Bible 09 | the year to read the Bible

It’s January 10, 2009 and hell must be freezing over because the Arizona Cardinals are in the NFC Championship for the first time ever. To say that Arizona is excited would be an understatement. Nobody epitomizes that more than my wife. She is the classic bandwagon fan. Although I have worked for the team (more on that in a minute) and been a fan for the past 15 years while living here, she never wants to take part because it usually ends in heartache. There are a handful of teams that have found the way to lose and the Arizona Cardinals are one of them. So I can’t really blame her for being that way, I guess that I am just a glutton for punishment.

So I mentioned that I have mentioned that I have worked for the Cardinals. For those of you who might happen upon this site that don’t know me (and even those that do), one of my jobs is engineering radio broadcasts for sports teams. What this means is I go to the arena three hours early, set up the audio equipment, connect a special phone line to the radio station and control the volume during the broadcast. Most of the time I work with the visiting hockey and basketball teams who hires me to work for them in Arizona, but there have been a few times that I have had the privilege to work with the Cardinals, home and away. I could write for days about my experiences with the Cardinals and the other teams that I have worked with, but that is not the point here.

You might ask, what is the point here? Isn’t this listed in the Church category? Bear with me. I have waited a long time for the Cardinals to win and Moses waited over 400 years to get his people to the promised land. You can keep reading for a few more paragraphs to get to the point! This is something we like to call in the broadcasting business as a “scene setter”.

It was December 31, 2006 and I went with the Cardinals to Indianapolis for a game on New Year’s Day. It is rare that this happens, but there I was on New Year’s Day working on a Sunday. I have spent most of my adult life working on New Year’s Eve, so this was not much different. What happened the next day I will never forget.

At this time, the Indianapolis Colts played in the old RCA Dome. It was old and antiquated. Yet, they sold out their games and it was a sea of blue in the stands. It was a circus! Two hour pre-game shows on TV, people everywhere. The Colts were on their way to the playoffs and the only thing on the line this day was for the Colts to secure a home playoff run. The Cardinals weren’t bad and they were playing for pride, to go .500 and the fans of this town wanted to make sure that didn’t happen. It was electric.

I was working with the Spanish broadcast team and we were positioned in the stands near the fans. It was off to the side, but still within the seats. I don’t know why I remember this, but I was with Gabriel Trujillo and Luis Zendejas of the spanish broadcast team and Luis looked out and said, “Can you imagine when we are in the new stadium and seeing a sea of red like we are seeing blue today?” This was the last game of the season that Cardinals has played at ASU Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe and the team was getting ready to move into University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale. The new stadium is state of the art and comfortable. While Sun Devil Stadium is great for college football at night, it was a little uncomfortable during the day at the end of an Arizona summer on Sundays. Plus, they weren’t a great football team. All that added up, the new stadium was going to help this team and our community. It has been all that and more, win or lose.

Now, on to the point of this point in the Church category. Like my friend Luis imagined on that New Year’s Day in Indy, I dream of the day when 60,000+ people can gather in a stadium and just worship God. If there can be that many that wear the team colors and worship a bunch of big, sweaty guys who try to kill each other, why can’t there be a day when we come together and just worship what really matters? That would be AWESOME! I think it could happen because:

4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4-7 ESV

We will rejoice and come together like this. Just like a football or other sporting event, I know we will see the day when this kind of worship will happen. That will be cool. Don’t think it can happen? If the Cardinals can make it to the NFC Championship game, anything is possible!

Read more about Kurt Warner’s faith by clicking here.

Another champion, Tim Tebow’s faith is outlined here. Thanks to Dave Ferguson for the link on this one.

Alright, enough about the NFL. Get to church!