FOOTBALL NIGHT IN AMERICA: IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT FOOTBALL!

Each Sunday night NBC airs a program called “Football Night in America.” It’s the show that precedes NBC’s broadcast of the Sunday night football game.

Every other Sunday night a group of us get together at a nearby Taco Mac to celebrate. We celebrate football. We celebrate burgers and fries and sugar-filled beverages. We celebrate the Chocolate Chimi (Chocolate and caramel wrapped in flour tortillas and fried golden brown; served with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup.)

Mostly though, we celebrate friendships. There’s no agenda to "celebrate friendship." It’s just that even though we are football fans, we spend most of the time building each other up. We tell good jokes (and bad ones), we laugh a lot, we listen, and we talk about our families, our jobs, great memories from the past, the hopes for the future. It’s safe to say that we always leave feeling more encouraged than when we came.

I tell you that for two reasons.

First, anyone reading this is welcome to join us! I doubt you’ll be sitting in a rocking chair someday wishing you had gone to bed earlier when you were younger. Rather, I’d say there’s a good chance you’ll be sitting in that rocking chair telling your grandkids about the days when you used to stay up ‘til 11:30pm sharing life with friends over some football game and one darn good Chocolate Chimi.

Second, I tell you this because part of living life in the Kingdom of God involves sharing the life you are living with others. And, sure, that means gathering together on Sunday mornings for worship and teaching. Yes that means meeting during the week to study the Bible together. Of course it means praying with a friend over the phone. For sure it means digging wells in Africa together and tutoring at Esther Jackson (the nearby public school members of our church volunteer at). Of course it means bringing a meal to your neighbors when they are celebrating the birth of a child or mourning the death of a loved one. I’m 100% certain it means encouraging the discouraged (1 Thess. 5), sharpening the dull (Prov 27), and loving the unlovely (Luke 6).

But I’m also sure it means just being together, drinking coffee at Starbucks, window shopping at the mall, playing with your kids at a local playground, hiking along a mountain trail or biking along a country road, even at Taco Mac on a Sunday evening Football Night in America.