Thu 8 Jun 2006
As a pastor, I hear all kinds of ideas about how to make church and/or the Christian faith more appealling. Some of the more frustrating ideas usually involve copying what another organization or business is doing and apply it to church, as though the transition would be seemless and the application obvious.
The one that I hear the most often is comparing church/youth group/Sunday School participation with participation in sports. Initially the comparison looks pretty appealing. Parents can’t drag their kids to church and don’t push them into various church programming, but they’ll take their kids to the hockey arena at 6am twice a week. I agree that if we could bottle up the enthusiasm that makes kids involve themselves at that level and makes parents support their children without question and apply it to church programming, our numbers would be a lot higher. There are also a number of apt church-team analogies that could be used.
There are however a number of sports realities that are quite unhealthy if applied to a church environment.
Which of those aspects of sports am I supposed to apply to my youth group/church programming? Does any of them even come close to having a scriptural basis?
Everyone is welcome at church. There is no punishment for lack of involvement and there are no special rewards given for extra participation. Newcomers are accepted with open arms in celebration. The community builds up, rather than tears down.
Okay, so I got a bit optimistic there. Sure there are lots of those problems in today’s churches. Some people fit in a lot better because of their personality, bloodlines or pocketbooks. Certain people are invited to participate more fully because of their other “achievements”. Newcomers have difficult times being noticed, let alone feeling welcomed. Communities also thrive on gossip and judgmental behaviour. That model of church is maybe what a lot of people are familiar with. And that model is already pretty close to the sports model, but that model is flawed.
I love sports, don’t get me wrong. I love watching and playing sports, so I understand the draw. I just don’t want my church running like that. Some teams enjoy every game equally, win or lose, and every member is welcomed and uplifted. However, that is model is generally found in women’s recreational sports. As an athlete or a spectator, I wouldn’t be interested in watching that kind of sports either. As a Christian, I’m also not interested in participating in a community where anything other than grace dictates whether or not I fit in.
June 8th, 2006 at 12:04 pm
This is interesting considering that (team) sports tend to be modelled after war-like paradigms; and that church is sometimes modelled after militaristic patterns.
(And I certainly believe in spiritual warfare.)
June 12th, 2006 at 9:15 am
Will, I can understand that you see the flaws in the metaphor of church to sport, but you are comparing the ideals of church to the realities of sport. Near the end, you admit that the church in reality is closer to sport reality than your earlier writing would indicate.
If you would select a different sport to compare your church to, say, running, rather than hockey, you might get a different result. How many people at the marathon you went to sounded critical? At my local run group there is no cost to join, and we welcome runners of all abilities. In competition, everyone runs the same course (ideally!). The best runner and the worst both line up on the same start line. In our run group, I have never heard one runner put down another.
I’ll leave you to find the words run and race in your concordance.
I’ll also spare you a comparison of the ideals of sport with the realities of church.
June 14th, 2006 at 2:43 pm
Adam, my comparsion, while not entirely fair to the sporting world in general, is accurate for the situation to which I was responding. The comments to which this post was a response suggest the reality of sports as an ideal for church.
“Wouldn’t it be great if people cared as much as church as they do about sports?”
I’m also referring to mainstream sports, like hockey, soccer, baseball, etc. Sorry to be the one to tell you, but running is not a mainstream sport.
No metaphor is perfect. If I nitpicked at the running example, I’m sure I (or you) could easily finds many comparisons where it is not a good metaphor for church either.
The run/race usage in the Bible isn’t as obvious as you might think. Sure Paul enjoyed using race metaphors, but “run” and variants of the word are most often used in terms of running away (ie. from God) out of fear/cowardice/lack of faith. My favourite race usage in the Bible, the only OT reference that’s moderately positive is here.
June 20th, 2006 at 8:34 am
Will, I was kind of kicking up dust, because I thought you weren’t being fair to sport (and I maintain that you weren’t, to sport in general). I guess it is also assumed that we’re just taking a look at sports and the church as they exist today.
My point was not to pick nits about your metaphor, but to point out that you cant compare the good of one thing to the bad of another, and expect it to be a good argument.
The only positive reference? Are you sure? “I run in the path of your commands, you have set my heart free” Psalm 119:23, running gets a mention in proverbs as well, and while lots of the OT ‘running’ is fleeing, there is also running to tell someone news. It is funny you point to the lack of race metaphors in the OT… what about the NT? Hebrews, Timothy, Phillipians, Galatians, Corinthians, Romans and Acts. Sure, mostly written by one guy, but this is where the foundation of the Christian faith comes from isn’t it?
But of course, running isnt ‘mainstream’, if by mainstream you mean where athletes get contracts for millions of dollars. That is what it comes to right? Because most schools have track meets in the summer. Running has always been part of the olympics, and big events like the boston marathon attract thousands of athletes.
But I think I know (now) what you are talking about, since you added the quote. I am assuming this is what someone said to you to bring about this post. And it evokes the same kind of reaction in me. If people cared about church the same way they cared about sport, they’d watch it on tv (however passionately), wear the t-shirt, feel happy when it does well, and sad when it doesn’t, and they wouldnt do a thing to help it.
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Adam, thanks for clarifying, now hopefully I can clarify for you as well.
I agree that you can’t make a fair argument comparing the ideals of one thing to the reality, which is part of why I object to those people comparing the ideals of sport to the realities of church. My response wasn’t so much trying to mount a good argument, but create a similar argument in response.
My initial concordance search only showed 11 OT hits for “run”, and checking now again reveals quite a few more, which makes more sense. So in that case, I was wrong. I however see the person of Christ as the foundation of the Christian faith, not the writings of Paul.
Also, a metaphor comparing the Christian life to running doesn’t glorify running, it glorifies the Christian life.
By mainstream I meant having high institutional participation among children and youth within communities. Track clubs don’t come close to the number in minor baseball, soccer or hockey, no matter if it’s healthier, cheaper or cooler (and I don’t think it’s any of those three things).
Thanks for your thoughts.