S05E065, Football Crowd Excitement, Andy B 2 Minute Video
From football to tiddly winks, what gets you excited? We’ve all that got one thing gets us on our feet and shouting. For some it’s football, or perhaps tiddly winks is your thing. If tiddly winks is new to you, google it – I won’t spoil the surprise!
If you’ve ever been to the football (soccer) terraces of your local football club then you’ll know the sort of excitement I’m talking about. It’s pretty much the only thing which seems to excite the passion in us British folks. Although the tiddly wink scene can get pretty brutal too, I’m sure.
In church we should be seeing those same levels of passion. I know it exists – just like at the excitement of the Jewish people who set out to kill Jesus, an innocent man. All because they allowed their excitement to spill over to murder.
Excitement is a state of being that can be either good or bad. But, in church, we should be seeing similar levels of excitement to that of the football terraces.
At best, at a football match, your team might score a goal. They might even be sitting at the tippet top of a leader board. And as exciting as that evidently is, it will never even come close to the excitement when someone has chosen to follow Jesus, and experience a life – on earth – of peach, hope and joy, because they have a certainty of their future.
Why don’t we see the levels of excitement in church, that we can see on the football terraces? If we can get excited about 22 people running around in front of us for our entertainment, shouldn’t we striving for similar levels of excitement in our churches?
Just a thought...
Andy B
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Transcript
[00:00:00] So another Andy B Two Minute Video, and this one, I'm thinking about football crowds.
[00:00:12] Now, right from the get go, let's just define what we mean by football, okay? We're not talking American football, we're talking English football. A little leather bag, and he gets kicked around between these 22 people, and they're trying to get into a wooden post at the other end. That, by the way, came courtesy of a football fan.
[00:00:30] Football, or socker, if you're in the US, is a game that tends to get the British people rather more excited than other sports. Yeah, we can do rugby, and we can do cricket, and all sorts of other things, hockey and all this. Football is the one sport, excuse me, that really gets people going in the UK for whatever reason. not me personally but others, so I'm told.
[00:00:50] But one of the things that is very synonymous with the kind of excitement are these shouting crowds, shouting in support of your team. And that's something that [00:01:00] doesn't matter whether it's football, whether it's tiddly winks, you want people to cheer at you 'cos it encourages you.
[00:01:06] Have you ever been to the Olympics or any kind of sporting event? Especially for people that are doing the long jump or the, the, the high jump or whatever, they get the crowd behind them. They start a, a clap and a cheer, and it's really exciting to be part of that. And you see them going str right down that runway, to whether they're gonna be jumping high, or far, or chucking something or whatever. It gets them going and that cheering is so, so important.
[00:01:32] When did you last see that in your church service? I have never seen it! The level of excitement that we have for people that we don't know, we've never met, will never have any interaction with, probably, can be so great. And yet people that we spend time with, who we have actual relationships with, you are right, how are you? Where's the excitement?
[00:01:55] Jesus has set us free! Our destination that death [00:02:00] is heaven, which is why death is not fearful to Christians. Where is that excitement? I speak to myself in this as well.
[00:02:08] Is it the Great British reserve? Maybe that's got something to do with it. Yes, certainly culture is gonna affect how we demonstrate our relationship and love for Jesus Christ. But clearly, as a British people, we can get excited on the football terraces. Why not in the churches?
[00:02:24] Where's the excitement?
[00:02:25] So here's my little question for you today. What is it that you can do to generate that kind of level of excitement for your church next Sunday?
[00:02:35] You can do something! What is it? What's God asking you to do?
[00:02:39] Just a thought.
Andy B, 04/04/2023