Deflated Balls & Church Nonsense

deflated balls

The major question dominating sports world at the moment is, “Did the New England Patriots deflate their balls”?  First of all – Eww!  Second of all – who gives a rip?

Ok – so maybe deflated balls give you some sort of advantage in some way on the field.  I played ball enough to know there’s only a few instances where it matters if the ball is a little softer, and I can’t imagine how it’s a game changer in most of those instances.  But ok – there are rules.  For every normal person upset about this I have one question – will it prevent you from watching the Super Bowl?  I sense the answer is a resounding “NO”.

Here’s the thing – we’re crazy about the Super Bowl.  Of course, we want to see our team in it, but the fact of the matter is we don’t care who is in it – we’re still gonna watch.  It’s a great night for anyone who can appreciate the game and for the rest who just watch for the commercials and will eventually appreciate the game if they keep watching.  I could care less if Tom Brady was in on it – he’s always been a too much of a pretty boy to me anyway.  I’ll be watching the Super Bowl.

This whole discussion reminds me a little bit of drama my pastor is going through lately. You might have heard of him – he’s the guy under a lot of fire right now for “changing” the 10 commandments.  He’s Perry Noble.

I don’t “know” him on a personal level.  I think he might just maybe know me by name if he saw me in public, but that’s only because of mutual friends and 11 yrs of faithful attendance.  But I still call him pastor.

I don’t “know” his heart beyond what I see from a distance on a stage, but I do believe there is good in him beyond what he gets credit for in situations like he’s in right now.

I’ll be among the first to say the man isn’t perfect.  There are times I want to stand up in church and say “shut up Perry – you ain’t as tough as you think you are” or “think about what you’re saying” – you know, in those times when he comes across very arrogant.  But that would be incredibly inappropriate in church, wouldn’t help anything, would misrepresent my own character (as if some people aren’t reading this and judging me anyway), and ultimately would do nothing to advance the kingdom.  Perry isn’t perfect.  Shocker!  None of us are.  But I can’t say I’ve ever disagreed with the biblical basis of messages I believe Perry is trying to teach regardless of whatever attitude he sometimes clouds it with.

The whole scandal of the 10 commandments message is another one of those cases, and it’s being blown way out of proportion – IMHO (in my humble opinion for you acronym-less peeps).  I was in that service and I thought it was a fantastic way of presenting the 10 commandments as promises to those who need hope rather than a checklist for those who think they’re keeping all 10 of them.  So he mistakenly stated there is no such thing as the word “commandment” in the original translation.  Who really cares, and why?  That’s a detail.  He apologized like a real man – accept that and move on.  The point of the message was this – Don’t let your inability to keep “10 commandments” keep you from walking into a relationship with Jesus, because quite frankly none of us can keep those commandments – Instead think of them as promises, which might be a better translation of the original text anyway.  It was a great message – I left feeling very encouraged in my own walk with Christ.

Put on top of that the whole “N” word nonsense (don’t get me started) and goodness gracious Perry has taken a real beating lately.  You might say his balls are deflated.  You might even say it’s discouraging and makes you not even want to go to church.  My question would be this.  If something stupid like deflated balls doesn’t stop you from watching football why would it stop you from going to church?

Skip the super bowl of church (NewSpring) if you want (I personally sometimes find the hype of all the “branding” a bit distasteful too), but don’t skip out on church just because you don’t like a player.  Find somewhere to do regular season church.

Comments

  1. Jill Southerland says

    Well said brother!! I couldn’t agree more!!!

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