Maybe, maybe not. We all make choices and steer our kids.
Just saw a buddy post a youth volleyball match on Facebook….
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Yesterday, I drove to our house in Frederick, MD to check on everything and mow the grass.
Generally, the liquor prices are somewhat better in MD than VA, so I stopped by to see my friends at Old Farm Liquors on my way back home.
Lo and behold, there was a handwritten sign on the door saying they were CLOSED for Easter Sunday. I couldn't believe it . . . even in a commie state like MD, they still show some respect to Christianity.
Honestly, it made me feel a little better about mankind.
The GA DMV (or DDS these days) is usually open Saturday mornings for a brief period. We woke up early to take the teenager to take his permit test (FOR THE 3RD TIME) and to renew my license and tag, for we moved.
This government service was closed for Easter weekend.
This government service was closed for Easter weekend.
I know this will bring back painful memories but the National championship loss to Notre Dame was on Easter Sunday. I remember they rented a big ball room and had a church service for State fans if they wanted to come.
Yes. And NFL plays on every Sunday, so I know it's been happening for a long time.
But this is youth volleyball, and apparently the biggest tournament in the southeast. Seems a little much. Some may ask why I care? I don't, just an observation and an opinion.
There’s lots of things that go on during Easter Sunday whether it’s travel ball or sports or whatever else. No matter what you’re doing you can still take time to pause and reflect and honor the day and the resurrection of Christ. Doing that can carry just as much meaning with your kids as going to church with them.
A church isnt a building. You can praise the Lord and worship anywhere whether it’s with yourself, a group or your family and that’s your church.
A church isnt a building. You can praise the Lord and worship anywhere whether it’s with yourself, a group or your family and that’s your church.
Finally someone got it right. I mean come on guys how many corrupt preachers have there been? The building is a building, and the guy up there talking is a guy. The belief and power come from your relationship with my dad not from a building or a guy.
I always load up at the ABC store on Presidents Circle off Crestwood when I am in town. One of the better beer selections I’ve found in my travels. I always leave extra suitcase space when I fly up.
On topic, I was surprised that Lowe’s was closed yesterday, but Home Depot was not.
We all know this. But these Christians at these tournaments are not doing this for the most part, and we all know it.
How do you know I didn’t win the last power ball and mega millions jackpots (other than the fact that I’m not dead from exhaustion from trying to do two chicks at the same time a thousand times)?
In most contexts it’s pretty safe to assume the thing that is more or less statistically impossible didn’t happen. I can pretty safely make the same comment about crowds at NCAA tournament games. I also “know” that church attendance was higher yesterday than the week before across the US. I “know” that at any particular state football game, there are more Christians in attendance than Muslims and Jewish people combined. I “know” it’s not going to rain for the next 45 days straight at any particular town in Mississippi, even though that’s the future. But feel free to argue about any of those points if you want I guess.
See @johnson86-1's post above, he explains it perfectly.
And I've been to plenty of travel ball tournaments, and we all know this is middle class suburban America, especially in the South. Why argue over these things.
I think you're painting with too broad of a brush. We don't know what the values of these thousands of people are and shouldn't make assumptions, especially not assumptions that imply that those people are less moral/righteous than we are.
Nobody made that second assumption, especially me. I've been in that position many times (though not on Easter, which is what spurred the post). And I may possibly have missed Easter too in that situation.
You guys talking about judgment need to chill out. It's just a discussion.
Volleyball dad here. It’s ridiculous. We do not participate in the Big South but we are very aware. That tournament is the largest tournament in the country
the argument is that is a three day tournament and they don’t have to miss school. Our team opted to play Lone Star next weekend in Dallas.
This gets fixed if Christian parents refuse to participate. The issue at hand is how much money is in youth sports. Get off my lawn but it's mostly a racket. $50 admission + $20 parking + $5 for a bottled water. Players get in for free? Nope, the teams pay $1000 to play in the tournament.
And at least in the Central Mississippi area, we have ruined rec volleyball. You can't make your high school team at the 6A MAIS/7A MHSAA level without playing club, so there is a long line of parents willing to throw $10k at a season of club volleyball, when if we are truthful with ourselves, each age group may only have enough for 1-2 teams that can compete at the USAV/AAU level. The rest need to be developing their skills with private lessons and a more competitive rec league.
Just take a look at the final standings in Atlanta. In the 15 division, the best team from Mississippi went 2-5. I know every girl on that team. They play for the top high school teams and they are amazing volleyball players, but they can't compete at the national level.
