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By Jim
I
T’S RARE to see kids playing sports in the neighborhood
anymore. We’re now organized and “professionalized”—
including uniforms, state-of-the-art facilities, endless
trips to the field, competitive coaches, equally competitive
parents, and the after-season tournaments designed to give
parents “bleacher bottom.” In addition, you’ve got to pay to
play—and when you’ve paid that much, you’ll be sure to play.
It is also fun, and it can be instructive. I love to watch my
kids play sports. In fact, they need to play—some. But, it’s
not so easy as handing over seventy bucks and saying, “Sign
up Johnny and Susie this year.” Making that decision means
that you may be out four to five times each week during the
season. Soon sports becomes all about calendarization and
control of your life—especially if you have more than one
kid. Perhaps nothing outside of a change in your job has so
much potential to turn the family schedule upside down.
“This man understands,” you say.
Now comes the part you won’t like: “Behold, I say unto
you, you have made sports the household god.” Too strong?
30
Okay, not all of you. But the deification of sports is happen-
ing to many.
How does ball become Baal? Answer: When it controls
you, and you give it devoted worship. It is around your god
that you order your life—and you can almost never say
“no” to it.
Like “athlete’s foot” on the hygienically challenged teen-
ager, sports has taken over more and more of the life of
believers. Almost overnight, we have awakened to the sad
fact that, in many communities, sports has even usurped
the hours believers meet on the Lord’s Day. All too often
members are saying to church leaders, “We’ll be gone next
Sunday because of the soccer tournament.” In turn, leaders
are supposed to acquiesce humbly. After all, we can’t afford
to appear “legalistic.” Everyone knows that the greatest crime
a church can commit is to demand something of someone.
You’ll hear, “But the team needs all the players. We
can’t let the team down.” It never occurs to them that the
church Body is being deprived of a necessary body part
or that God is marginalized and disobeyed. We are not to
forsake the assembling of ourselves together, states God in
Hebrews 10:25.
Devotion is the operative word. When the team says, “We
need you,” we sacrifice to do it. But when it crosses the time