The Superbowl and why Church should be more like it.

As I informed all my passionate blog readers (Who am I kidding. There are 3 of you. Joni, Greg, and Amber. My mom doesn't even read this blog!) a few blogs ago, I would be blogging about the Superbowl. Now, you don't have to be a sports lover to enjoy the Superbowl, and you don't need to know a thing about sports to enjoy this blog post either. This is about something else all together.

I recently (last month) heard a fellow lamenting the fact that millions of people go out of their mind crazy about the Superbowl each year and for one Sunday a year, they get into it. There are parties, people come together to cheer for opposing teams, there is food, great commercials, and it is a generally festive occasion. I tried to logically think about the reasons the Superbowl would inspire such a robust following and why most Churches in the United States are usually met with very lackluster results on Sunday mornings. Now it all makes sense.

Each year the National Football League invests millions, perhaps billions of dollars into this one event. People pay between $2,200 -$6,900 for a ticket (http://www.gotickets.com/sports/nfl/super_bowl.php). Commercial air time for this event is the most expensive airtime that can be purchased each year. As a result, companies put out their most expensive and or best advertisements of the year during this event. Because of the massive numbers of people watching, the NFL can book pretty much any band it wants because no musician in their right mind would pass up the opportunity to play for that large an audience. The teams that are actually playing the game? Oddly, it doesn't really matter. I mean, don't get me wrong here, they are the best the NFL has in that given year. However, never once have I been asked, "Are you going to watch the Superbowl this year" , and my response been, "No, I don't really care for either team." The teams are irrelevant. The SUPERBOWL, is the key here.

To put my point more succinctly, the Superbowl is awesome because people  role out the best and brightest of their creative genius, people spare no expense in creating the best image they can, the football league puts out the best teams they possibly can, and it is an event that brings people together in support of a common theme, the Superbowl.

Now if we replace the term Superbowl, with Church, wouldn't this make a world of difference on Sunday morning?! If we gave our very best creativity and genius each week in worship to God. If we spared no expense in our attempts to reach out to those that are far from Christ, what would happen?  What if we endeavored to give our very best abilities back to God as an act of worship on Sunday? If the musicians on stage had the mentality that this is the ONE day they can't afford to give a mediocre effort, would that change the way we worshiped?

I am not saying that Church should be reduced to a sporting event or a form of entertainment. Far from that! I am espousing the idea that Church should be so huge and important to us that we cannot afford to give it anything but our best. Jesus Christ DIED for our sin so that we could be redeemed from our selves! It just seems silly to me that Sunday morning roles around and we view it as a chance to "Go to Church." The Sunday Worship Experience should be the part of the week that gets our focus, our passion, our creativity, and our emotion. I think it is maybe time for us as a generation of Christ followers to start giving God our best and stop giving him whats left.

Now how cool is Church going to be when we are all giving it our best!?