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There will be plenty of kids that turn out well that play travel ball on the weekends... but it's hard to be committed to both travel sports and a church body. I've sadly see this play out time & time again.
The world is already difficult enough. I want to give my children the BEST opportunity they can to build an eternal relationship. YES we can worship outside those walls. NO church attendance doesn't save us. If it is something that is routinely keeping us from being committed though.. it would be wise to reexamine.
The world is already difficult enough. I want to give my children the BEST opportunity they can to build an eternal relationship. YES we can worship outside those walls. NO church attendance doesn't save us. If it is something that is routinely keeping us from being committed though.. it would be wise to reexamine.
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It's because there are thousands of people there that I can know my statement is accurate. Something north of 60% of people in the US identify as Christian. The travel volleyball crowd is not going to be representative of the US (I'm guessing it's more affluent and whiter than average), but probably nothing that is going to take that percentage down to 10 or 15%. So yes, there were a significant number of Christians at the tournament. Maybe a good bit fewer than there would be if it was not on easter sunday, but again, they didn't fill it out with locals and non-christians.
I explicitly noted that most Christians, including our family, also have things they put before going to church. Ours is just travel in general. We tend to do a lot of short weekend trips rather than one or two long trips. We don't do a good job of going to church while traveling. That's not a better reason to miss than kids sports. But I don't think (or maybe it's just vain hope) that is as bad as travel sports as far as communicating to children that church attendance isn't important because we don't have a 10 week stretch where its whatever sport season where we only go to church if it fits around games. We don't have sports season and then Church season/off Season. We have friends that do travel baseball and soccer. Put those tournaments with other travel and there are 20+ Sundays knocked out. Their kids are great and they are great, and the kids may jump back into going to church regularly when they age out of sports and it not have an impact at all. But it doesn't seem implausible that parents not prioritizing church when children are young is strongly correlated with the children not prioritizing church when they get older.
Yeah, side thread here, but it's hilarious how so many parents think the team you are on, and 'winning', is what equals skill development. That's the biggest dupe about the whole deal. ESPECIALLY in baseball (I don't know about volleyball, seems like they get plenty of touches there). At least in football, soccer and basketball you are consistently moving and playing. Baseball - you get 2-3 at bats and may not get a ball hit to you in a game, unless you're the pitcher/catcher. And of course we all know about overusing arms of the pitchers, so there's that too.
I reference the Dominicans a good bit in reference to baseball - and they don't sit around playing games like we do in the US.
This thread has taken many twists and turns, but as a Christian it is vital to attend church worship every Sunday. Especially from a standpoint of setting an example for your children. It’s literally one of the Ten Commandments.
Now, I’m sure someone will misinterpret this as I’m saying if you don’t attend church you’re going to hell, and that’s not it. What I am saying is, if you spend months out of the year not attending church due to volleyball, competitive baseball, etc. you’re 1) not keeping the sabbath holy 2) setting a very destructive example for your kids.
Everyone misses a Sunday occasionally, but my point here is in regards to a pattern with families. Being a leader of the household.
Now, I’m sure someone will misinterpret this as I’m saying if you don’t attend church you’re going to hell, and that’s not it. What I am saying is, if you spend months out of the year not attending church due to volleyball, competitive baseball, etc. you’re 1) not keeping the sabbath holy 2) setting a very destructive example for your kids.
Everyone misses a Sunday occasionally, but my point here is in regards to a pattern with families. Being a leader of the household.
In the 13s, Velocity (Germantown) went to the semi finals, finished 3rd out of 94 teams but that was in the lowest division. But not disagreeing with you.
So yeah.... with baseball and softball there is some hope your kid can develop with time and experience to reach whatever level their talent takes them. However with volleyball if the parents aren't over 6ft. The kid probably won't be 6ft and you won't get an offer above D3 or JUCO under 5'8ish regardless of talent.
The Velocity team is really talented but the game will catch up with them as most of their hitting is below the net. The kids are average height to slightly above. Not to single them out, Same situation applies for most Memphis teams too.
edit to add: not pick on VB.... it seems highly unlikely a kid will be a baseball pitcher any longer unless they are over 6ft as well.
That's not true at all.....other than just the natural part of it, i.e. taller kids are generally better athletes and have more ability. But it's not a metric scouts/coaches concentrate on, especially if you're gassing 90.
