Weekend Ritual

It's a blessed event that happens each weekend. When the multitudes congregate, all in one accord. The music plays and thousands strong join heart and song in praise.

The site of families and friends eager to get in and take their seats; ushers joyfully greeting each one at the door and helping them find their places.

As the crowd packs in, there's not an empty seat in the house. Old friends greet each other and new faces receive hand shakes and hellos. After all, whether you have gathered here for fifty years or this is your first time, we are all here to celebrate the same thing! We are all anxious with anticipation, and when the music begins we all jump to our feet - singing, clapping, shouting for joy! Excitement and enthusiasm spread like wild fire!

This is it! This is the day we have waited for all week! This is a day to celebrate our victory! This is game day!

Wait! What? Game day?

That's right. It's Saturday and thousands flood their favorite university campuses to cheer their football team to victory! Whether your team is playing for a championship or just their dignity, you show up. And you show up ready to win. Doubt has no place here. Doubt is the enemy of victory.

But, oh, if your team is working on an undefeated season, it gets even better! You show up early just to be a part of the atmosphere. You talk about it ALL WEEK with your co-workers, your clients and even the FedEx guy. Everyday you get online just to see what others are saying about your team. And you even check out the enemy's camp just to make sure that, if they have something up their sleeve, you know about it in advance.

You make plans with your friends and family - what time you will leave for the game? (Always 30 minutes before necessary so you can make SURE you won't be late) What time you will arrive at the stadium? (Because, of course, you will have to beat all the other eager participants to your parking spot) What to wear? And, of course, you will triple check to make sure you have withdrawn enough money for the festivities. After all, you get paid on Friday so there is NO WAY you won't have the money for the game!

It's game day! And there's something exciting about that!

You see, I love game day! I love college football! And I love watching my team play. If you have never been to a college game, where the air is electric with excitement, the band is playing your fight song and the team runs out of the tunnel to a SEA of cheers, you have missed out. I believe even if you are not a football fan, you would be in awe standing in a stadium packets with 75, 85, 95 thousand cheering fans. It's an awesome experience. And, like I said, if you team is victorious, it's a blast!

So, my whole life I have heard people at church say things to the congregation like, "If you can get excited at a football game, why can't you get excited about God?" or "You can clap and cheer for your favorite team, why can't you clap and sing during worship?" and so on. And I get what they are saying. I get their point. But in my head I would always say something like, "I AM excited about God, just not that excited about church," or "Because a football game is a LOT more exciting than this church service!" I know that sounds kind of harsh, but I'm being real. Don't TELL me that you haven't had times of being truly board at church. Not if you have gone long enough.

But then I started attending a church that WAS exciting! Every week. It was crazy! I mean, the people were EXCITED to be there. I was excited to be there! There was a genuine happiness, not just the "church facade" I had experienced and pulled off growing up. You know, that "I don't want to be here, don't want to see these people, wish I were still in bed" attitude? Then you hit the church lobby and it's, "Good morning Sister Sally! So good to see you!" and "Hello, Brother So-in-so. Yes, it's good to be here." If you have been in church long enough, you have undoubtedly put on the "church facade."

But then here I was at a church that I couldn't wait to get to on Sunday mornings and ALWAYS enjoyed coming back on Sunday nights. This was a church that, if you missed, you missed out on SOMETHING. Always there was something!

People did show up anticipating. They did show up early just to be part of the atmosphere. On time and on fire.

So why? What made this church different from ANY other I had attended in my "never-missed-a-Sunday" church going life?

Well, I got that revelation just recently. In the middle of a sold-out, loud and proud, football stadium.

My cousin and I recently attended our favorite college team's game against their in-state rival. Our team was actually the underdog. However, our team won. And they didn't just "win," they won convincingly and actually shut out the other team. My cousin and I had a blast! It was awesome! Cheering, yelling, high fiving, high fiving strangers! It all happens when your team is winning!

Now, I'm not telling this story to gloat. I'm telling this story because in the midst of that game, as I stood there looking at 85,000+ people on their feet, clapping and cheering, with smiles from ear to ear, I also noticed clusters of the opposing team's fans just sitting, arms folded across their chests, heads down, defeated. Same stadium. Same game. Joy. Defeat.

And then God spoke to me and showed me, and there, in the middle of a football stadium, I got a revelation.

