By Andrew McChesney, adventistmission.org

The Southern Asia-Pacific Division reaffirmed a world church statement barring competitive sports in church schools after its education director cautioned about a strong link between competitive sports and young people leaving the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Division leaders unanimously voted during year-end meetings in Silang, the Philippines, to uphold “Activities With Elements of Competition,” an official statement approved by a 1988 Annual Council business meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. The vote also recommended careful consideration of this action by churches, conferences, and unions.

The Nov. 8 decision came amid worries that some schools in the 14 countries of the Southern Asia-Pacific Division have promoted competitive sports in contradiction to the instructions of Adventist Church cofounder Ellen G. White and to the detriment of the church’s mission to teach, preach, and make disciples.

The division’s education director, Lawrence L. Domingo, who presented the reaffirmation motion ahead of the vote, shared research that places competitive sports in the same category as alcohol, illegal drugs, and rock music in having a negative influence on young people.

“Research showed that participation in competitive sports is one of the risk behaviors that correlated strongly with young people leaving the church,” Domingo said, citing research reported in the Winter/Spring 1994 issue of the Journal of Adventist Youth Ministry.

Domingo read a number of Ellen White passages about competitive sports, with sentiments such as “games … are diverting the mind from study” (“Adventist Home,” page 500) and “sports and games open the door to a flood of temptations” (“Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students,” page 366).

He later distributed copies of the 1988 official church statement on competitive sports.

The statement, published on the adventist.org website, points to 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 as an illustration of the ideal of cooperation and unity in God’s church, “where the parts of the church, as symbolized by the parts of the body, work together for the good of the whole. There is sympathetic cooperation; there is no rivalry.”

The motion came to the year-end meetings at the request of educators from across the division’s 14 countries, a region stretching from Pakistan to Indonesia.

Ted N.C. Wilson, president of the Adventist world church, who attended the meetings, offered strong support for the motion.

“Let’s face reality: We are working and moving against the enormous general trend of becoming absorbed with sports competition around the world,” Wilson said.

He recalled closely following the Washington Redskins football team as a college student in the United States, and said this preoccupation had affected him greatly.

“When they lost on Sunday, I would be so discouraged on Monday,” he said. “Finally, I put two and two together and decided not to follow them any longer. Life became better on Mondays.”

Outdoor physical activity is beneficial when it contributes to God’s plan, but competitive sports, and competition in other areas of life as well, does not lift people to heaven, Wilson said.

“It tends to lift people to themselves,” he said.

Southern Asia-Pacific Division leaders discussed the motion over parts of two days, and several spoke about a looming struggle.

“National sports day is the biggest day of the year in many of our schools,” said Kevin K. Costello, the division’s associate secretary.

Edwin C. Gulfan, president of the South Philippine Union Conference, which has seven academies and three colleges, voiced hope that the division’s actions wouldn’t discourage school physical fitness programs.

Wilson urged church leaders to lead by example.

“We are fighting an uphill battle, but I’ll tell you that God is on our side,” he said.

Read related story: Should Adventists Reconsider Football?