The Holy Huddle

Often a criticism of a church that does not follow the seeker model is that the church is just a “Holy Huddle.” It is nice alliteration for an innuendo that the church simply gathers with self-care and lack of concern for the world around them. The impression is that there is a group of people with arms around each other’s shoulders, their back to the rest of the world, oblivious to everything else around them and only focused on their tight knit group. That may be the case for for some church bodies but that’s not a huddle, that’s a tea party. A “holy huddle” is exactly what the church needs.

Those who accuse the church in this pejorative way must never have watched a football game. I enjoy turning on a good football game on Sunday afternoon and watching two teams battling it out. If it is a good game, there is a lot of energy on the field. Opposing linemen are going after each other with everything they’ve got. The game is a combination of strength, strategy, stamina and often times, simply the relentless determination to win. Take any one of those elements away and that is a marker the team will be putting an “L” on their record. The key to all of those elements is the huddle. The huddle directs where the strength needs to concentrate. It lays out the strategy for a winning play and gets everyone on the same page. Often it involves a call from far above the field with specific instructions for those on the front line of battle. Stamina is as much about wearing the other team down as it is maintaining your own endurance and a good leader keeps everyone at the top of their game in the huddle.

The huddle is the place where the team gets together. They get their instructions. They are built up and encouraged but they are also called to account for missed plays. In the huddle the players come together as a unified team to accomplish a goal. Ultimately their goal is to win the game but in the huddle the immediate goal may be to gain 3 yards. The next play’s objective may be to break open the defense with a long pass or to ram the football down the throats of the opposition running straight up the middle. In any case, without the huddle, the team would simply be a group of individuals doing their own thing. The only thing sure about a huddleless team is that they are going to lose. You won’t find a football team having petifores during a huddle, they aren’t holding hands singing Kum by ya. They are planning how they can kick the butts of the other team in the next 15 seconds of play.

The thing is that the church is not just facing a few four hundred pound guys making a couple hundred grand whether they win or lose. Scripture actually says, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against spiritual forces of evil on the heavenly realms. (Eph. 6:12) We are in the middle of an epic cosmic battle that goes far beyond bragging rights of a winning season and a very large ring. Our battle will not be forgotten next season, it will have eternal consequences. Our battle is not for fickle fans but for the infinite God.

The church could use some holy huddles. There is evil in our faces everyday just like a football line. Those snarling faces and that trash talk is happening each day on the field of life and the stakes are much higher than a “W” in a football season. We as the church are not going to take ground if we do not recognize the forces we are up against, if we do not have a strategy for the long game, if we don’t have a tactical plan for the next step and if we do not rally around each other, encouraging and holding our teammates to account. The stakes are our children, our homes, our jobs, our country, justice, economy and the list goes on. We cannot go to church a couple times a month sing some upbeat songs in a concert environment, listen to a sermon that talks about some area of life that may or may not be relevant to us, see friends and then go just about our week. We cannot be a spectator in a consumeristic gathering where we walk away evaluating the quality of the presentation. We need a holy huddle where Christians are gathered, unified and equipped to face the evil around them. We need a huddle with a strategy to take some ground that next week and come back for further instruction. We need a huddle where the body is both built up and encouraged but also held to account and pushed beyond itself.

Prologue
Relevant?
Defining Church
The Purpose of the Church
The Radiant Bride
Worship
Worship in the Church
Holy Huddle