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I am still nursing a jammed pinky of black and blue proportions and a turned ankle of tennis ball proportions from a basketball game last week. “30” is coming quick and apparently with it - the loss of athletic ability. Some of my fondest memories growing up are playing sports. The camaraderie, the competition, the preparation, the ability to play at a high skill level, the FUN! It’s a gift that I will always remember and be thankful for.

Not only that, one of my favorite hobbies is following collegiate sports. I used to practice sportscasting growing up. I used to treat statistical analysis as if it were homemade homework. I love sports. But I’ve found that sports make lousy gods. They fail you. Your body fails you. Your teammates fail you. Your coaches fail you.

Thus, it would be foolish NOT to equip ourselves and our kids with a robust theology of sports.

ZERO POINT ZERO FOUR

There is a 5.8% chance that your high school athlete plays a collegiate sport and an even lower 4.5% chance that they will be on scholarship for that sport. There is a 0.04% chance that your High School Athlete plays at the professional level.

These stats are not meant to kill kids’ dreams of athletic greatness but rather to keep a healthy perspective on two things: 1) What role sports should play in our lives; and 2) What matters most in life.

WHAT ROLE SHOULD SPORTS PLAY IN OUR LIFE?

Sports are an incredible gift from God that can cultivate character and build principles of self-discipline. When used as a tool for elevating Giver above gift they are God-glorifying and find their peak satisfaction in our lives. The problem is sin. Sin takes sports and uses them as a weapon for division, bitterness, jealousy, pride, power, self-promotion, and covetousness.

When Christ invades athletics his Spirit can utilize your child as a weapon for unity, encouragement, love, humility, servant-hood, Christ-promotion, thankfulness and integrity. An eternal-minded Christian athlete can be a force on the athletic field for the true Kingdom. What a difference your life can make if your mindset changed from building upon your own "sinking sand" of a name (Matt. 7:26-27) to building upon Christ's firm name (Matt. 7:24-25)!

WHAT MATTERS MOST IN LIFE?

I think most professing Christians that play sports would confess Christ as Lord and not sports as Lord. Unfortunately the way we live, act, and talk, many times, do not reflect such a confession. Sports are certainly an opportunity to cultivate character and discipline but eternally more important is the opportunity they provide to tell the world, “THIS IS NOT MY LORD, CHRIST IS!”

When Christ is Lord of your life you begin to submit all aspects of your life to his will. Your time (Eph. 5:15-16), money (Heb. 13:5), thoughts (Rom. 12:2), abilities (Col. 3:23-24) are all given to you so that you may use them for Christ’s name and not your own. A life submitted to Christ is one that reflects often on time, money, thoughts and abilities so that each can be leveraged for a Kingdom purpose.

KIDS: Give your dreams to the Lord. Give your abilities to the Lord. Cultivate your God-given talents for his glory and if he so wills you to play at the next level may you respond with an “AMEN!” And if he doesn’t, may your response not waver! Sports make lousy gods but Christ is an unfailing, ever-faithful Rock that provides eternally more satisfaction than a "win" or a scholarship to college ever could. How are you preparing for life after sports (generally and spiritually)? How are you keeping sports fun and enjoyable for yourself and your teammates? 

PARENTS: Childhood & adolescence is the opportunity to shepherd a child’s heart to Jesus. You have the unique opportunity to speak by example, “Sports are not our family’s God - Christ is!” Do your schedules reflect this? Do your bank accounts reflect this? Do your thoughts reflect this? Do your attitudes reflect this? How are you preparing your children for life after sports (generally and spiritually)? How are you keeping sports fun and enjoyable for your child? 

** Statistics can be found at: http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/estimated-probability-competing-college-athletics … & https://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/Recruiting%20Fact%20Sheet%20WEB.pdf …

(From The Village Church, written by Matt McCauley)

“So you have a girlfriend?” I ask.

“Yeah, we’ve been going out for three weeks now.”

“Oh really? Where exactly are you going?” I can’t help but respond.

As a Middle School minister, this is a common conversation I find myself having with students. What I really want to say to the young man is, “Let me get this straight: You don’t have a job, can’t drive and just learned how to wake yourself up in the morning…and you’re in a monogamous, exclusive romantic relationship?”

Don’t Awaken Love

In preparation for our upcoming sermon series, I’ve spent some time reading through and meditating on the Song of Solomon. A passage at the end of the book has been haunting me as I think about and hear our teenagers chatter away about “love” and relationships.

"I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases".
Song of Solomon 8:4

Here’s another translation:

Oh, let me warn you, sisters in Jerusalem: Don't excite love, don't stir it up, until the time is right.

After explicitly (have you read this book?!) describing the passion and emotion associated with love, marriage, romance and sex, the Shulamite woman (Solomon’s wife) gathers her younger sisters and gives this stern warning. Why? What’s the harm? I’m sure daughters of Jerusalem asked this, and so will your middle schooler. If we continue reading, we find the answer in verses 6 and 7.

…for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.

It’s as if the Shulamite woman is saying this:

“Girls, I can’t tell you how powerful and overwhelming these affections that I now have for Solomon, my husband, are. Things have been awakened and stirred in me that I never could have imagined. And they are good. They are meant to be. God created them for this purpose: that my husband and I my share an intimacy and closeness that strengthens our covenantal bond until death parts us. So with that, understand that these feelings are dangerous in the wrong context. Don’t excite them or awaken them before the time is right. Don’t arouse love until it pleases.”

