Come On, Man...

It’s that time of year where you might hear a pastoral chiding along these lines:

How can people stand for three hours in a stadium out in the freezing cold and scream their lungs over a sports team but not have the energy to worship God for thirty minutes without growing bored…?

The comparison of worship at church with going to a football game is a likely one, especially if you are a professional pastor. Who doesn’t wish for the same kind of enthusiasm that sports elicits? But if we’re going to go there, why not take it all the way out to the edge?

Current Pastor, if you want the screaming, raving fan reaction, why not start by selling or at least serving beer at your church. Trade the Starbucks French Roast pump pot with a keg of anything cold. Football fan doesn’t need anything good; just potent. Don’t be afraid of charging a premium price for the stuff. Consider it a means of funding bible school this year.

Allow for all kinds of language and behavior. Don’t get too upset over fist fights or swearing. These are all a part of the stadium experience. Tell your janitor to wait to mop the pee off the floor of the toilets until after the worship service. It will only get worse as time goes on. And if women choose to not want to wait in the long lines for the ladies room and end up in the men’s room, turn a blind eye; it’s not that big of deal. It happens all the time at big events where there is fanatical crowd behavior that you want to have in church.

Before we shame people for not giving us the reaction we desire, let’s remember one important aspect about God:

He’s not that obvious.

Remember it was Elijah who looked for God in the Wind, the Earthquake and the Fire, but came up empty all three times. It was the Whisper that put him on his knees.