When Church Is Like Football
I’ve lived in just about every part of the country east of the Rocky Mountains. But I’ve spent the majority of my life in “Southern” states like Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas. Even though I still say y’all, there are a few things that make me distinctly not southern in most peoples eyes. I can’t stand gravy (I will literally scrape the gravy off of chicken fried steak if I’m too embarrassed to order it without gravy), I’ve never been a fan of grits, and I no longer live off of sweet tea. But despite my weird food choices, perhaps the greatest thing that makes me stand out is my indifference to college football, or really any college sport.
I learned early on that I will get asked who my favorite team is several times and that if I claimed one of the actual good teams I would either make an enemy or a friend in less than a second. However, if I said Arkansas State (which is where I spent a year as an engineering major) people are so confused that they don’t know whether to make fun of me, feel sad for me, or ask me in disbelief “Why?”.
While I was a youth pastor in Oklahoma, I ended up going to an OU game with a handful of students who had season tickets. We get to the campus, which is much bigger than I was expecting, and they directed me towards where we needed to park. As we were walking into the stadium they were giving away bobble heads of Adrian Peterson and they had a large poster as well that diagramed the perfect sooner (arm of Sam Bradford, speed of Roy Williams, etc.). My students were going crazy talking about each of the people listed on the poster and were excited about getting it hung up in their rooms, and even asked if we could hang one of them up in the youth room.
As we made our way to the seats the crowd was already fired up. One of my guys turned to me and yelled here comes the schooner! The wagon pulled by two horses comes racing out of the tunnel. There were a whole bunch of other traditions that went on during the game that my students just ate up. They knew all the chants, they could even point to other season ticket holders, and they knew that one rather large fellow would take off his shirt and dance anytime OU scored (the game was something like 57-2, so there was lots of dancing). Once the game was done, they were so excited and they asked me what I though of the game. I did my best to be as positive about it as I could, but in reality it was one of the worst sporting experiences I’ve even been to.
When we got to the OU campus, there were signs directing you towards the stadium, but that wasn’t where you parked. Parking was scattered throughout fraternities and education lots. My teens knew right where to go, but I was completely lost.
The bobble head was cool. Even though I knew next to nothing about who Adrian Peterson was at the time, bobbleheads are always fun. They gave away something that appealed to a large spectrum of people.
I gave the poster away. I knew maybe two names of the 15 or so people on the poster, and instead of getting me more interested or excited about the game, it was a harsh reminder that I was an outside.
All of the traditions that my students loved just felt weird to me. Besides constantly being reminded that I had no clue what was going on, it was hard for me to get excited about a couple of horses, songs I’d never heard before and couldn’t understand the words anyway, and many of the other traditions that had been slowly acquired over the years but hit me all at once.
Sports chants are just dumb to begin with. I think the players know that they need to play defense or that they just got a first down. Yelling at them doesn’t somehow snap them out of a dream and remind them “Why yes, I think defense right now would be the wisest choice”. (I understand that there are some psychological effects of chants and the energy and how it can help encourage players, but if you think about just the words, “let’s go Sooners, let’s go” is just redundant and void of any real meaning).
I hate blow out games. The second best team in the nation was playing Chattanooga, so I knew going into it that it was going to be a win, but 57-2 is the type of game that does nothing for me. I would rather have a close, even sided game anytime. There was no suspense, and after watching a 400 pound Sasquatch of a man dance 7 or 8 times I dreaded another touchdown.
But the best thing that came out of this experience is that I will never look at church the same again. I realize that’s not exactly what most people would take away from a football game, but it’s a memory that is seared in my brain.
Churches usually don’t have confusing parking lots (or do they?) but anytime there is more than one building or entrance to a building there is confusion to a first time guest. Are our buildings clearly marked? Do the words that we use to label them have any actual meaning to the people coming onto our campus. Are there people who can help guide you to where you need to go so that you don’t feel completely lost from the beginning?
Do we give away something that people will actually enjoy? Does it make any kind of connection even if it’s just a bit of plastic on a spring?
How many times do we talk about people and expect everyone to know who they are? If we say “we all know the story of Moses” we instantly make people who aren’t aware of that story feel disconnected and inadequate. If we just say “go see George”, they have no context to figure out if we are taking about George Clooney, Curious George, or King George. Names matter, but even more important than the name is the ability to make connections between names and why we are saying them.
What traditions do churches have that look strange to people outside the community? Early church critics thought Christians were cannibals because they ate Jesus’ body and blood. Baptism, kneeling at the altar, acolytes, and so many other things have very little correlation to secular world culture, and so while we might be a huge fan of them and love the symbolism, do we explain to people why we do it?