Disagree. There a several people on this thread being judgmental, saying that these people aren't prioritizing church and sports correctly, despite not knowing any of them and not knowing what they did on the rest of Sunday or the whole weekend.
That Velocity team is the best team in Mississippi comparably. But you are right, next year will tell the story.
I guess my point to all this is there may be one team in the entire state that even needs to play in that tournament at that level. Most players in Mississippi need to be competing locally/in-state. I know volleyball doesn't work like that, but it doesn't make it less true.
Just to explain what has happened in Central Mississippi to the outsiders:
10 years ago, there was one club in the Jackson area. This group thought they could do better this group got mad, and a decade later we are at five clubs, all competing for talent. If you go to this school, you need to be with this club. When all is said and done, you end up with about 8-10 average too below average teams in each age group, instead of 1-2 really good teams and a group of developmental talent.
Of course but you're not getting recruited at all if you don't throw hard, or have outstanding stats. That's the point. Height isn't a weed out thing.
You can also go to church every Sunday and be an awful person too. Just because you go to church doesn’t make you better.
- It's hard for me to come down on travel sports on Easter, when I watched both basketball and MLB games. It does seem like odd scheduling.
- On that subject, it's peculiar to me that we shut down most activities on Christmas Day, and in many ways for a few days before and after - but Easter is essentially wide-open.
- I am certainly not advocating bringing back blue laws or anything of that nature, but a part of me wishes Sundays were a little most "closed". Practicing Christian or not, having one day a week for quiet reflection and rest seems like a good idea. I'd be happy if we could just not run lawn mowers and leaf blowers on Sundays. (of course, fully acknowledging some folks have to work/do stuff, and for some it's the only time they have for yard work.)
My dad was a preacher, and I remember back maybe 30 years ago him going off on a tangent one Sunday about how we want people to attend church on Sunday - but then everyone wants to go eat afterwards, go shopping that afternoon, watch sports, etc. We'll criticize people for not attending church, but also expect people to work so we can enjoy the day doing those things.
I don't think he really meant to say all of that but it was one of those heat of the moment kind of things. It cut down on the after church meals for a 2-3 months but everything was back to normal pretty soon.
I don't really go anymore. But always think of that sermon when these conversations come up.
I don't think he really meant to say all of that but it was one of those heat of the moment kind of things. It cut down on the after church meals for a 2-3 months but everything was back to normal pretty soon.
I don't really go anymore. But always think of that sermon when these conversations come up.
I’m with you on that.
We don’t work on Sundays and never have. You have to have a day to unwind, see family, reflect or you’ll go crazy and I do occasionally do some yard work on Sunday but I try not to and enjoy the day doing something other than anything resembling work.
As has been mentioned in this thread, I think the driving force is kids being out of school Friday and Monday and parents being off work at least Friday.
Old school Christianly is dying in this country (it died in Europe a long time ago and never really blossomed in Australia). 50 years from now they will be two main types of churches, the "feel good" mega church, were every sermon is an event with special effects, AI, pyrotechnics, etc, and there will still be a few hard core Pentecostal type churches. The "middle of the road" small town traditional evangelical church will be gone for the most part. It has been dying for a while, but the plandemic certainly accelerated the decline.
It's 2024, I don't think most anybody our age thinks this way at all anymore and that's an assumption I am making within this whole discussion. Those types of talking points probably were chatted over tea/coffee in 1993 Winona or somewhere by a bunch of boomers.
And funny enough, those feel good mega churches enable the behavior even more. Most are founded on having more freedom than the stuffy churches.
I think most people understand the drill now, deep down. But are most people still influenced by the hivemind? Absolutely, whatever the flavor of the week happens to be.
Is the school calendar you refer to really what takes place across the South?
My school district doesn't have Friday or Monday off. I don't know of anyone who isn't working today due to a holiday.
...and I am not aware of any school districts that have Friday and/or today off.
17off on your plandemic nonsense. Have a big boy conversation or troll. Don't try to do both.
As far as I know, most schools in the 'Sip, public and private, were off Friday and are off today. I figured that was the case across the south. Some parents, who work a job that takes off for Easter type holidays, had Friday off, I doubt any had today off.
You don't think our over reaction (it started under Trump, both parties are equally to blame - I don't have a problem saying the Trump was even more responsible, solely because he was in charge at the time) to covid had an impact on long term church attendance? Even common sense liberals, like Bill Marr, agree it was an over reaction, not that this thread should go in that direction.
I hope he at least had his amplified bullhorn with him, you know like Jesus did.***
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