Super Bowl Sunday!

It's Super Bowl Sunday! Perhaps the most notorious sporting event of the year. Where Levi's Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49er's, will become a cathedral of thousands of football fans from coast to coast.

Millions of people will gather around TV screens in homes, dorms, and bars to consume billions of pounds of chicken wings, chips and salsa, and assorted snacks and beverages.

Die hard fans will watch every second of every play, re-winding hard hits and impossible catches, all their favorite commercials, and hope for a last second Hail Mary to watch a limping Peyton go out on top or see the beginning of a dynasty as Cam dabs his way to what could be the 1st of more rings to come.

Even the fair weather fans of NFL football will tune in if for nothing else to see the pre-game hype of analysts' preferences and opinions drawn from the tactical game plans given by film or their favorite interviews and headlines found throughout the season.

Of course there will be a subgroup of hipsters anticipating a halftime show that includes Coldplay, Beyoncé, and Bruno Mars. Where a 20 minute stage will most assuredly entertain millions perhaps more than the 60 minutes of hard hitting football between the goal lines.

You see, we are all entertained by something or someone. For some, it's sports. For others, it's movies, politics, world-wide news, economics, history, or literature.

And little by little we've let the concept of entertainment seep its way into the pews, stages, and nurseries of our churches. We've placed a priority on our preferences above the central message of the church; the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We jump on the bandwagons of musical style, emotional appeal, and therapeutic sermons that are highly concentrated on the idea of consumerism. As long as there is a balanced reciprocation of feel good moments we find ourselves sitting in chairs, volunteering in the nursery, or creating automatic bank drafts to support our attempts of purpose and entertainment.

Rather than finding ourselves being Super Bowl fans of the church, we need to find ourselves committing to the ongoing ethic of loving God and loving others. Not seeking to be entertained by this church until the next wave of popularity breeds another large crowd down the street.

What many of us don't realize from the TV set is all the hard work, blood, sweat, and tears these two teams have endured to be playing on Super Bowl Sunday. And the (loose) correlation for the church is to realize that God is ready and willing to acknowledge the faithfulness of the body of Christ; His church.