God is good… If you screamed out “all the time” right afterwards, you already know about church chants. We don’t usually call them chants, we typically call them call and response. I won’t name specifics, but anytime someone says one thing and expects a response from other people based on that, you are drawing a line between those who are “insiders” and those who are not.
We all look for different things in church. Some people like highly experiential worship with high energy, others prefer more meditative worship with heavy liturgy, and there are so many other methods of worship.
One last thing that doesn’t correlate nicely with any of the previous bullet points. You have to define the win. Any football team knows what a win is. It’s where at the end of the game you have more points than the other team. But what is a win in church? Is it when they sing your favorite song or when you get out five minutes early? No, although sometimes those things are nice. A win for us is when someone comes to know Jesus for the first time or when someone grasps a deeper understanding and love for him.
Love One Another
Years ago, I remember all Americans were saying baseball was the American pastime. Now, the culture has changed especially here in the south where college football reigns. Many pastors in the south have all voiced to me their number one question when coming to a new congregation is what college football team do you root for?
Just from my perspective, NFL football has lost passion because of all of the controversy over the last couple years where football players put their beliefs and agendas above what they are paid to do. We all go to our jobs each day and try to make ends meet. The climate of the America I know does not feel sorry for the millionaires who play a kids game and get treated like rock stars who want to be heard for their beliefs. There are ways to use your notoriety to better this land we love and many athletes have done just that.
But, I think the national pastime now has became an argument about the current administration, politician, Democrat or Republican. The news will spend a gross amount of time bashing what ever the network and/or the reporter wants to get behind. Yes there are stories which need to be heard, but there are stories where the compassion of people caring for others should be told.
I used to love to end the day watching the monologue of the late night shows just to unwind and get a few laughs. I cannot stand any of the late night shows anymore for the bashing reasons. Yet they get paid millions by networks who have their agenda to fulfill.
God wants us all to love one another. His greatest commandment is to love one another. Maybe we should look ourselves in the mirror every morning and ask a few questions to ourselves.
#1 Am I lying to myself? Tell the truth to yourself.
#2 Let what I value be more important than what I’ve got to have.
#3 I will not lead myself by myself.
You are responsible for you. Get someone in your life that is bold enough to tell you the truth so you do not get full of yourself. Guess what, every bad decision you have made you have been right in the middle of. People depend on you. Your family, your job, your employees, your friends. Are you leading your self well? The point is you cannot lead well if you are not leading your self well.
When you get up in the morning start a routine where you ask yourselves questions. Lead your self well now and the bad decisions you have made in the past will be in the past and the choices we make now will lead us to being a better person with better character. Maybe the national pastime could be compassion for one another, oh yeah, and world peace.
The song “We all Bleed the same” pretty much sums it up.
We all bleed the same
We’re more beautiful when we come together
We all bleed the same So tell me why, tell me why
We’re divided Woke up today
Another headline Another innocent life is taken
In the name of hatred
So hard to take And if we think that it’s all good
Then we’re mistaken
Cause my heart is breaking
Are you left? Are you right?
Pointing fingers, taking sides
When are we gonna realize?
So Father God, I pray
That our families will come together right now
And seek Your face
You will forgive our sins
And You will heal our incredible land
In the name of the only Savior, Jesus Christ
Amen
Have a great week.
Mike Conrad
Punctuation Matters
“Let’s eat grandma.” is a very different statement from “Let’s eat, Grandma.” The first is the start of cannibalism, the second is a brief invitation. This one sentence has been a favorite example of mine for years on why punctuation matters. The irony here is that I am absolutely horrible at grammar and have to google things regularly to make sure I’m not breaking major rules. But do you know who didn’t have to worry about punctuation? Jesus. That’s right, sentence punctuation was something that was invented several hundreds of years after Jesus was born and most of the oldest manuscripts from the Old and New Testament were even written in all capital letters.
While this makes the part of me that hates punctuation really happy, it has also been the source of a lot of frustration for theologians. Because we are in Lent and are looking toward the cross, Jesus said to the man hanging beside him “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43 NRSV). Out of all the possible things to debate concerning this verse, my guess is most people never think about the comma. The way the translators of the NRSV placed it after the word “you” means that “Truly I tell you” is a side bit, and that the main focus is that “today you will be with me in Paradise.” This leans towards an eschatology of when we die, we immediately go to heaven, or at least to what we presume to be our final destination. However, this passage could also read “Truly I tell you today, you will be with me in Paradise.” which would lead to “Truly I tell you today” being a qualifier of when he said it, and then “you will be with me in Paradise” as the statement that is not dependent on a timeframe. It could be that that very same day, he was in Paradise, or it could be that he won’t be in paradise until Jesus returns. One comma has a considerable impact on an entire eschatological view, or what we think about the end things. (As a note, no major translation that I can find has the comma placed after “today”.)
