Football was family fun at our house in my growing-up years. I learned the art of the third down from my dad, who played junior college football in Mississippi. I loved sitting at his feet to learn about the offensive line as we watched the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys after church on Sunday afternoon. When I was twelve years old, and the Super Bowl was in New Orleans, the legend herself, Ella Fitzgerald, headed the star-studded halftime show. In those days, wardrobe malfunctions, suggestive dancing, and obvious witchcraft were not on the entertainment docket at Super Bowls. I remember the decade when all that family fun centered around Super Bowl halftime changed and we could not run fast enough to turn it off or shield children’s eyes from the moral debacle.

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In this year’s Super Bowl, the venue once again is New Orleans, but there is a distinct shift in the moral climate in our nation. No doubt this has been born on the wings of prayer. In the last two weeks dramatic decisions have come from the pen of our president’s executive orders, with strong signals of a moral reformation that the remnant of praying saints have been crying out for through recent decades. Dominoes are falling at a rapid rate right before our eyes and hope is rising that a Nehemiah like rebuilding is here and now for faith and morality in our nation.

This week the shifting moral tide touched the Super Bowl Halftime Show, which has yet to occur. A letter penned by Louisiana State Senator Valarie Hodges and signed by a plethora of Louisiana lawmakers and pro-faith and family leaders, including IFA, in the state came before the Super Bowl committee asking for a shift in the direction of the halftime show this February.

Enter Danielle Walker, IFA Louisiana intercessor, author, and podcaster. Danielle had an unction from the Lord to stand up and speak up to address the issue of Super Bowl halftime entertainment. On the heels of the horror of terror in New Orleans, and the red wave landslide victory of Donald Trump’s presidential win, she felt there’s no better time to lift her voice and she got to work by urging Louisiana leaders to put the pressure on the Super Bowl committee for family friendly halftime shows to become the norm once more.

In her own words, Danielle states, “Lisa, this was something the Lord had percolating in my heart for a week or two before I brought it up in a board meeting of “We the People Bayou Community” – a local pro-Constitution organization in Southeast Louisiana that was birthed through prayer. When I raised it, all of the board members supported the idea. So I drafted a letter and we got to work getting family friendly organizations and legislators to sign on. Then when we brought it to Sen. Valerie Hodges, she suggested that the letter would have greater impact if it carried the letter and weight of the law. So the letter was re-drafted in the State Senate in a way that backed it up by Louisiana law. Ultimately the letter was sent by Louisiana legislators who hold the purse strings to the funding for major sporting events like the Super Bowl.

It was a brilliant move, and I’m so grateful to Senator Hodges for taking the heart of the idea and making it consequential. In my view, this is a perfect representation of General Michael Flynn’s continual admonition that local action has national impact. I’m looking forward to watching the Super Bowl and halftime show next week and seeing if the NFL is true to its word.  I am overjoyed and so grateful that what started out as a seed of an idea, and as a prayer burden from the Lord, may very well change the boundaries of what is permitted in entertainment in this year’s Super Bowl in New Orleans. All glory to God!!”

Let us all join in prayer with Danielle and the co-signers of this pivotal letter, which includes seventeen Louisiana legislators, for the Super Bowl committee, that they will take a strong stance to make halftime wonderful again, instead of weird and morally unacceptable. The Super Bowl committee has officially answered this letter in the affirmative, they are addressing and assuring football fans that this year’s halftime show, on February 9, will be family friendly. The jury is still out and that jury is you, the American family.

You can read the letter, signed by IFA Regional Field Leader Lisa Townsend, by clicking here.

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Lisa Townsend is IFA’s Regional Field Leader. Danielle Walker is co-host of The State of Freedom podcast and author of a daily blog she created to encourage others with the insights the Lord shares with her in the mornings. It’s called The Glory & New Wine. Photo Credit: Oliver Cardall from Pixabay.