A Hymn for Football Season

Update 10/22/2034:  My sources tell me the Minnesota Vikings are having a good year so far. The article below was published when they weren't. 😊

My condolences to my husband and other Minnesota Vikings fans out there. I hear it wasn't a good game on Sunday.  And while I'm here, I'll go ahead and just extend those condolences to all football fans whose teams have lost recently. 

Want to know how I can empathize with you even though I'm not personally much of a football fan myself?

Two reasons: football documentaries and hymnals!

If there's one thing I've learned from the good number of football documentaries I've had the pleasure to watch with my husband — it's "the why" behind the whole football thing. I see why people get so caught up in the sport!

It's all in the "rags to riches" stories and life experiences of the players, teams, and their fans. It's feeling like you're part of something bigger and it's the admiration of a certain kind of loyalty hat keeps people rooting for teams that don't always give a lot of reason to hope.

While football can and does reach "idol" status for the masses, it's also a reminder of what it looks like to join forces with other people to root for the same cause and do all you can to show support for that cause even during times of disappointment.

It's a reminder that we as Christ-followers should be just as enthusiastically supporting and showing loyalty to our team — our own local group of fellow believers working together for the cause of Christ. 

Our church.

We should show up and be part of our doctrinally-sound church every time the doors are open and we are able to get there. We should also be each other's biggest fans. And when we see our local church fail in some way — rather than get up and switch teams — stick around for the long haul and do all we can to make it an even better team.

While God alone is worthy of worship, the church is worthy of celebration. It is after all, God's masterful design for His glory and the good of His children. Unlike football, the church is not something to critique from the comfort of our sofas — it's something to love and build. Like Jesus did.

Here's a hymn for that.

The Church's One Foundation

by Samuel J. Stone

The Church's one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the word;
From heav'n He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her,
And for her life He died.

 Elect from ev'ry nation,
Yet one o'er all the earth,
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With ev'ry grace endued.

'Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Till with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union
With God, the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won;
O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee.