February 1, 2009…Superbowl Sunday
This night was the first time in my entire life that I ever spent a Superbowl Sunday outside the walls of the church.
How dare the NFL plan a game on a Sunday night? Don’t they know that good Christians will be in the Lord’s house on the Lord’s Day/Night?
I cannot tell you how many sermons I heard preached on this subject as a child and young adult.
Now, my family wasn’t really a sports kind of family. So I couldn’t have cared less about the Superbowl. I didn’t even understand football, so why would I want to watch the game?
But others did.
My husband, for one.
He remembers one Superbowl that he was able to watch in 1984. He was sick that night, and his parents let him stay home. He remembers it to this day and still talks about it. It was a big deal. He was excited that his sickness was so timely.
Back in the day, you had no way to rewatch a game. Once it played on tv, that was it. You know, way back when VCRs were new, not many people had them, and they weren’t yet affordable.
There was no DVR, internet, or live stream… no way to record this game.
If you missed it, well, you just missed it.
And though that didn’t affect me at all, several men and women in the church very much wanted to see this big game.
And who can blame them? They’ve followed these teams all year, and they want to watch the culmination of these games… they want to see this championship game.
But the preachers in our churches back then were very much against it.
You could not choose football over Jesus.
What kind of Christian would do that? Forsake the house of the Lord on His day? Nope, not me.
These kinds of things were ingrained in us.
And my family wanted to do things the right way, God’s way…
So, on Superbowl Sunday, we attended church services that morning, came home, ate lunch, took a nap, turned around that night, put our skirts or dresses back on, and went back to church.
We never considered doing anything different because we were good, faithful Christians.
I remember the red-headed preacher making sure his sermon was extra long on those nights. He liked to make a point. He was in charge. He would preach just as long as the good Lord led him to preach (insert eye roll). We weren’t in a hurry to go watch a game. No sirree. Sitting in the church listening to a sermon was much more important.
What if someone needed to be saved that night, and we closed the doors for a football game… Could we even begin to fathom how much God would frown upon that?
So we posed the question… What if the church or individual Sunday School classes had a Superbowl party and a devotional during halftime? That seemed like a good way to appease both sides. We could even watch the game at church and then go to the sanctuary during halftime and hold our services.
This idea was not met with open-mindedness.
I can still hear that preacher screaming about how terrible that was. We would not conform to the world. We would not change our service times or work around a football game. The big churches might do that, but we were not going to do such a thing. We would be faithful to the church. And watching something like the Super Bowl on a Sunday night was not something God would approve of. At least not during the time that was set aside for evening worship service.
The red-headed pastor is now pastoring another church in a nearby town, and I would almost bet money that he preaches that same sermon this year. I can’t imagine him deviating from the essential things… and Sunday night services, in his opinion, are one of those things.
We left that church on August 13, 2008.
My parents and a group of others left later that same year.
So, on February 1, 2009, Jeremy and I threw a big Superbowl party at our house.
We felt like such rebels.
We had wings, burgers and hot dogs, and dips… It was the quintessential Superbowl Party.
I had no idea who played in that game or won until I looked it up.
I still didn’t care about the Superbowl, but having a party that night felt good. It felt like freedom.
So, party we did… minus the alcohol, of course, because, at that time, I still believed partaking in alcohol was a sin.
Things were a little more lax when we moved to Tree Town Baptist. The teenagers could host a party in the youth building or at someone’s house for the Super Bowl. Several adults would attend that party, but the church as a whole did not participate. It wasn’t nearly as frowned upon if adults missed, but services were not dismissed.
When the Good Doctor came to be interim at Tree Town, he was a sports fanatic. He wanted to watch the game. So, to appease the older crowd, he planned lunch after service that Sunday and called it the “Souper” Bowl Party. This gave the appearance of two services because we had lunch, and it was easier to say that we met together two times instead of just once.
When the new pastor came, he wanted to continue the “Souper” Bowl lunch and add Sunday School Super Bowl Parties that night. The parties would themselves be a competition. The class would hold these parties at members’ houses, and whichever class had the largest attending crowd would win the Sunday School Super Bowl trophy. The following Sunday, the awards would be given.
This would give the older crowd something to look forward to on a Sunday night and give the appearance of meeting together without it looking bad for the pastor that we didn’t have traditional evening services.
These Super Bowl parties were also passed off as “Outreach” opportunities. If you knew someone that maybe wouldn’t visit Sunday School on a regular Sunday morning, this was an opportunity to invite them to the Super Bowl party, and you could get them involved that way. It was kind of like a “commercial” for what they could be a part of. Something like, look how awesome it would be if you were a part of this group, look at the fun things we do as a church…
Sunday School Super Bowl parties are not wrong.
I do not think that Souper Bowl lunches are bad.