You know, to be in a stadium when your team is winning is amazing! But I've sat in stadiums before and experienced defeat. I've even been on the field of play and experienced it. It's not the same. There's no electricity, no excitement. You're disappointed and deflated. You don't want to talk to anybody. A lot of fans don't even want to stay and watch. So there will be a mass exodus from the stadium before the game is even over. And, I can imagine, that if your team has a losing season, you probably stop going to the games all together. Why put yourself through that week after week?

Sound familiar? Does that sound ANYTHING like the church today?

We drag ourselves in on Sunday mornings - some out of habit, some out of obligation, some forced by a parent or spouse and some, well, because it's Christmas or Easter. And not to say there aren't ANY, but I'm pretty safe in saying VERY FEW, who come actually anticipating a encounter with God.

And weekend after weekend, we bring our "I'm barely getting through" and "I'm going to hang on until I see heaven" attitudes - ENDURING our salvation!

The difference... the difference between Saturday football and Sunday church is one key thing - victory.

If my team is winning, and especially undefeated, I walk in that ALL WEEK - head high with a spring in my step! If my team is undefeated, I will talk football with anybody, anywhere, anytime. I can't WAIT for Saturdays. Can't WAIT to get to the game. I'm giddy, excited and walk in ANTICIPATING victory! And if we win again, I walk out satisfied and fulfilled and then talk about the game the rest of the week!

But if my team were losing and defeated, none of this would happen.

See, satan has a slimy, sneaky, little tool he uses to keep us defeated. It's called contentment. He has no problem with us going to church every week if he can keep us content with that - just going. He has no problem with us having 10 Bibles (two in every room) as long as we are content with never reading them. And he has no problem with us enduring our salvation, he is very content with that.

He is content because he understands the power of a victorious church. He understands the victory that is received when people open the Word and find out what God says about them.

Ladies and gentleman, I suggest that it is time that Christians need to step in to their "undefeated season!" Victory! Victory is the difference!

When a team is winning and dominating and walking in victory, they ATTRACT people too them. Winning teams have no problem selling out a stadium. Winning teams have no problem selling merchandise. And winning teams will have people follow them anywhere to show support.
Losing teams, not so much. You don't have a lot of people, if any, who "join the bandwagon" of a losing team.

And I don't see people waiting in line to get in on Sunday mornings either. One thing about most churches - come early or come late, even show up at half time, and there is always an open seat.

Just imagine, if you will, an undefeated congregation. A congregation that shows up excited and enthusiastic and on time. A congregation that can't wait to enter in to worship. A congregation that devours the Word and gives generously. A congregation that walks in joy and peace and love and victory. A congregation that is just as excited about God and His kingdom on Monday morning and Thursday afternoon and Saturday night as they act like on Sundays. A congregation that is walking in the TRUTH of God's Word and receiving what God has for them and sowing the seeds God has given them and reaping the reward God has promised them!

Now, imagine being on the outside looking in. Imagine being an helpless mother, a hopeless father or a desperate teenager who all would really rather die than endure another day on this planet. Imagine being bound up by addictions, depression, debt or disease and looking around for something, someone, ANYTHING that can show you a glimmer of hope - a reason to even go on. Imagine looking all "put together" on the outside but FALLING APART on the inside with pain and hurt and disgust and dark secrets that seem so ugly they haunt you. Imagine being lonely or lost or unwanted or neglected. Imagine being afraid that if people REALLY knew you, they would have the same opinion of you that you have of yourself. Imagine life without God.

We live in a world FULL of desperate people crying out for just a glimmer of hope, just a glimpse of something better and we, the church, have failed them. But honestly, how could we offer them something we don't have ourselves? We became content, then unsympathetic, then comfortable, then blind. And one day we found ourselves looking and acting no different than the world - deflated and defeated. And the world saw us as having nothing to offer.

So I challenge us, the church, to lay down our religious pride and learn something from a chapter in the book on college football. Oh, I know. It's a sacrelig just for me to imply that the church can take something from the god we call college football. I get it. But let's examine the evidence...

College football - HUGE. Church - not so much.

So let's go back to the moment when I was standing there looking at 85,000+ people on their feet, clapping and cheering, with smiles from ear to ear. And let's remember the clusters of the opposing team's fans just sitting, arms folded across their chests, heads down, defeated. Same stadium. Same game. Joy. Defeat.

The difference? Victory.