It's Sunday morning. The children are getting dressed in clothes laid aside for this day. Mom and Dad load the kids in the car and drive away from their comfortable suburban home. This is a typical (albeit not universal) scene throughout the country. What's becoming even more typical is that this family is on their way to a soccer game — not to Sunday School and church.
More and more, it seems, parents are encouraging their children to participate in organized sports, even when practice and game times conflict with religious services. Those of us concerned about over-programming our young people widely regard Sunday sports as further erosion of the sabbath rhythms that keep us sane and healthy, individually and as a society. And we might well be right.
Yet, could it be that organized sports are meeting some deeper need that is not being met by contemporary religious communities? Is it possible that parents rely more on sports than on faith traditions to form their children morally? What is the moral value of sports? And what can the church learn by paying attention to the lessons of athletic competition?
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