Who Needs Preaching When You Have the Super Bowl?

"What you win them with is what you win them to"

From Stephen L. Atkins @ http://reformation-truth.blogspot.com

Falls Creek Baptist Church Guilty of Pulpit Crimes
Substituting Biblical Preaching for Preaching the Word of God

This almost flew under the radar screen. I found this first on CNN, and then in Indianapolis Star.

NFL's lawyers sack church's game plan
February 1, 2007

The thousands of churches across the country that want to host Super Bowl parties Sunday night had better not pull out big-screen TVs, or they could face the wrath of NFL attorneys.

The NFL is telling Fall Creek Baptist Church in Indianapolis that the church's plans to use a wall projector to show the game at a party for church members and guests would violate copyright laws. NFL officials spotted a promotion of Fall Creek's "Super Bowl Bash" on the church Web site last week and sent pastor John D. Newland a letter -- via FedEx overnight -- demanding the party be cancelled. Initially, the league objected to the church's plan to charge partygoers a fee to attend and that the church used the license-protected words "Super Bowl" in its promotions. But the NFL wouldn't bite. It objected to the church's plans to use a projector to show the game on what effectively was a 12-foot-wide screen. It said the law limits the church to one TV no bigger than 55 inches.

Now the following is on The Falls Creek Baptist Church’s website:

Fall Creek Baptist Church Family...
We regret to inform you that we have had to cancel our bash to view the Colts game this Sunday in a family friendly environment due to the fact that the NFL believes we would be in violation of the Copyright Act, because we had planned to show the game on a screen bigger than a 55 inch diagonal. We have appealed to their legal counsel and exhausted all options without success. We have been informed that the only exceptions to view the game are given to sports bars and restaurants. While we have argued that we only intend to provide a family oriented environment that will make no profit from the showing, the NFL claims that our event cannot proceed by law. Therefore, we have no choice but to challenge this in court or cancel the event. We choose to cancel the event. We deeply regret that we have been prohibited by the NFL from providing a family friendly environment for celebrating the Colts great season.Pastor John

Now what is wrong with this picture? Wasn’t it just two years ago everyone was beside themselves because Janet Jackson exposed her breast during the half time show? It seems to me that the last thing any church should be doing is promoting an event whose sole purpose is to keep people out of the house of God and worshiping the one true God and worship a bunch of over paid, over sexed, self absorbed men. Churches that promote such events do nothing to bring glory to the Kingdom of God. This is nothing more than idolatry.

I sent the following E-mail to the Pastor of the Falls Creek Baptist Church:

Dear Pastor John

Yes, it is too bad about the Super Bowl, you might have actually had to prepare a sermon. You might actually have had to tell people they may be lost and in need of a Saviour. Doesn't the bible have something to say about the foolishness of preaching? Church is not about entertaining the masses. It is amazing that men like Edwards and Spurgeon preached the word and saw people saved. But that is so old fashioned. Preaching a sermon on "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is so passé. I am sure that such a sermon might empty a church and it seems that many in the SBC are concerned about numbers. No wonder Tom Ascol has lamented that about 90% of the membership of our Baptist Churches are unregenerate. I think is a shameful thing when a Pastor will opt out of preaching the glorious truth of the Gospel and replace it with an idolatress pagan event that will glorify drunkenness and fornication. The church is to be salt and light.

In Christ;
Stephen L. Atkins
Scarborough, Ontario


When churches will abandon exposition of God's word for entertainment it truly is a sign that God's heavy hand of judgment upon those churches. Icabod - the Glory has departed