Church and Softball?

[BearsDad]

I was wondering how you do it since all the friendlies and tournys are on sunday.

this is a sincere question. I'm sure I'll get a few wise cracks, but we have been playing travel for almost a year now and don't make it to church very much any more. thanks

[joaquinjunior]

well Bears dad, yeh its very difficult. I am the manager of our team, so i try to set up friendlies on Saturdays, as appose to Sundays. but there are not too many Saturday Friendlies as you already know. So what I do is i attend mid-week service on Wednesday, or maybe even on Tuesday in spanish. We also host a Fellowship/Bible study on Thursdays at our Home in Chula Vista(so if your ever in the area, your more than welcomed at 7:30) . and my wife and I will sometimes watch the recent sermons on-line early the week after the Sunday service. So we are all so super blessed with technology. But i do understand what you mean. we too miss Sunday services at least every other week. and we miss being with our congregation and fellowshipping before and afterwards. Oh and we also have Sunday evening service at 6:30Pm . and prayer at 6:00 pm. so we do as much as we still can. and have a lot of options.Thank you for your post. the Lord richly bless you and your family.

[joaquinjunior]

Oh, and about the wise cracks... remember just continue being the light. death is leading to death and life is leading to life.

[DC Dad]

We attend Saturday evenings, if we know we will be busy on Sunday morning. My DD is also in CCD, so its mandatory to attend Mass every week.

[DonnieS]

BearsDad, it was a big issue to us as well. What I did was check the towns we would be playing in and find a church and the times of the services. Then when we get our game times, usually you would know Saturday evening, what time you will play if you lose, and what time if you win, and then plan church service around it. The holier than thou group may jump on us for planning church around softball - but there is an awesome quote in the bible (Mark 2:27) where Jesus must have be referring to softball, 'The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath' . We have at times have had kids whose parents were ministers, and have had short prayer services at the field, following "where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I" (Matthew 18:20), also sounds like that includes softball <g>. My youngest was our spiritual leader on our teams over the years and led our group in prayer before each game.
To answer another question that might come up, when new families joined our group, I would mention that the kids do prayers before games, prepared to say that if they werent comfortable with that, they could choose another team, or not participate in the prayer. I am pretty sure that every family that joined our group after we had started our team initially, told me that they had seen this and was a reason for joining us.

[3'sDad]

Being a Catholic, the 5 or 5:30 PM mass on saturday or Sunday evening makes things a bit easier.

[DonnieS]

Being a Catholic, the 5 or 5:30 PM mass on saturday or Sunday evening makes things a bit easier.

Same here, even my family is split between Catholicism and Lutheran. Back in my football coaching days, a local priest here would move his CCD classes to be sure that the time conflicted with our practice, trying to make people make a choice between 'playing' and church. The Lutheran mininster always called a parents meeting to find out what the kids were involved in and ask us what time made the most sense for everyone. The Baptist pastors (or however they are referred to) did the same to work around the kids schedules.

My decision after the first year dealing with the jerk priest - was I made an announcement that to avoid conflicts with that particular church's CCD classes, I would not draft any Catholic kid that attended that church.

Most priests that I knew were big football fans - to the point of trimming the sermon on days that the Cowboys played right at noon. They also understood the importance of well rounded kids, and not in the modern day vision of well - rounded. Lots of catholic kids in my neck of the woods definitely fit that vision.

[SoftballSoccerDad]

We've all got different priorities in life, but why not let the players decide what they'd rather do and then support those decisions to the best of your ability?

My wife loves church and although she is angry that softball often conflicts with it, she misses very few of DD's games. DD prefers softball. For her, it's a no-brainer to skip church when she's got a game or tournament on Sunday. Sometimes she'll go to the first part of her church and then dip out early for a 1pm start time. She likes her church friends, but church is their thing, not hers.

DD knows that church will be available to her for the rest of her life if she wants it, a message that I reinforce for her.

[DonnieS]

We've all got different priorities in life, but why not let the players decide what they'd rather do and then support those decisions to the best of your ability?

With all due respect, we are parents of these children, not friends. I know this isnt what you mean, but as as a childd, I hated piano practice - and if I got to decide what I'd rather do, I wouldnt have practiced what I was supposed to. So my parents , doing their job as parents, made me practice. Now that I am certainly older, I appreciate the fact that I can sit down at a piano, and play.

[hit4power]

Fortunately, mine attends a church affliated school so she's in church 5 days a week. Were it not for that, I would have had to rethink priorities a bit. I know at least one 18G team around here where they meet 15 minutes earlier than usual ahead of their first Sunday game and the manager holds a short bible study and message session. Sometimes one of the players will lead it.