Dilemmas

After a busy and tiring half term (try not to loose your sanity with 2 boys watching Tin Tin), and I am kind of "daunted but delighted" to return to normality - whatever that means!
So I thought I'd share a dilemma and a few other things of a misc nature this morning.
The dilemma is one that I thought I could bury my head in the sand on, and hopefully it would vanish eventually. Alas, not. The challenge is this - my oldest son, who is deperate to go and play rugby at the local rugby club on a sunday morning. It's where some of his school friends are after all. And more to the point, he's actually quite good at my favourite game and has alot of potential.
But the dilemma is obvious: I am a Christian and a Minister, and perhaps of all people should hope and expect my son to be in church on a sunday. Perhaps the fact that I am a Minister, is in this instance an irrelevance for most. After all, other families struggle with this issue too, but well I feel that in the gold fish bowl of being a Ministry family, that we are often, rightly or wrongly, "looked at" in some kind of special way. But what will people say or think, and in the end .. "am I bothered" what people's opinions are?
But our dilemma is this, if we say "no" then we risk causing resentment in my son and putting him off church and God and all of that for the future. And the recent mail out from Care for the Family on "how to get your kids through church without them hating God" kind of cuts to the very core of the issue. Whatever else, we must not constrain our kids into church if in the end the become resentful. They must want to be there, and I think he will do so if we respond in the right way.

Now I have some baggage here: when I was young I wasn't given such opportunities becuase of "the alcoholic nature of these rugby occasions, you know". In the end I did play for a club, but not until my mid teens, but in those days life was completely different in many ways.
And ofcourse, the lure of Sunday morning sport is very high; in many respects they appeal to a similar middle class client base as the churches do, and are arguably much more successful! Also these days, let it be clearly said, state schools are no longer properly running sport in the way that we used to enjoy when I was young. You could pretty much guarantee an hour of sport per school day when I was growing up, and the school rugby team was "the" team to belong to, and I spent probably most of of my school years captaining the 1st teams, at Sherborne and at Hardyes, before finally playing for Puddletown Rugby Club. Now at schools, there is at best a tiny nod towards something after school, and then only with no physical contact "in case someone gets hurt you know!"
And I think my son has potential and gifting, and all it would take is some coaching and discipline and his sporting life and poential would suddenly open up.

So, what have we decided? What did we do?

Ah well, we compromised ....for 2 Sundays a month he can go to rugby, but he must choose which they are, and we will not budge on any more sundays!
Were we right? Have we made the right call? I hope so, but we tread in the footprints of many a parent who has gone before!

Moving on to other stuff .... I cannot but cringe at what I see going on outside of St Paul's Cathedral in the anti-capitalism camp. When I was at Spurgeon's I spent some time in study on Liberation Theology, driven by what I had heard from preachers of the 80's like Tony Campolo. This I know, God is on the side of the poor and the oppressed, and no less so in this instance. If ever there was a golden opportunity for the state church to stand with the new poor, jobless, and deprived, this was it. They didn't have to sell out their values or somehow agree with everything that was being said, but they just had to stand with them. If they had - and they still might, I believe the church of England would have found a new credibility with a generation that has predominantly dismissed the church as being not for them!

So Christmas rushes on! Ugh! Sorry to mention the big C! I kind of had moments in the half term holiday of thinking "oh goodness, this is the calm before the storm", not because of Christmas, but because of all that is in the build up to it: numerous saturdays spent doing this or that church conference or event. So, its "grit the teeth time" and maximum effort is required to stay ahead on the planning and preparation.