Get In the Game!
Making the Case for Children’s Sports Ministries

By RaeAnn Slaybaugh

How do his teammates react? What does his coach say? And most importantly, how does he respond?

If you think sports and church don’t mix, your answers to the aforementioned questions are evidence to the contrary. In a church-based sports program, the idea is to build great character, not an impressive record.

Among the many reasons to get a children’s sports ministry going at your church, the first and most obvious is this: They’re already playing.

Among 4- and 5-year-olds, nearly 20 million participated in organized sports last year in the United States — almost triple the amount in 1980.

Unfortunately, statistics show that 70 percent of these same kids quit their teams by age 13. Overzealous coaches and parents who emphasize winning over fellowship were commonly blamed.

Add to this equation that peers often are allowed (and even encouraged) to taunt each other right off the field at secular sporting events, and you begin to see why quitting probably sounds a lot better than “toughing it out.”

Fortunately, this creates a void perhaps best filled by Christians.

Sure, you’ll need athletic equipment, but your people resources are right in front of you, athletes or not.

“The best first teachers aren’t necessarily experts in their fields, but those who make it fun and share that enthusiasm with their kids,” says Barbara Bowman, president of the Erikson Institute for the Advanced Study of Child Development at Loyola University in Chicago.

And your coaches’ jobs don’t stop there: Chances are, they’ll be called to educate adults about sportsmanship as well. After all, overly competitive, unreasonable parents go to church, too.

“I’m far more worried about the adults, because that’s who kids take their cues from,” Bowman says. “There’s no question that when there are low stakes, everybody gets enjoyment out of youth sports. When the stakes get higher because of an outside influence, then the fun gets taken away and the kids eventually lose interest.”

To combat this problem, parents should not only be told that it’s OK for their children to miss an occasional practice for family priorities — dinner with grandma, for example — but they, too, will be held to the highest standards of behavior on the sidelines.

Parents should be encouraged to help their children see the value in winning and losing, complimenting the other team on a good play, and thanking the officials at the end of the game, says Teresa Wippel, managing editor of ParentMap, a monthly online magazine and resource for parents in Seattle and surrounding communities.

“As adults, we’re the role models and set the tone,” Wippel says. “It’s up to us to put the fun back into youth sports and make it about kids again.”

Experts agree on the value of teaching children that it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. Doing so builds what Catholic spirituality consultant Juan L. Hinojosa calls “we teams.”

To help put the principles of we teams into practice, Hinojosa — who directs the Hillenbrand Institute at the Center for Development in Ministry at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Ill. — developed a series of conferences on sports, spirituality and character formation.

These sessions draw upon secular and spiritual readings about sports, as well as scripture and the use of oil in ritual anointing (an athletic rite that dates back to the early Greeks), to convey sports ideologies in the context of prayer and spirituality.

“Athletics can form us in the direction of goodness and life, or it can misshape us by adherence to various approaches that end up not being good,” Hinojosa explains in an interview with the National Catholic Reporter. “Developing we teams builds a gospel ethic.”

In the end, your sports ministry’s success isn’t measured in wins and losses, but in smiles. Cultivate the right resources and mindsets, and you’re on your way to victory.

Toolbox

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