NEW YORK -- The Rev. Charles Rush, pastor of a church in a well-to-do New York City suburb, knew for sure weekend sports tournaments were encroaching on the sacred day for worship when parishioners informed him the only time their children had for youth activities at church was Sunday nights.

The Congregational minister had spotted a clue when he noticed a choir member wearing soccer cleats under his robe, ready to zoom out the church doors after the last hymn. Not long ago, Rush and other like-minded ministers in Summit, N.J., sent written requests to coaches and parents to delay youth sports until noon on Sundays.

"The rabbis and other clergy figure if we were not going to raise the issue, then who would?" Rush said.

Similar calls from clergy to observe the Sabbath have been issued from churches and synagogues in the South and Midwest and from Catholic parishes in the Boston area, where soccer, hockey, and baseball have become weekend rituals. In the Bronx, with its community of Orthodox Jews, religious leaders started "Kosher Soccer Leagues" on Sundays to discourage children from participating in sports on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.

The national obsession with weekend sports is changing the way American families spend the Sabbath. Come Sunday mornings, many parents all over the country must choose between attending a child's tournament or a church service. With indoor arenas emerging, it is becoming a year-round issue. Some churches have created leagues of their own to control scheduling.

"It's a problem. Sunday has taken on a whole new meaning," said Peter Williams, athletic director for the Archdiocese of Boston. "If we are going to be coaches and role models for kids, certainly we ought to be able to show there is a place for God in life as well. Using Sunday as an opportunity to play sports early in the morning and all morning detracts from the ability to worship."

Bill Doherty, a professor at the University of Minnesota, said children's participation in religious activity decreased 40 percent from 1981 to 1997, according to a recent study. Meanwhile, the number of children participating in organized sports outside of school increased from 15 million in 1970 to 40 million, according to Jack Hutslar, director of the North American Youth Sport Institute in North Carolina.

"So now you have a facility crunch in probably every community," Hutslar said. "There are but so many gyms for basketball, so many places for hockey, that can accommodate children. So you have to play Sunday."

Religious leaders say it is not that they are seeing fewer people on Sundays, but they are seeing some families attend less frequently. Specialists on religion and sports differ on why so many families are trading pews for the bleachers, but some parents say their children can gain self-confidence and skills in athletics that are not taught in Sunday school.

On a recent Sunday, Alice Gelwan, a resident of Manhattan's Upper East Side, allowed her daughter to skip Hebrew school so she could take gymnastics lessons with a private teacher at Chelsea Piers Sports and Entertainment Complex, an 80,000-square-foot indoor arena in Manhattan.

"This is much better," said Gelwan, as she watched her daughter. "At Hebrew school, they give them a snack and go ramble about something that happened 500,000 years ago; but here, they are strengthening family ties, building friendships and self-esteem, and they know their parents are proud as can be."

The Hudson River outside of Chelsea Piers was a sheet of ice that Sunday, but inside the center bustled. Girls in leotards and boys in sweats performed backflips and cartwheels on one end. Parents watched as two boys' soccer teams competed on the other end.

Sue Kakuk, a mother in Plymouth, Minn., recalled fretting over whether to send her daughter for confirmation at her church, Messiah United Methodist, or to allow her to attend a dance competition. In the end, her daughter attended part of the confirmation and then rushed to the competition. Her pastor, the Rev. Steve Richards, said he does not blame parents but encourages them to address the problem with coaches.

"I try to encourage parents to consider what is important for your family and claim some time for your family -- and don't forget about your faith. And how do you claim that if you not able to be here on Sunday morning?" he said.

Like other pastors, Richards is starting to look at other days besides Sunday to celebrate services. Doherty said one Lutheran pastor in Minnesota canceled choir because soccer was already taking up too much time Sunday mornings.

"So this kind of happens all the time and the clergy are really getting upset about it," said Doherty, author of Family First. "It's not that anyone is saying, `Who gives a hoot about church?' It's just that parents don't want to diss a child or diss a league, so they go along and nobody squawks."

Len Zaichkowsky, a professor at Boston University and sports psychologist, said parents have shifted their weekend priorities because they mistakenly believe their children will benefit from more activities.

"There is a priority shift because they see a higher good down the line," he said. "There's the money and fame, the opportunity to go to the best prep school and then keep going, and to get a scholarship to a good college. And this might lead to the Olympics and professional sports."

Williams, of the Archdiocese of Boston, said, "We are not making the time for public worship anymore." Williams and Rush said that coaches do worry about trying to keep Sunday mornings free for youths.

Both men are parents who have children involved in a number of sports activities, and say they understand firsthand the problem for parents. They also say clergy appreciate the benefits of sports and do not want to return Sundays to the days of blue laws, when almost nothing was open. The Archdiocese of Boston does not schedule its sporting events before noon. Rush said he is following the lead of pastors in Minneapolis who started family-friendly scheduling, meaning that youth events are scheduled at 8 p.m. Sundays.

"There has got to be some structure on the Sabbath," said Rush. "We don't want to go back to the old New England way of nothing being open on Sunday, but the idea is just to have a day or time when the family is together and not doing anything. . . . That seems like a reasonable request."

© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.