is more than strong families. What we need is a culture shift. And these things only happen when people unite. That's exactly what we were doing this morning. It may not change the world--it may only give words to a single family, or it may do nothing at all--but to give up before the fact admits that our message isn't very powerful.

I tend to think the opposite. Setting God before our idols is the most powerful statement we can ever make. If it doesn't work it has nothing to do with the message and everything to do with our faithfulness to it.