I don’t think it’s wrong to invite a friend to join you in attending these things.
I do think it is wrong for the church to “require” or “guilt” you into doing anything like that.
For me, the pendulum had swung entirely. I was once taught that a Super Bowl Party was inherently wrong, and now this Super Bowl Party was a requirement to attend. As a Sunday School teacher, my husband was required to help plan the party and also participate, and I, as a staff member, was required to attend. There were no passes, no good excuses… I even attended the party the night before a major surgery… even members of the class were guilted into coming. We worked hard as a staff to “sell” this idea. Everyone should be at these parties…
In reality, it was no different than how things were at the other church. It wasn’t a “service,” but we were supposed to be there. And to add a little snazziness to it, it became a competition to see who could have the largest party. So, the people you were “outreaching” were added to the total number for the benefit of the class.
I think we decided to eliminate the “Souper” Bowl lunch because it was just too much in one day, but the Super Bowl parties continued for at least the next few years. I don’t know if they still have them… Since we left Tree Town, I believe they have discontinued Sunday evening services altogether. I think they only meet for business meetings and other special events. This happened during Covid. The new pastor always wanted to eliminate the Sunday evening service. It was his plan from day one. And I wasn’t opposed. I guess Covid gave him the perfect excuse to eliminate them.
Just think about this for a moment. You’ve had a busy work week. You have spent very little time with your family. Yet, as a “good” church member, you should attend Sunday School and Sunday morning worship… that’s already expected, not to mention mid-week services… most churches believe that is how it should be… if you aren’t doing that, then there’s a good chance that something is wrong with your walk with Jesus.
Now if we are going to have a “Souper” Bowl party immediately after the service, someone needs to make that soup and chili, and that someone is usually the mom who has already had a rough week.
Suppose we add or even substitute the Sunday School Super Bowl party. In that case, someone still must cook food for that event, and that someone is usually the mom who has already had a rough week or even the dad who has worked long hours and has barely seen his family. Not to mention the party host who has spent the week cleaning her house for the event because it was encouraged that these events be held outside the church walls. And these events could have upwards of 50 people attending.
What about the kids who would be going to school the next day? Wouldn’t this make it much harder for not only the child but the parent as well?
But we still encouraged, no coerced would be a better word, people to attend these parties in the name of it being the “right thing” to do.
When you just think about that, stop and see it for what it is, how can you think for a moment that this is what church is supposed to be? Where in the Bible does it say that by becoming a follower of Christ, you forfeit all of your time with your family, that you attend every program the church offers, and that you need to spend hours doing much to further the kingdom of the church? Because that’s all this is. It’s growing a church. And in the end, it has very little to do with Jesus when you really break it down.
If you as an individual want to throw a Super Bowl party or attend a Super Bowl party… or if you want to go to bed early because you just don’t care about football… If you want to go out to eat and forget about the Super Bowl altogether… if you want to go to a sports bar to watch the Super Bowl… whatever you choose to do is fine, but why is the church making these decisions for our families just because the game falls on a Sunday night.
I saw this quote and posted it on my social media account earlier this week.
“Pastors talk all the time about reaching new families. Perhaps it’s also time to stop sacrificing them by making them so busy with activities that they don’t have time actually to be a family.” Carey Nieuwhof
Wow.
That quote says so much.
How many times did I recommend to the pastor that we should just leave blank spots on the calendar, so families weren’t required to be at the church so much?… so many times… even the summer program that he insisted we do… I suggested we equip parents to spend those Wednesday nights in the summer together as a family… but he insisted we have something at the church.
Churches are wired to create more opportunities for families to be with church people in the church. And there are reasons they do that. But no matter their “reasoning,” it’s still so very wrong.
We have to give families time and space to spend together. That family unit is far more critical than a Super Bowl Party or anything pertaining to the church, for that matter. The family is more important than the church, period.
Pastors may say that, but they don’t create an environment to support it.
From the pastors from my younger years who wouldn’t even consider dismissing services for the Super Bowl and vehemently preached against it to the charades we played in Tree Town so that the older crowd wouldn’t realize that we were dismissing… it was all manipulation.
The Super Bowl is just one area that is easy to point out and clearly see how churches manipulate and guilt people into spending time at church or with church people.
Why are churches so intent on keeping programs running all the time? Why is it so important that people spend so much time within the church’s walls? Why is guilt such a large part of how churches influence their members to always be present…
I’m glad you asked…
Because that’s what I’m going to talk about next week.
I will not be watching the Super Bowl this year or throwing a party because I don’t like football. I will also not be attending any church functions in place of or because of the Super Bowl. I will feel no guilt about either of those things because I am done with “guilt church,” and I feel like everyone should be. It’s definitely not what Jesus intended for His church to become.
Until Next time,
Whitney