The Main Reason for Declining Church Attendance: Children's Sports?
Melissa Steffan ("Christian[ity] Today," April 8, 2013)
Sunday used to be a day reserved by many Christians for attending worship
services, but new research indicates the extent to which American churches
today are competing against myriad other activities.
The biggest competition? Children's sports.
According to a new study published in the Review of Religious Research, an
examination of declining attendance at 16 congregations revealed that many
pastors place the most blame on children's sports activities, since both
practices and competitions are increasingly "scheduled on Sunday mornings at
the very time when many churches traditionally have provided religious
education."
But that doesn't mean that families whose kids are highly involved in
athletics will stop attending church (though that does seem to be the case
among
churches that stigmatize parents who miss church for sports, as the
Association of Religion Data Archives's David Briggs points out).
Instead, more Protestant churches are offering alternate service times to
accommodate members with Sunday morning commitments. They're also increasing
their emphasis on physical fitness programs or sports ministries.
According to Briggs (whose ARDA research roundup is worth reading), "More
than two-thirds of congregations who said sports and fitness programs were a
specialty of the congregation reported more than a 10 percent growth in
attendance from 2000 to 2010. In contrast, only a third of churches with no
athletic programs reported such growth."
CT previously has reported on the topic of sports and how Christians have
'succumbed to the sports culture.'
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