The Fall Creek Baptist Church in Indianapolis, IN was planning on hosting a Super Bowl bash this Sunday evening. They planned on showing the game on a wall-projector. That is until the NFL got wind of the plans & told the church to cancel the party. Dang. And I thought the NFL wanted as many people as possible to watch the game...
Anyways, I'm always interested what different churches do with "the Super Bowl quandry." Super Bowl Sunday has grown into a national holiday of sorts, right in line after Halloween, Thanksgiving, & Christmas. People celebrate it. Folks throw parties for it. Even people who NEVER watch football are intrigued & attracted by this game. If for nothing else, some folks watch for the commercials.
Some churches march on with their Sunday Night "J.V." worship service, trying to be oblivious to the event the rest of the world has it's eyes on. Other churches cancel servies entirely to allow their members to watch the game in their own homes. And still other churches try to incorporate Super Bowl & Church together, usually in some veiled attempt at evangelism or introduction to the church body.
For those who read my blog, I'm interested if you have a strong opinion on the matter. And what will your church's answer be this Sunday with the Super Bowl quandry? And if you're not a believer, what do you think about churches that have Super Bowl parties? Would you be more inclined to visit a church like that? Or does it turn you off to that kind of church? And why?
The Providence of God
4 years ago
Posts
4 comments:
I'm generally not in favor of meeting on Sunday night period. If the tradition of meeting twice on Sunday is so thoroughly ingrained that our churches can't let Sunday night meetings totally die out....well, my ideal would be some kind of cell group meetings on Sunday night or something like that. Assuming that that format has been adopted, what to do about the Super Bowl has become a moot point: we have people meeting at various houses for food and fellowship anyway. So why should we not have a Super Bowl party? Depending on what the group wants, we could have a devotional before the game, after the game, during the half-time show, or not at all.
Our church has a thriving Sunday night service. We usually have 700+ on Sunday nights and many times better sermons in my opinion. We have 'small groups' on Wednesday nights that meet in people's homes.
As far as our church, we are doing the 2 or 3 PM alternate service thing. I am going to a Super Bowl party and really see nothing wrong with it.
I received a forward this morning with the link to the article. I read it and thought it was interesting but I was not surprised. I was not up in arms about the reaction but at the same time I thought it was unbelievable. I think churches that use it as the superbowl as a tool for minister have the right idea in mind. I cannot imagine many of those churches giving up their Sunday morning servicees for it (for some reason Sunday AM is more sacred than Sunday PM). All in all, I do not attend superbowl parties for the superbowl. I do not attend them for the comercials even. Nor the half-time show or the food. I attend them for much of the same reasons I attend church...the relationships.
Congratulations to Prestoncrest on whatever successes in ministry that you have. I have nothing against you guys or against Mr. Meador. Prestoncrest is an unusual anc exceptional church in many ways.
I just want to clarify: I'm not against Sunday night meetings "at the building" because of low attendance. It also doesn't really matter to me whether or not there is a small groups program in place for Wednesday nights. I would argue for a cell groups format on both Sunday nights and Wednesday nights because such meetings are more conducive to relationships.
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