Should the Church compete with the NFL on Super Bowl Sunday or use the event for cultural engagement?
I am going to experiment with posing a conversation starting question every Sunday that has something to do with applied ecclesiology or “being the Church”. Since it is Super Bowl Sunday, one of the most celebrated cultural holy days, it seems quite natural to discuss how the Church should respond.
For some today is an opportunity to evangelize. Many local churches will connect a television to a projector in the sanctuary in order to watch the game on a big screen. This provides a touch point for the Church with popular culture. People who wouldn’t come to our buildings for other reasons may come to watch the Super Bowl, and then (we hope) these people will realize Christians are normal, and this may be a way of easing them into our religion.
Others use this day to rant against culture. In the Pentecostal circles of my youth we had worship gatherings at 10 AM and then sometime in the evening. Pastors were aware that if there wasn’t a grand denouncement of the Super Bowl in the morning there would be minimum attendance in the evening. Many times I heard something like this: “Who is your God? Jesus or [enter NFL team or player here]? Where do you worship? In front of the television or in the house of God?” Thankfully, my father was an atheist with no religious commitments, so if I could avoid my mother’s critical eye that afternoon I could feel better about staying home with my father to watch the game.
Some local churches, especially those who have to meet in the afternoon or evening for one reason or another, compete with the Super Bowl if that local church chooses to go forward with meeting at the scheduled time.
the archives near Emmaus 
I personally like the idea of using it as an outreach tool, but not to the sacrifice of traditional worship. Like Tevye said, “Tradition gives us balance,” or something like that. I don’t vehemently denounce the NFL, but I do encourage that folks not forsake meeting with the brethren for the sake of a game. What I do now is shorten my lesson and try to end a little earlier so that people have the chance to be with their friends and family in the absence of our capability to connect to the game in the church. It works well where I am.
I don’t particularly have a problem with churches who choose to do these things. At the church where I serve outside of Houston we don’t have any specific Sunday evening activities that are interfered with because of the big game. We usually encourage our folks and families to do what they would normally do. I’ll be heading over to open up a couple of rooms in our Young Adults area to host an informal get together where we’ll put the big game up on a big screen and have a dozen or so families show up to hang out and enjoy some time together.
Since I’ve been out of seminary I haven’t served in a church with regular Sunday evening activities. So this is less and less an issue. However, growing up my church always had a Sunday evening service and always had it on Super Bowl Sunday. It didn’t bother me until I realized what the Super Bowl was and then I usually found ways to either get the game or just skipped and went elsewhere. (Yep, I admit it.) One of the most effective things I’ve seen done to gather people into circles and get them out of rows is to host these kinds of activities.
As a full time minister who serves in a rather large suburban church, I believe that whenever we can appropriate a cultural form to connect with people and foster deeper community that is a good thing. Though I can certainly understand a reluctance of putting this in a sanctuary or worship center, there are other venues that are suitable and can really engage people. Leveraging common cultural forms to extend the reach of a local church isn’t a bad thing so long as we remain tied to our specific distinctives.
Good post, I’ll be heading out here to go set up our stuff. Have a great night!
Steven
I agree that forsaking assembly shouldn’t be a serious option. This may be difficult for a church plant or group who has scheduled meetings at say 4PM on Sundays. Where I worship this isn’t a problem. We are done by 12:30 PM at the latest.
Garet
Thank you for sharing. I hope all goes well tonight. I like the idea of using a common space, especially if for some the sanctuary is a room that seems too holy for some, for hosting these events. I may be concerned with the “bait-and-switch” used by some evangelical churches, but if it is a sincere sharing of a cultural festivity then I think it is a good thing.
My church has a big super bowl party with the poor and homeless downtown, complete with a chili cookoff (with them as the judges).
Now that is awesome!