Unfortunately, it was one of those nights for the home team, where they fought a good fight but came up short. However, losing the game took nothing away from the amazing time we had enjoying the festivities. Every break between innings was filled with a song during which the crowd would get up and start dancing around. From “Cotton-Eyed Joe”, to “Thank God I’m a Country Boy”, and then the wonderful classic “Teenage Dream.” Yes, that’s right! “Teenage Dream” filled the space between the third and fourth inning.
All the fans got up to dance like they always do, and we sat back and watched them all sing the lyrics:
“We drove to Cali, and got drunk on the beach. Got a motel and built a fort out of sheets. I finally found you, my missing puzzle piece, I’m complete. Let’s go all the way tonight, no regrets, just love. We will dance, until we die. You and I will be young forever. You make me feel like I’m living a Teenage Dream. The way you turn me on, I can’t sleep. Let’s run away and don’t ever look back...”
Somehow, Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” is related to Major League Baseball, I am just not quite smart enough to figure it out! It’s amazing though, how the messages of our culture invade almost everything we do. “Teenage Dream” is still holding strong at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, and it’s success simply translates into greater and greater influence.
We all want to live a “dream”; whether its businessmen and women pursuing the “dream” job, families pursuing the American “dream”, or teenagers looking for what it means to make the most of middle school, high school, or college. Our culture has an answer for us when it comes to living the “dream”. For the business world you need to make as much money as possible. For families they need to have the biggest house on the block, at least one car for each family member, and a swimming pool. And the dream life for students, well Katy Perry just defined it: drinking, sex, and a relationship with someone who makes you feel ‘complete’.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 says, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every though to the obedience of Christ.”
Are you taking every thought and idea captive? Are you thinking about what you hear in a sermon at church, see in a movie, and listen to on your iPod, or are you simply consuming the message passively? Ideas are powerful, even when they are simply played over the loudspeaker at a baseball game...