Another horrible English nerd joke is making fun of Paul for his long run on sentences, and even sometimes how clunky his wording can be. As someone who doesn’t actually speak or read Greek, I have no idea if it sounds much better in Greek, but I can tell you that in Greek the run on sentences are much worse. Ephesians 1:3-14 is actually one entire run on sentence in the earliest Greek manuscripts. It is literally a 270 word run on sentence that I’ll post at the end of this blog.
But as much as punctuation matters, it can get in the way of what really matters. We can do word studies. We can spend hours in the world’s most boring debate talking about where a comma or period should go. We can talk about the history of bad translations. But at some point, academic discussions become meaningless. It doesn’t really matter if I die and immediately go to heaven or if I’m in a some sort of suspended animation. The way I’m supposed to live my life isn’t dependent on what happens after it. If we get so caught up in the details that we lose sight of the key commands of loving God and loving our neighbor, we in effect don’t see the forest for the trees.
But there is one thing that everyone should agree on. The Oxford comma is absolutely necessary.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 just as he chose us in Christ[a] before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5 He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight 9 he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 11 In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance,[b] having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14 this[c] is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.”
You're Giving Up What?
Ok, it is that time of year again when in the Christian community we will all get the question one time or another “What are you giving up for Lent?” Some people are right in your face and want you to know what they are doing and how they will be doing it. Others are more subdued in their offering for Lent.
The idea behind giving up something for Lent is based on Luke 9:23 “Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” So, essentially it’s about self-denial, carrying our cross and following Jesus. It is something that’s done in a prayerful way, so that we can wholly renew ourselves in Christ. That’s an important part of the process for you as an individual, but also as a family. If your family or your children choose to participate in a Lenten fast, make sure that praying together and reading the Bible is part of the experience.
I have had friends who did not give up anything for Lent, but instead did an “ADD TOO” each day. You can be intentional to do something of meaning each day. Buy some one lunch one day, take a lonely senior some candy, take an afternoon off and spend it with your kids. BE INTENTIONAL. Or another person created bags of food for the food bank, by picking up items each day and at the end of each week take the bag to the food pantry. Or read a story in the bible each day, just make you disciplined enough to do it everyday!
We have so much to be thankful for each day. I have shared I am making this year a year of thankfulness. Through the tough year of loss last year, regardless of the circumstances I am thankful, and this year I am intentionally being thankful.
My wife and I have a friend who has lost both of her parents and has had breast cancer in the past 5 years. We have only seen her down a couple of times of the 15 years we have known her family. We all handle adversity differently and God gives the ability to handle everything in our own way. She has the intentionality everyday to make it a good day and be positive regardless of the circumstances. We have always admired her attitude and her faith in all of the circumstances.
We have the choice everyday to make this the best day ever. Make a difference, in your life or someone else’s life during these 40 days of Lent. Maybe just maybe that will be the catalyst to jump-start your new and improved self.
May these 40 days be the best ever!
If You Don't Like It, Stay
One of the funniest things about being on Facebook is the process people go about unfriending each other or leaving groups. There are plenty of memes about this phenomenon but my all time favorite for accuracy says “Im going to unlike this page right after I post about unliking this page and hang around to see what people say about me unliking this page”. Somewhere along the way, we taught people that if you don’t like something you should just leave. You don’t like what’s on TV, just change the channel. You don’t like the song on the radio, go to the next station. You don’t like what your church is doing, just leave.
One of these things is not like the other… While people (hopefully) don’t change churches like they change tv channels, there is at least a trend of people leaving churches because they don’t like something. As I’m writing this, I’m streaming the General Conference that is addressing the Way Forward concerning Human Sexuality. At this particular point, they are discussing ways in which a church could disaffiliate with the UMC if they don’t agree with the outcome of this conference. In other words, they’re talking about how they can leave if they don’t like it.
I want to propose an alternative though. Instead of leaving if you don’t like the church, stay. If you leave, we lose your voice. If you leave, you have lost the ability to fix the problem. But if you stay, you can be part of the solution. You can be the person who points out “this isn’t right”. You can be the person who shows us another way. When you choose to stay, you are saying that this issue is important enough to fight for.
In 1 Corinthians 12 we find a wonderful passage about one body, many parts. I want to point out a couple verses specifically.
Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.” In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary.
If you think our church doesn’t need you, you’re absolutely wrong. We need you. We need your ideas, your passion, and your corrections. We need you to help make us better. So if you don’t like what has happened in the UMC, stay.