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Mar 04, 2023 06:00am

Redeeming Sports

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A typical Saturday morning used to be spent sleeping in, watching cartoons (or professional wrestling), and eating breakfast as a family. Now, for many families, Saturdays are spent at the soccer fields, volleyball arena, basketball court, or baseball field. The ages keep getting younger and younger, because no one wants their kids to “get behind” in a sport they are certain to go pro in.

I love sports. I love my kids. I have a love/hate relationship with youth sports.

According to an article in Time Magazine, youth sports is now an over 15.3-billion-dollar industry. Gone are the days when parents paid $20, and their kids got a t shirt and played for the Blue Team against other kids in their class. Now kids are pushed to play on regional or national travel teams that cost thousands and are encouraged to take private lessons or risk being cut from the team. I know this road because it’s one I have traveled.

Love them or hate them, travel teams are here to stay. The question becomes how should a Christ follower navigate the world of travel sports?

First, there is no “one size fits all” answer. Each family is different, each child unique, and no two sets of circumstances are the same.

Let’s talk about some guidelines to set and questions to ask to help redeem youth sports. Paul says in Ephesians 5:15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.

Begin with the end in mind. As parents, we need to think about what the end goal is for youth sports. Your child is not going to play professional sports. There, I said it. I hope I’m wrong, but statistically only 2 percent of high school athletes play division 1 college sports, so if that is our goal, most of us are going to be disappointed. The goal of youth sports is for our kids to learn to deal with successes and failures in a godly way. They learn to be a part of a team and that not everyone on the team has the same role. They need to see youth sports as a way to make memories, make friends, and laugh while learning the value of hard work.
Realize that parenting is relational, and this relationship is always more important than a sport. God designed parents to be the primary spiritual disciple-makers of their children. That is a heavy weight to carry, which is why we need partners like the local church to help us. Some parents yell, scream, and belittle their kids so much through sports that it strains the parent/child relationship. Sports are never worth more than your relationship with your child. When your child needs to ask you about something in life that really matters, they will need you to be their parent more than they need you to be their coach.
Neither your identity, nor your kids’ identities, can come from sports. Sports can make a great hobby, but they make a terrible god. For some reason parents want to live out their sports dreams through their kids, and it never ends well. Ephesians 2:10 tells us what our identity is, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Your kids are more than baseball players; they are more than sports stats or rankings. They are unique masterpieces created in the image of Christ to do a great work that God prepared ahead of time for them to do.
Take advantage of the relationships you build to have gospel conversations with parents and kids (starting with your own). Sports don’t teach character or life lessons; they provide an opportunity for caring adults and coaches to teach kids life lessons about faith and character. In the winning and losing of sports we have a unique opportunity to help people process the highs and lows of life. I have spent weekends away with my kids that wouldn’t have happened if they were not playing sports. We tried to redeem the time together that travel sports required of our family. We had many meals with other families that we now consider friends. We spent hours driving in the car talking about sports, food, Jesus, and life. We had game winning hits, strike outs, foul outs, and everything in between. We won rings (that are real gold by the way) and lost a game or two along the way. I have yelled embarrassing things at referees and prayed with teams I didn’t even know.

Travel sports themselves are neither good nor evil, they simply provide an opportunity–an opportunity for parents to redeem this time with their kids and make the most of every chance we have to encourage our kids to fix their eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.
I hope I see you in the stands, making the most of the opportunity.