February 5, 2026
Dear Central Church
It’s Super Bowl weekend, and it feels different this year. After reaching the Super Bowl for three straight years and winning two of those, our beloved Chiefs will not be in this year’s big game. Since moving to Kansas City, we’ve been the AFC champs every year, and now it feels strange that we’re not.
I’ve explained this feeling to a few different people, and I’ve been generally unsatisfied with the responses. Someone said, “Well, you can’t win them all.” Another said, “We just wanted to give the other teams a shot this year.” I also heard, “We needed a break from winning.”
As a lifelong sports enthusiast, I’ve learned something about fans: we’re fickle, illogical, irrational, and generally uninformed. Put another way: fans are gonna fan. Just to put into perspective how lack-luster these excuses are for underachieving, can you imagine Coach Reid saying anything like this at his final press conference of the year: “Yeah, I’d like to play in the Super Bowl again, but we felt like we needed to give the Patriots a shot this year.”
No one would want to play for a coach like that.
God has great plans for our life and invites us to participate with him in his mission to save the world. He’s given us everything we need to grow in our faith, become more like Jesus, and make an impact in our world for the Kingdom. Unfortunately, we have all kinds of excuses for why we neglect our relationship with God or refuse to engage in his mission. Over time, we settle for mediocrity and become “ok” with being “ok.”
Christ followers are called to more. Paul says this in Philippians 4:13,
I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
God has a call on your life. He wants to use you and your unique story to accomplish his goodwill and purpose in someone else’s life. It’s a “super calling” but you don’t have to be a “Superman” or “Supergirl” to achieve it. When we say “yes” to God, Christ’s strength and the power of the Holy Spirit is multiplied to our faith and God does more than we could ever ask or imagine.
I look forward to gathering with you on Sunday as we again visit the life of Abraham. We’ll celebrate the Lord’s Supper together and be inspired to say yes to all that God calls us to do.
Until He's Finished,
Pastor Mark