31 Days to Surviving Sports Seasons Sanely: Day of Rest
Our family guards the Lord’s Day, Sunday, carefully. We worship with our congregation in the morning and evening. We spend afternoons with extended family.
I am not willing to give this day up for sports activities. We need a day of rest.
We remain in recreational leagues on purpose. We are always very polite about it and tell coaches as soon as we know of any event scheduled on the Lord’s Day that our children are unavailable on Sunday. There was a season M-girl missed half of her games because they were on Sunday. There was another where the coach scheduled two practices a week with the second on Sunday. We’ve never had a coach deride us or take revenge against our children for this practice. In fact, we’ve been given respect for taking this stance. Jason was recently talking with a former coach (and now family friend) whose daughters are playing travel soccer often on Sundays. He told Jason he thought of us on those games.
We love sports, or we wouldn’t do so much of them, but we love the Lord more and we love that he has given us a day off every week to worship and rest in Him. Let’s stop giving that up – for our family, for our children, and for our grandchildren who follow after us.
This will likely be our stance as well if we do anything besides AYSO VIP stuff.
Good! I hate to say this, but it is important for all families to respect the Lord's Day; but as a pastor's family it is somewhat more expected/reasonable to others than a lay family. I'm happy to hear of many families saying no.
I like the article you posted on my Facebook page, too. Linking here. Thanks!
I think it's especially important as a pastor's family to be willing to say "no" to Sunday sports because we have the ability to set the tone on the subject.
Yep. Really, honoring God's day is important for all of us. Pastor' families may set a tone, but the rest of us have to follow through.
Love this. If more families would take a stand it would be so much better. I do know it would be hard. We are fortunate that our girls are involved in ballet and have never been required to do anything on Sundays.
That's good! I know many dance studios have recitals on Sundays. I'm glad your's isn't requiring it.