"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy...." Ex 20:8-11 The fourth commandment is a reminder to God's people that we are made for relationship with God as our Creator and Redeemer, and we are made for relationship with each other. Our bodies are wired for a work/rest cycle.If Jesus fulils the law for us then we are free, not to live for ourselves, but free to love and serve. This is how we express the relationship we are made for. We are called to use our freedom in Christ for love and service of God and his people.
In our family we want to teach our children that meeting with God and his people is the first priority of our family. It is loving for us to be regular at the local gathering of God's People. We meet together not because we have to but because we want to, in love and service. 10am on Sunday is the time of our local gathering of God and his people. So we have made a decision that our kids ought not to have any time commitments that clash with this gathering. We say 'no' to parties, sport, and socials. Sometimes this is painful but it reinforces our priorities.
On the issue of sport we therefore sought for our children to play sports on Saturday rugby, basketball, netball (we tried a bit of T-ball and hockey too..) Sam changed to rugby not because we were originally from over east but because Soccer his first sport, clashed with the gathering of God and his people at 10am church. It is a benefit to our children in the long run to teach them that gathering with God and his people is the best thing we can do. We have kids church leaders and youth group leaders that want to make meeting with God and his people a fun age appropriate thing.
The new dillema occured for us when Youth Group restructured. Sam's commitment to meeting with God and his people shifted from 10am Sunday and midweek Bible study to Friday night Youth Group and Sunday night small group, and potentially onto 7pm unichurch.
Sam committed himself to making Youth Group and church his first priority. But now his Sunday mornings are free so he asked the question "Can I play AFL on Sunday mornings?"
What do you think we decided?
Having emphasised that meeting with God and his people was still to be his first priority, and negotiating another training session midweek. We said yes !
What do you think?
GP
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4 comments:
Finally!
that's what Sam thought!
Thanks for sharing that experience. Should be required reading for parents of young kids to help them to come to a considered decision.
Many adults I know regard Church as an obligation. Therefore "I go to the early service so that I can get it out of the way before ..' was the general attitude.
If the parents treat Church as a burden, the attitude rubs off on the kids. If one the other hand, parents look forward to Church, the kids are more likely to be eager to attend (at least when very young). One set of young kids in a previous Church, forced the baby-sitter to drive them to Church when the parents couldn't attend.
Fortunately, my kids were always eager to go to Church-probably because they made good friends; the adults were usually friendly and good food was available in addition to good fun and teaching at Kids' Church. Even now, when they are 20, 17 and 14 years old, Sunday is the one day they get out of bed willingly.
Skipping Church was rarely raised as we as parents usually skipped social events during service times and went after Church or not at all. Occasional permission was granted for chess competitions and tournaments but that would have amounted to no more than 3 times a year.
On very rare occasions permisison was granted for a social event-someone leaving the country etc. It seemed better to allow these exceptions rather than to breed resentment.
However, permission for regular breaches were not sought because the kids knew what the answer to be.
I guess we need to show our kids that we accord God priority and loyalty.
tough situation. fortunately we were able to find a Auskick program which operates on a saturday morning.
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