Through accident, rather than design, I found myself a soccer mom this summer. Not a casual, house league, once-a-week soccer mom, but a serious, rep team soccer mom. Mom of the goalie (which, I think has to be the most stressful parent position!) on a team with no back-up goalie. My 13-year-old son, Matthew, is a sporty kid. However, playing goalie in soccer seems to be his calling, and so despite a season that would see us travelling from Oshawa to Ottawa, I had to support his dream. I was actually a soccer mom twice over this summer, since my 10-year-old son, Isaac, plays in house league. Considering the logistics of this summer, I'm not sure if I can cope if they both play at the rep level next year!
Also through accident, rather than design, I found myself without church responsibilities for the latter part of spring and the first part of the summer. No Sunday School to teach, no pulpit supply, no divinity classes. So I guess I didn't notice that we spent a lot of Sundays on the soccer pitch rather than in a pew. Things started to heat up at the end of July. There were tournaments for the kids and pulpit supply was picking up. The craziest weekend was last weekend. Both boys were in a tournament (luckily enough close to home!) and I had a Sunday of supply. Unfortunately both kids had games on Sunday morning when I was to be leading worship. Thankfully some family members stepped up and took the boys to their morning games.
After a wonderful service at St. John's Presbyterian near Kingston, my husband, Glenn, and I raced down the highway to get to Matthew's game. Timing was so tight that we had to change out of our church clothes and into our shorts in the church bathroom! We arrived a little bit late and had to search around a bit for Matthew's team. It was a HUGE tournament, 137 teams and 2,200 soccer players. After the moving worship service and quiet car ride, the chaos of the tournament was a little overwhelming. There were whistles, drums, cowbells, and yes, even some vuvuzelas! There was, inexplicably, a man in a golf cart handing out balloons and tennis balls. There were chip trucks, tents for the teams, lawn chairs, coolers, and umbrellas. And there was rain. Lots of it.
While we waited for the game to begin, I started thinking about all the effort these parents were making to ensure their kids played a game. They drove in from all over the province, some rented hotel rooms, and ultimately, they sat in the rain to cheer their kids on at a game. I got thinking that I'd probably never think to drag my cooler, lawn chair and umbrella to sit in the rain to hear a sermon. But here I was, with a couple thousand other parents, sitting in the rain to watch kids kick a ball around. If I hadn't been leading worship, I would have missed the service entirely to sit and watch a game in the rain. It made me start to think about our priorities. It's amazing the lengths parents (including me!) will go to, to make sure their children are in sports. But to what lengths will they go to make sure their children are fed spiritually?
I led a teen youth group for a year. Attendance at its height was half a dozen. Most weeks there were only one or two. Why? A lot of the time it was sports commitment. Sunday School attendance drops dramatically during hockey season - one of the reasons Christmas pageants sometimes look pretty sparse. We worked so hard to remove barriers for these parents who said they sincerely wanted their children to attend a youth group and be fed spiritually and to grow in their faith. It seemed though, that sports trumped Jesus every time.
I was thinking all these things as the game got underway. The noise from the parents was unbelievable. Cheering from both sides. Shouts of encouragement, "Go get it! Shoot!" and groans of disappointment when a play wasn't completed. The energy and support of the parents toward their children was amazing. It was so great to be a part of a group of parents who really wanted the best for our kids and to see them be the best they could be.
And that made me stop and think - wouldn't there be an amazing change in the world if, as parents, we cheered our children on as much in their spiritual growth and achievements as we were on that soccer field? Can you believe what heights our children would reach if we spent as much time helping them in their spiritual lives as we do in their sports lives? Can you imagine if the parents of 2,200 children all got together on a bunch of soccer fields to pray for their children? The spiritual energy would be amazing! I got tingles just thinking about it.
Wouldn't it be amazing if all parents were their children's spiritual cheerleaders? I know I'll be out on the soccer field again next year, freezing in the spring, getting drenched in the rain, and sunburnt at the tournaments. But this final tournament gave me a lot to think about. I'm going to work on investing more time in my children's spiritual growth, to make sure they are fed spiritually. To assist them in developing a spiritual practice - even while practicing their chosen sport.
I asked one of the teens in my group, who was going to miss several weeks because of hockey, to say a quick and quiet prayer every time he laced up his skates. When he returned in the spring, I asked him if it had made a difference. He looked into my eyes, smiled, and said, "Yeah." I felt like a real spiritual cheerleader in that moment.
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