Caught in the Web

Most teenagers aren’t allowed to drive, none of them can vote, and they still haren't old enough to watch R-rated movies. So should we allow them to entangle themselves in the web of romantic love by permitting them to pair off and “date”? Personally, I don’t think they are ready. I don’t think they have the emotional maturity to properly evaluate or handle the feelings associated with eros (passionate, romantic, sexual) love. Time and time again, I have witnessed teenagers who begin to “date” awaken this eros, only to then become so enveloped by it that it consumes nearly every waking moment and thought. And many of us have seen the devastation a teenage breakup can cause, especially for young girls.

Parents, it may seem cute and innocent that your 12 or 16 year old has a boyfriend/girlfriend, but heed the words of the Shulamite woman. Don’t encourage and enable them to start awakening love before the time is right.

Hanging Out Without Pairing Up

Please don’t mishear me. I’m not saying the next time you throw a pool party that the boys and girls need to have separate swim time. Obviously that is a little extreme, but I don’t think discouraging boyfriends, girlfriends, dates and dating for your teenager is.

Young men and young women need to learn how to interact with one another in healthy, nonsexual, unromantic ways. This is where their energy and efforts should be focused in young adolescence. As Paul commands Timothy to treat young women as sisters in all purity (mind and body), our young teens need to learn to do the same (1 Tim. 4:2). Allow and encourage teenagers to hang out in mixed gender groups and crowds, but consider postponing the dating world for your child lest you find a very short star-crossed lover roaming the halls of your house.

It is much harder to teach a teenager to value friendships with the opposite sex more than dating the opposite sex, but friendship is the better thing. Rather than awakening something they are not yet ready to handle, relating to each other as friends helps them remember something they already know but are prone to forget in adolescence: that we are first and foremost brothers and sisters.

Original post can be found at: Should My Middle Schooler Date?

Parents, can we have a moment of clear-headed, brutal honesty? 

Followers of Jesus follow Jesus. This is discipleship. When Christ commands us in Matt 28:19-20 to “go make disciples”, he is commanding us to lead people to Jesus and then lead them in how to follow Jesus. Watch me as I watch Jesus. Imitate me as I imitate Jesus (1 Cor. 11:1). For parents: obey me as I obey Jesus. Follow me as I follow Jesus. So, where are you leading your family? What a sobering question!

How do you know where you’re leading? By looking at where you’ve been, where you’re at, and where you’re going. What does your money go to? Where is your time spent?

What is optional in your home? School? Homework? Practice for the sports team? Obedience to you as parents? If you’re like most families, none of these items just listed are optional. We don’t allow our kids to pick and choose what days they want to go to school or practice. We don’t allow them to pick and choose which family rules they want to follow. Why? Because we want to see them succeed in all these areas. We want them to grow into smart, healthy, respectful adults.

Imagine if we allowed our kids to choose when they wanted to go to school or do their homework. Imagine if we also allowed their feelings to choose when they cleaned their room or went to practice. We’d have undisciplined 15 year olds probably stuck in the 3rd grade with rooms that reflected their lifestyle - messy wrecks. Why? Because children/teenagers need special direction, oversight, and parental accountability. You know this.

But if we’re honest, this is precisely the description of some of our children’s spiritual lives - lazy, unhealthy and undisciplined. It’s peculiar to me that one of the only areas some parents allow their children to pick and choose levels of involvement in is their spiritual lives.

Without fail, the top two responses from parents that I receive after asking about their children who’ve not been around lately are: 1) “They just don’t have any friends”; 2) “I don’t want to force them to come because they’ll end up resenting it”.

Oh that the Word of the Lord would fall on these parents’ ears like a firm massage to tense, tired muscles. The Bible is clear that we are to teach the Lord’s commands to our children diligently (Deut. 6:7). The Bible is clear that we are to make disciples of ALL nations - surely the first nation you’d start with is in your home! (Matt. 28:19-20). The Bible is clear that we not neglect to meet together as a church family (Heb. 12:25).

It is interesting how often we pick and choose which biblical mandates we want to obey. The ones that require discipline are always the first to go because they require training and sacrifice. Our sinful natures simply don’t like sacrifice. Some parents seem to want their children to become godly without ever modeling and instilling godliness. That’s borderline insanity. Pro baseball players don’t get to the MLB because their parents wished them there. Their parents took them to the ball field. They paid for team involvement, tournaments, lessons and equipment. They coached and encouraged them in their goals. That’s a lot of sacrifice!

We communicate to our kids what matters the most in life by what we sacrifice for the most.

If you are letting your children dictate their involvement in church and they are choosing NOT to attend, you can rest assured that they will make the same exact choice when they leave your nest.

I’ve never heard of a young adult or college student who resented their parents for the years they brought them to church against their desires. I HAVE heard plenty of stories of kids/teens who were pushed away by hurtful experiences.

Seriously, think about this wager: If you allow your child to dictate their attendance and they choose to stay away from the church, you might gain their friendship in the present, but you are immensely debilitating their potential for spiritual birth/growth both now and possibly for their lifetime. However, if you push your child to Christ’s Bride and teach them not to forsake regularly gathering as a Body, you might be losing friend points, but you’re gaining two infinitely more important things: 1) God’s pleasure and honor; 2) the increased possibility that your child meets and grows in Jesus and in fellowship with other believers.

I pray that the reward of God’s pleasure and honor with the potential for godly growth in your children is more desirable than avoiding confrontation at the expense of your child’s comfort. Parents, lets partner together, as God commanded, to plant seeds within your children, to water those seeds, and to pray for God to do what only He can do - provide the growth (1 Cor. 3:6).