Does your family have non-negotiables?

We teach at our church that parents should have certain non-negotiables within their family structure and culture.

A simple non-negotiable, for example, would be children going to bed at a prescribed time, regardless of protests or attempts to delay, disobey, or otherwise obstruct the rule.

Although Tim Challies does not call his specific recommendations for a solid family culture non-negotiables, many of them are, in my opinion. You can find his helpful column on the subject at Raising Children Who Actually Love the Church. 

The main message of the column is contained in the article’s title: training children to love the church. I wish to call attention to one of the main obstacles Challies mentions in raising children who love the church: not prioritizing church over sports.

Sports in the US have taken on the characteristics of idol worship. I mean that it can and has taken the place of Sunday worship, as families often choose attending a sporting event over going to church.

What makes matters worse is that the family with children who are good at some sport allows them to compete on Sunday morning, even when it means missing worship multiple times during a given season of that sport.

Some will say, ” Gee, Pastor Bruce, aren’t you being a little legalistic since the Bible does not say it is sin to miss church?”

What parents fail to realize is that they are always teaching their children something, whether it’s good, bad, or just plain ugly. (See Deuteronomy 6:4-9 on the importance of worship and child training.)

When they do not prioritize church (which is worship), they are teaching their children that worship is optional when sports are deemed more important. It raises a serious question of just exactly who or what is being worshipped on Sunday morning.

The problem is that the parent does not connect church attendance with worship and thus communicates that sports are an acceptable substitute for worship.

Some parents will argue that their child is talented and that holding them back from a Sunday tournament will hurt their future opportunities, including a potential scholarship.

The message there is that your potential career is more important than worship. Jesus said in Matthew 24 that a person cannot serve two masters and that indicates what is truly in a person’s heart and that which is worshipped.

I have seen the consequences of prioritizing sports over worship. The most severe consequence is that the child, when old enough, walks away from the faith entirely. In other cases, just as it was with the parents, so it is with the child now grown up, raising their own children to be more in love with the sport than their Savior.

There is an old saying that states, more is caught than taught, and parents teach their children what their priorities are, whether good, bad, or ugly.

I would encourage parents to read what Challies is communicating in the article and that they carefully consider their decisions in determining what their non-negotiables are.

True worship often entails sacrifice as Romans 12:1-2 teaches.

 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Ro 12:1–2. ESV

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