My extended family

This past Saturday I went to the Milwaukee Brewers game. Miller Park, the Brewers stadium, is just an architectural and structural phenomenon. The retracting roof is unlike any other retracting roof as it rotates open, not slides. I usually enjoy going to professional sports. Even when I don't like either team playing, similar to Saturday. The main thing that I like about professional sports is seeing everyone so unified on one goal. When a player does anything close to something a physically average body wouldn't be able to handle, everyone cheers. Even I cheered. As a Cubs fan, a team that the Brewers have beat up on all year, I should despise Brewers. But I cheered. I didn't care. The good feeling in the stadium is contagious.

When I saw everyone so happy and cheering for anything and everything that was going on on the field, I thought of the family that is promised to us as Christians. This family of brothers and sisters that traces back to the very beginning with Adam and Eve. I think that the relationship that we should have between our brothers and sisters in Christ is very similar to the relationship that we have with people at professional sports games. We should be doing all of the following:

1) Watching for successes and failures.  In a professional sports game, the players are under a microscope. Everything that they do in those times are ridiculed and criticized to no end. Given, all of this stuff is on a very surface level, but can still be applied to our relationships with each other as a Body of Christ. We should be watching each other's lives very carefully. As Christians, we know that it's hard. We're put under the microscope of everyone else in the world. They expect us to be perfect a lot of the time. We know we can't do that though. It's up to us, as brothers and sisters, to call out each other when we make a big mistake like fans do for professional sports players mess up in a game. (Maybe booing someone off the field is a little harsh and not loving...) Because we know how hard it is to live in this world and not of it, it's up to us to call each other out on it.

The other big thing that we need to remember is to CELEBRATE with each other! So often Christianity is boiled down to "What am I doing wrong?! How can I make this better?!" I'm not saying that that's the wrong mentality to have, because it's good. We all have to be striving for a solid walk with the Lord. However, we need to celebrate with each other and lift each other up when good things happen! It's in those times that can really fuel them to continue whatever it is that they're doing. This is  something that I've encountered this year at school so far. I'm tired. I haven't gotten much sleep. I've been pouring into a lot of people and whenever I see some sort of result, ANY result, it causes for celebration. Celebrate with that random 300 pound guy next to you in the stands if it comes to that.

2) Be undignified! At these professional sporting events, it's kind of funny if you ever just watch people. I'm not sure if it's because they've had a little too much to drink or because of the atmosphere, but their actions at these events just scream "I'm going to do _____ and I don't care what you think!" Why can't Christians have this mentality? (Once again, maybe a little more loving and less "drunk guy in the stands"...) We all know that we love the same God. We all know that we follow the same Jesus. We all know that we have the same Holy Spirit dwelling in us. So why can't we just worship however we want? pray how we want? talk freely about what's on our minds? 

At professional sporting events, with most people in the stands, you have one thing in common: the game. You're completely sold out for everything Brewers or Cubs or Packers etc. Often times when we go to one of these events we end up at least sparking a conversation with the person/ people next to us. Why can't this be with our brothers and sisters in Christ? With most of the Christians in this world, we have one thing in common: Jesus. So what's stopping you from sparking a conversation with the person you're sitting next to at church that you've seen for a month in a row? Why can't you talk to the person that openly confesses they're a Christian in front of the entire class or work place?

A lot of times Christians don't see every other Christian as a brother or sister (I'm guilty of this too). We just see them as another person that believes the same thing we do. But that couldn't be farther from the truth. God loves us enough to call us His children... yet we still ignore each other or ignore the actions that we are making and shrug it off as no big deal. When Paul concludes his second letter to the Corinthians, he states how important this concept is of embracing the relationship with each other. As you go through the day, my challenge to you is to treat everywhere you are like Miller Park. Every one throughout your day treat like an all star.