We’re Having A Party!
What a party it is going to be this Sunday! People showing up, dressed in team colors. A buzz in the room! Lots of preliminaries to get everyone warmed up including some very clever commercials. An epic battle between the good guys and the bad guys… with the good guys guaranteed to win. To top it all off, food for everyone. And then… we’ll all leave church and head for our Super Bowl parties!
Listen… I’m as excited as the next guy about the Hawks being in the Super Bowl. I will be right there in front of the tube, rooting them on. It will be epic! But the party that we will share Sunday morning—the family reunion that starts our week, the celebration of Jesus’ great victory over the forces of evil, the service that allows us the opportunity to cheer God for his power and goodness and which pumps us up and prepares us to go out and make a difference in our world—dear friends, that party matters, too!
And this Sunday, we will even provide food! It’s communion Sunday and that sacrament will remind us of how wonderful it is to be drafted into God’s team; to be united in a single purpose that will impact the world long after everyone flies out of New Jersey. (New Jersey… really? How would you like to make it to the Super Bowl and find out it’s being played in New Jersey that year? But I digress…)
If you are going to or hosting a Super Bowl party, I’ll bet the most natural thing in the world will be for you to invite your friends to share in the excitement of that moment. After all, grand drama is best when it is shared. So… when was the last time you invited someone to join you for the grand drama of the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus on Sunday morning… an experience that really could change their lives forever? “Hey… why don’t you come to my Super Bowl party, and before that, why don’t you join me at church?”
I’ll have a few words less to speak than Richard Sherman—and a few words more than Marshawn Lynch—as we continue in our journey through Paul’s radical book of Galatians. I hope you and your football friends will join me!
Go Hawks!
Pastor Mark
P.S. Regarding this Sunday’s communion service—one of our responsibilities as a church is to support parents as they prepare their children to receive communion. This includes providing resources to parents so they can train their children about the meaning of communion and then offering the opportunity for those children to share their testimony with a pastor or elder. Ultimately, it is the parent’s responsibility to determine—through their child sharing their faith with a pastor or an elder—whether or not their kids are ready to receive communion, and we invite you to consider that on Sunday as the elements are passed to your family.