Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Your Church Canceled Sunday Night Service for the Superbowl?? Blasphemy!!! - My 19th Blog



Your church canceled Sunday night service for the Superbowl?  Blasphemy!!!

In full disclosure, this is not only something I would have said a long time ago, it is probably something I did say a long time ago.  

And I don’t write this blog to defend the church I am a member at now because I have learned people are going to be critical no matter what, and saying this as nicely as possible, you cannot argue with ignorant people (or religious people).  

So yeah my church canceled their Sunday night services on Superbowl Sunday and moved them to Saturday night.  I started attending there last year at this time and I heard the announcement of what they were doing and I was like “Uhhhhh…uhhhhh…what?”   You see I had heard so many times from so many pastors and church leaders about churches doing this and about how they would not cancel or move their service because of a football game no matter how big the game or how many people would be watching!!   So you see for 33 years I never watched an entire Superbowl because I was always at church with the 25 or 30 other people that showed up on that Sunday night.  (Okay that last sentence may have sounded kind of ugly, but the truth…she ain’t always pretty you know?)

So last year, the day before Superbowl Sunday, I actually attended the Saturday night service at my church instead of the traditional Sunday service.   And I was absolutely blown away at the attendance.  The building was packed out!!!  And during the invitation, I personally counted 25 people who responded to the call of salvation and I couldn’t even see the entire church.  You know how I know this?  Because I am that guy who when the preacher says every head bowed and every eye closed still looks around trying to avoid awkward eye contact with you as you look around too.  

In that moment it really hit me.  Over 100 million people watch the Superbowl every year.  It is not only appealing to the men because of the game, but it is very appealing to the women because of the commercials.  Let’s face it, most of America is at home watching this game.  Satan wants to get as many people out of church as he can and he is gonna use whatever method it takes to make something appealing to all sexes and to as many people as possible!  You see my church fought back against that…and that is really what struck me.  You see so many churches are just out there playing defense trying to make their membership happy and are so worried about the people inside the walls of the church that they lose their focus on the people outside the walls of the church. It is time our churches started playing some offense too, and if you read about the armor of God in Ephesians God actually gives us a sword to play some offense with!  Let’s unsheathe it church!!

The world is a different place than it was even as little as 10 or 20 years ago.  Technology has changed. Family structure has changed.  People have changed.  America has changed.  And a church or a pastor that is unwilling to change their methods in my opinion is in danger.  I’m not talking about the message now, but the methods.  This really hit me the other night as I was reading my three year old a story from her picture Bible.  It was the story from John 21 where the disciples had been fishing all night and caught nothing.  Jesus simply said, hey change your method and throw your net on the right side of the boat.  They did this and there were so many fish they couldn’t even haul their net in.  All night they fished and caught nothing until they changed their method and then they caught everything.   I bet if most churches looked at their numbers over the past 5 and 10 years they would not only see a plateau, but they would see a decline in their numbers.  Yet they will not change their methods.  WHY?  I am so glad that God did not call pastors and deacons to be military leaders.  Except you know what, He kinda really did!! You see because when God saved us He put us on the battleground and when we can’t or won’t change our methods yet the enemy is constantly changing his it puts us in a very perilous place when our church leadership refuses to respond or even acknowledge this. 

I’ll close with this.  Don’t be critical of a church that changes their service for the Superbowl.  I know of at least 25 souls that are glad my church did last year.  And my church is far from perfect, believe me, but I appreciate the way they go after the lost people where they are.  And by the way, and I don’t mean this to sound snippy or arrogant, but my church never cancels night services for Father’s day or Mother’s day like most churches do.  And we don’t cancel our services on Easter or Christmas either, in fact we have service Thursday night through Sunday night for those two important Holy holidays. This Christmas we had 44 services meaning 44 opportunities for people to attend.  

And of course there is this…if anyone can tell me where the Bible says you even have to have church on Sunday night I’ll take all this back :)

P.S. This thought just hit me, a church changing their Sunday night service to a Saturday night service because of the Superbowl isn't the world "entering into" the church, it is the church "entering into" the world...which is exactly where it is supposed to be.  

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