Another humble chaplain attached to the Marine Corp and his short story.

Do you remember the scene, in the movie Friday Night Lights, where the camera was in a car slowly driving around the town of Odessa? The car was showing home made signs in the windows of businesses. The signs said, ‘Closed early for the football game’ or ‘Gone to the game’ or something similar to that.

Friday night high school football games are still a big thing in the cities and towns of not only Kansas, but the entire Midwest. I don’t know if that is everywhere across our nation or not, but I know it is here. It is a testament of how much we love the game and we want to support the kids of our communities.

What about Sunday mornings? Is going to church in your community still an important thing to do? What if everyone who claims to be a Christian in Kansas went to church on Sunday morning?

Now some people can’t make it Sunday mornings due to sickness of family members or necessary work, but the rest of us could go.

Most of us, as Christians, would have difficulty getting up in the pulpit on Sunday morning and giving our testimony. Most of us would also have trouble going door to door in our communities to tell people about Jesus and the Gospel. But one thing we could do, we could and should go to church on Sunday morning. What a testimony that would be, if all those who call themselves Christians, went to church?

The churches would be filled up in our communities. Actually, would there be enough room to hold all the people in the churches if everyone showed up?

Give your testimony next Sunday morning by going to a local church and worshiping God for an hour or so!

1. Pew research on religious composition of adults in Kansas (76% say they are Christians)
2. Pew research on how many Kansans go to church (37% of us)

From the book ‘How to Win the Culture War’ by Peter Kreeft is the following quote, “Perhaps the popular conception of saints is ‘nice,’ but real saints are not nice. They are warriors. They really bother people, so deeply that they are often martyred. If they don’t bother anybody, they are not saints. That is what Jesus said: “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (John 15:20). You don’t take nice people and nail them to a cross.”

Have you ever seen the movie, ‘Cool Hand Luke?’ In the movie Luke (Paul Newman) is put in a fight ring with Dragline (George Kennedy.) Luke refuses to give up. When I read the book ‘How to Win the Culture War’ by Peter Kreeft I thought of the movie ‘Cool Hand Luke?’ As Christians we should never give up the fight and tolerate sin and believe in the false peace that the world would give us.

There has been lots of speculation over the years about the movie having religious symbolism with Luke being Jesus. Let me encourage you to watch the movie and read the book from above.

https://youtu.be/trDsXlDJIbM