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Hamilton County, situated just north of Indianapolis, has been home to a sports megaplex for the past decade that fundamentally changed not only a tiny rural town but also a cultural mindset in the region.

Our family was living in the area when the Grand Park Sports Campus in Westfield, Indiana, was in its infancy stages with developers. The locals called it a Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will come. Who would come? Travel sports families. And these families would bring all of their needs with them. Shops, restaurants, microbreweries, cafes, hotels, doctors, and hospitals. Just imagine what an economic boon it would be for the region!

Developers and city planners put all the positive spin they could muster into this great achievement. Many were skeptical. Some were hopeful.

Our local pastor, however, felt a sense of impending doom. He knew that travel sports would mean families being pulled away to participate in games and tournaments on the weekend. Travel sports would leave no room in a family’s schedule for Sunday worship.

Ten years later, the Grand Park Sports Campus has grown into a 400-acre complex that features 26 ball diamonds, 31 multi-purpose fields, and a nearly 400,000-square-foot event center with three full indoor synthetic fields for year-round play. It is now home to the Indianapolis Colts training center and the Pacers Athletic Center, along with offices and a full-service restaurant.

And the town of Westfield that once had one traffic light? It has exploded with growth. Just try booking a hotel in that region on a weekend. If you are lucky to snag a reservation, it will cost you. A lot.

We continue to travel to Hamilton County frequently, and our stays are the same each time. Hotel lobbies crammed with kids in uniforms, dads in sports jerseys hauling duffel bags and equipment, and moms wearing Lululemon tights and clutching Stanley cups. Traveling sports families from all over the Midwest descend upon this area for 52 weekends each year.

Changed Churches

Was it an economic boon for this region? Undoubtedly. Towns became cities. Fields became subdivisions. Roads became highways. But the impact of the Grand Park Sports Campus had a ripple effect. Not only did it change the little town of Westfield forever, but it affected every church in the Midwest who lost families to the new religion of sports.

Travel sports has grown into a $39 billion industry, with projections expecting that total to reach $72 billion by 2029. As youth sports continue to increase, churches are seeing a decrease in members and Sunday worshippers. 

Lifeway Research recently conducted a survey that examined travel sports while collecting data from families as well as pastors. They found that 36 percent of pastors felt it was never acceptable to miss church for kids’ sports, while 29 percent said it was okay once or twice a year, and 26 percent said that it was acceptable a few times a year.

The families surveyed were more open to swapping worship for sports. The report showed that 18 percent of families felt it was never acceptable to miss church for sports, while 22 percent said it was fine once or twice a year, 39 percent a few times a year, and 13 percent many times a year.

On average, kids are spending more than 16 hours each week in sports. Practices, games, and tournaments are eating up a large portion of a family’s time together. And when stressed and overbooked families are looking at their weekly schedules, it is often Sunday worship and midweek church activities that don’t make the cut.

Trade-Offs

Greg Witto knows the challenge of keeping traveling sports families connected to their local congregations. As the director of family life ministry for a church near Ann Arbor, Michigan, he has seen firsthand how the lure of sports can pull families away from their community of faith.

“I knew a group of pastors that called sports the modern cathedral,” he said. “It dominates your commitment and attention on the weekend, and your community has changed. Your commitment becomes that sport, your community becomes those people that have that same value, and that begins to shape what you value from that point forward.”

Witto understands the appeal. As a self-professed sports fan, he has spent much of his career finding ways to inject faith into student life. He formerly served as the director of alumni and family relations at Concordia University, Wisconsin, where he frequently interacted with players and did chaplaincy for campus teams and ministries.

“Sports popularity increased. Sport and athletic notoriety increased. Now all of a sudden, you can make money to play at a good D2 [Division II] school program, so there’s a lot of incentive to excel on the athletic field, and there are a lot more athletics to excel in. It might not be the scholarship to pay for school, but the touchpoint to get into a school. And now we see all these facilities being built to accommodate that.”

Witto worries that families who swap worship for sports are adding something to their calendar that is draining rather than uplifting.

“You do miss out on the community of faith, sharing and being fed rather than feeding. You’re always giving and pouring out rather than being filled up. They don’t come back refreshed from the weekend. They come back exhausted from their weekend. Whereas when I leave worship, I’m refreshed and filled and ready to hit the week.”

In the battle between church and travel sports, Witto is not ready to throw in the towel just yet. He sees this as a challenge for congregations to step up to the plate and equip their families as they take their faith on the road.

“It’s a partnership with parents. If they are committed to forming faith, we need to help them and equip them to do that and get resources in their hands.”

Witto suggests finding a church in the area to attend, having a chapel service with a couple of other families in the park between games, or reading a devotion as a group.

“God wants them to have the joy of sports. He gave them a gift and he gave them an opportunity. But in the midst of that, He still wants us to feed them with His word. We can provide tools for them to utilize some devotion time, some conversation time, some prayer time, even if it’s not corporate worship.”

Churches may need to take a cue from the sports playbook by creating a culture that validates, encourages, rewards, and supports the players in their congregational team. 

“It’s a wave of the future, and we’re going to have to deal with it. I want to recognize the challenges we face, but I’d rather look at it as an opportunity for us to be creative in how we continue to live out faith in the areas where we still feel called to participate and encourage our children to live in.”

Mary Rose Kulczak is a writer for various parent and child publications. She is a wife and mother of three sons and one daughter-in-law, and currently resides in Saline, Michigan.