Super Bowl Sunday

In case you missed it the New Orleans Saints played the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl this past Sunday night. The Saints won 31-17 and I was glad for Drew Brees (the Saints QB), since he used to be the San Diego Chargers QB and is a Christian who has always handled himself very well as a professional football player.

On a different note I received a call from someone who will remain anonymous. They asked my opinion about something their pastor had said that Sunday morning. He said that anyone who cancelled Sunday services or did not attend the regular Sunday night service was placing football before God. He made it very clear that by attending the Sunday night service believers were showing the world that God was more important than football. I would like to think through this statement and see how it reveals much about modern Christianity's view of the Church and Christianity in general.

Let's start with the Sunday night service part. Many people do not realize that the Sunday night service never even existed until the early 1900's. Less than one hundred years ago no one in the Christian world had ever attended a Sunday night service or thought it was necessary to have one in order to be a godly Christian. The evening service was started as an evangelistic outreach. At the time, unbelievers who didn't attend church were more likely to be out and about on Sunday evenings. So some enterprising pastors decided to be culturally relevant and encourage their people to invite their friends to a special Sunday evening evangelistic service. God used these men and this method in order to reach many with the Gospel. Over time the Sunday night service lost its purpose since the culture changed and, of course, the church didn't. So churches continued to hold Sunday night services (many of them continuing to solely preach evangelistically) even though no visitors were attending any more. But the evening service had become entrenched in our church traditions so we changed it so that the morning service was more palatable for visitors (since that was when they were coming) and the evening service is often more of a teaching time for "The Faithful Few."

Putting aside for a minute that it is an evening service let us examine the underlying beliefs behind the statement that missing a service for football places football as more important than God. This is a rather interesting thought. In essence it is saying that our relationship with God is dependent upon whether or not we attend a church service. I am not sure where we get this because you can't find this in the Bible. You can always quote Hebrews 10 where it says that we should not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. The problem is that this is taking it out of context. The passage is a stiff warning to believing Jews who were backsliding to the point that some of them were literally giving up on Christianity and returning to Judaism. So the warning has nothing to do with missing a service now and then. It has to do with deserting the church entirely. I find it amazing that we equate our spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ to an outward, external, Pharisaical action like getting in a car and driving to a building and sitting in a pew for an hour.

Does attending a service necessarily mean someone is growing in Christ or spiritual? I think we would all have to say, No. Doesn't the Bible clearly teach that our spiritual growth is much more than simply attending a service? I am not arguing that attending church isn't important, but my relationship with God is not dependent upon the number of times I attend church in a given week

Another issue with this statement about placing God over football is the Pharisaical self-righteousness that it creates along with a fear of man. After making an announcement like that from the pulpit on a Sunday morning you have just created an external test of self-righteousness. If anyone is missing from the Sunday night service then clearly the congregation can conclude that they are in disobedience to God. So we get people to attend the service becuase they are afraid of what men may think rather than coming out of obedience to God and a desire to be there. Also, all of those people who do attend on Sunday night are now given the right to self-righteously pat themselves on the back for making such a sacrifice of attending church. So they are often attending for the wrong reasons too.

While this statement may seem like a simple concept it is really extremely dangerous and revealing. We have become the modern-day Pharisees. We have taken God's Word and added to it. We have made a list of external rules and said that if you keep them you are spiritual, and if you don't you are carnal. When are we going to learn?

So on a positive note let me explain what I think the church should do on Super Bowl Sunday. We should realize that over 150 million people are watching this game. We should realize that this is more than a football game. It is a major part of our culture and our society. People who never watch football watch this game and gather around the water cooler to discuss it, the commercials, the half-time show, everything. How can we as a church desiring to interact with the culture around us completely ignore an event of this magnitude? If the Super Bowl were associated with debauchery or sinfulness that would be one thing, but this is one of the few elements of our culture that really is designed to be a family event. So as our neighbors around us prepare to have pizza, snacks, dips, junk food, hang out with friends and family, and just have a good time they look out their window and watch their holier-than-thou neighbors wearing their three-piece suits trudge off to church. And we wonder why they think Christians are weird. This isn't suffering for Jesus, this is stupidity.

So on Super Bowl Sunday I cancelled our Sunday Night Growth Group and we had a great group of family and friends come over to watch the game. I purposely did my best to have a mix of believers and unbelievers at the gathering. We had a great time, enjoyed the game, enjoyed each other's company, enjoyed the food, and all got to know each other a little better. Isn't that what we are commanded to do in the Bible? Aren't we supposed to be building relationships with unbelievers wherever we can? How can we be salt and light if we never come in contact with the world?