Wrigley Field - a place for purists!

This past week, Mal and I went to Chicago for her spring break. During this trip I got the awesome privilege of visiting Wrigley Field. This was no small event for me, as it's one of those things that has always been on my "bucket list." There's such a history there, and I almost immediately I found out why.

Wrigley Field is about baseball!

I've been to a lot of stadiums and a lot of sporting events over the years. Over the last decade or two, stadiums have gotten more commercialized, more busy and less and less about the team on the field. There are huge video boards, races between animated Dunkin Donuts mascots (a personal favorite for all Detroit Lions fans, mostly because it may be the best action you see when you go to one of their games), special give-aways, sponsorship signs plastering the outfield wall and every visible surface.

Wrigley Field is still about baseball. There is no giant mega-TV flashing video profiles of the players at bat, nor does each player get to choose the most current hip-hop song to play as they walk to the plate. It's about the game on the field. This atmosphere is embraced by the Cubbie faithful, who cheer and moan, almost as one, with absolutely every swing that puts a ball in play. I'm not a Cubs fan, but I was that day. I couldn't help it! It was such a pure environment that any baseball purist would love watching a game there.

This all got me thinking, though. Have we become this way in the modern church? When we go, do we expect to be catered to with all kinds of kitschy gimmicks, flashy media and fancy hand-outs? Do we go because it's a good show, or because we love what it's all about? The freedom we have in America has given us the opportunity to cater to literally every single social preference you could ask for, many times with eye-catching advertising, bigger-and-better video screens and facilities, etc. Have we gotten too far from the truth? Would someone from another country, persecuted daily for the illegal faith that they live out with pride, recognize our churches as a place where the gospel is still the main attraction? Are the people there hanging on the edge of every word read from scripture and preached from the stage? Or are we simply passive consumers, itching for the next thing to surge our senses with stimuli?

Just food for thought.