go team!

I had to run to the grocery store (for the 50 jillionth time this week) to bake cookies for next week, and as I drove the familiar route, I noticed quite a sight to behold.

It's not the first time I've witnessed this sight, but it's close to the last.

You see, we live very close to the football stadium (until the new one is finished being built) and so on a warm summer evening like tonight, the streets are filled with people walking toward the big game.

I smiled to myself as I saw car loads of people empty out like circus clowns all wearing their Winnipeg Blue Bombers tshirts and hats and jerseys.  I saw people walking in pairs from every direction sporting their team gear - even one guy that had his head shaved with our team logo painted onto it!

It reminded me of the explanation my husband gave the campers at Children's Camp last week about baptism.  He told the kids that to make the public stand of being baptized is like wearing a team jersey, telling the world "I'm with Jesus!"  As we walked onto the beach that evening and three young people were lead into the lake to profess Jesus as the Lord of their life, the image of putting on the jersey played around in my mind.

And tonight as I saw people laughing and walking with determination to the football field, my imagination began to run wild with this picture.

Like, what if we really did wear a jersey all the time to proclaim that we are with Jesus?  Would it change the way we interact we strangers?  Or our family?

How cool would it be to see the jerseys around and know you have something very special in common with people you don't even know?  Like that feeling you get when you see someone in the Mall of America with a Jets tshirt on? (that happened to us earlier this week!)

What about all the people who faithfully gather to watch games, either live or on tv, with friends and family - all the while enjoying the game more because of who they're with?

(this is Cass dressed in Duke gear when
we lived a block off campus!)

And then I thought about how super-fans of a team will get tiny baby jerseys and put them on their infants who somehow grow up to be fans themselves. Are we dressing our kids in lives that claim Jesus as Lord?

Truth be told, I don't know if tonight's Bomber game is over, or who won (or who the Bombers were even playing, for that matter), but it's fun to think about wearing the team jersey for Jesus.
Put it on, friends!

Galatians 3:27 ~ 

"for all of you who were baptized into Christ 

have clothed yourselves with Christ.