Well, here we are, the other side of the Women’s World Cup final. Sadly, for England fans it ended in tears with a 1-0 defeat to Spain. The Lionesses can leave Australia with their heads held high after another competitive tournament. They perhaps didn’t play at their best this time and were affected by injuries but they still got a lot further than the men have managed in nearly 60 years! Still, football isn’t coming home just yet. Instead, it’s off to Spain for its summer holidays!
Before the game I wrote about why we were still gathering for church at our normal, planned time. We were not going to be cancelling things, nor shortening or moving things around. I’m not a legalist and nor am I in to checking up where people were and why. I don’t think you are less of a Christian or your church less sound if you did miss today or change things around for the football. It’s just that, for the reasons I set out before, I think we do better in such situations to gather as normal. I think it’s better for us and better in the long run for Gospel witness.
Now, I wrote what I did and came to my conclusion as someone who is both passionate about football and a little, romantically patriotic about his country too. In an earlier article, I explained that things like this did matter, were of value, were newsworthy. Perhaps I might include an article soon in defence of the supposedly trivial. I would say that it is those of is who would most feel drawn to watch a football game today who most needed church as normal. Indeed, I get the impression that it is those who are not so much into football who want to virtue signal their cultural relevance by calling for churches to adapt to a one-off game. Many of us who love the sport passionately get it. Football is important but we serve someone more important. To borrow from Tim Keller, Jesus is the one who is truer and better than all of the hopes and dreams that football represents. So, it was interesting to be told this by someone who presents themselves as a rugby fan.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Yeah because being stubborn about half hour here or there is a really good look isn’t it? When you could be using it as an opportunity to invite your community into church and get people engaging with their neighbours. <a href=”https://t.co/uMIPwEWJcP”>pic.twitter.com/uMIPwEWJcP</a></p>— The Rugby Pastor (@RugbyPastor) <a href=”https://twitter.com/RugbyPastor/status/1693298535788101976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>August 20, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
It’s this I want to respond to here. Were we really being stubborn over half an hour? Does that really send out some kind of terrible signal? Did we really miss an evangelistic opportunity. Well, I write not just as a passionate football fan but as a Christian and church leader who is passionate about evangelism and about loving and engaging with our community. Dare I say it, I don’t think it was Christians who are living out a day to day calling to be salt and light in their communities who were worrying about moving things around for the football.
Why? Well, if your church is regularly running events for the community and if you are regularly on a day to day basis showing love and care for your community then I don’t think the community will begrudge you giving time to worshipping the God that you’ve been telling them is even better than football.
Meanwhile, if you aren’t particularly engaged in your community, then do you think people are suddenly going to be excited about church because you’ve managed to project the football up to your projector screen and rustle up a bit of Schloer and quiche? I suspect that most would rather watch on the BBC on their HD screens at home or if they want to make a more social occasion, head to the pub for a few beers followed by a Sunday Roast. If they did come along to the church hall, then they might think that your church hall looks like a good venue for their kid’s birthday party but unless you’ve managed to stick some Roger Carswell tracts on the seats I don’t think they’ll have made much more of a connection than that.
Indeed, haven’t we in effect sent a message to our communities that the one we said was of highest importance, the one we said was better than football, the one we said we looked forward to spending eternity with didn’t turn out to be our first love after all. I struggle with the kind of language about how God can cope if we choose to prioritise a football game over him. To be sure God can cope, its not about that but is it really good if we talk about God like he is some kind of inconvenient elderly neighbour who can wait half hour whilst we focus on ourselves?
So, which is more stubborn? Is it more stubborn to say that we love our community, love our football but our Jesus takes priority? Or is it more stubborn to say that even when the majority of people in your church and community probably didn’t intend to watch the football that church should move to give the appearance of accommodating those who do?
Faithroots 