How We Leveraged the Platform of the Superbowl in our Church

Last updated on: February 6, 2017 at 6:04 am by Josh Daffern

How We Leveraged the Platform of the Superbowl in our Church 2017-02-06T06:04:10-06:00 Josh Daffern

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Football_Sunday_2016_-_Logo Churches have always had a love/hate relationship with the Superbowl. Inarguably the biggest sports date in the American calendar, the Superbowl has been the bane of Discipleship Training and Sunday night church for congregations across the country. What do you do with the Superbowl? It obviously has no overt spiritual nature, but for at least one Sunday night in the year, the vast majority of Christians wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

Now, some churches pride themselves in rejecting the cultural phenomenon of the Superbowl and defiantly hold the lowest attended Sunday night services of the year. (Now, many of these same churches will also unashamedly hold a service dedicated to worshipping a nation-state every July 4, but that’s neither here nor there). Over the past two years, our church has participated in something called Football Sunday, an opportunity created by the good folks at Life.Church that uses the greatest sports event of the year as a powerful platform for the gospel.

For the past few years, this incredible church has been providing (for free) a high quality video to be shown as a sermon supplement or replacement featuring testimonies and God stories from former and current NFL players, including several from the teams that actually played in this year’s Superbowl. (It was a cool kind of surreal to hear one of the Patriots player’s testimony that morning then watch him as team captain call the coin toss on tv that night). In fact, we made the entire morning about football, really leaning into this cultural phenomenon that overtakes our nation once a year. You can watch the video and find out more how to get involved with it next year by visiting: www.footballsunday.com.

Some would argue that this was a defiling of the sanctuary by taking the focus off of God (once again, hold your arguments until after July 4th please). I would argue that this was leveraging an already existing platform to boldly share the gospel. Go and watch the video. The gospel is shared more clearly and more powerfully than most preachers (myself included) do on any given Sunday. Rather than worship sports, yesterday at our church was about sharing testimonies from the sports personalities we idolize to realize that God and the gospel transcends all of us, including our love of sports.

Some things in culture should be rejected, but that shouldn’t be our default approach. When we find ways to leverage culture as a platform to share the gospel, we’ll find ourselves building powerful bridges to the world around us. I look forward to participating in Football Sunday for years to come. Thank you Life.Church for providing these resources to churches across the country!

New Wineskins

football

superbowl

Previous Post

February 1, 2017

5 Really Awkward Ways to Do Evangelism

Next Post

February 7, 2017 7 Lessons From Superbowl LI for Today's Church Leaders

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Family Matters Ministry in the Trenches Morning Brew MTVpastor New Wineskins Top Menu Truth from Life Uncategorized Watch Sermons

Select a Month June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does "Levi" mean in Hebrew?

Select your answer to see how you score.

God is my strength Chosen Joined Set apart