With the Super Bowl and The Daytona 500 coming up, I’ve been thinking about traditions.  (Side note:  If you’ve got the whole Valentines day thing figured out-February is a great month to be a man.)

Anyway…back to traditions.  Traditions are important.  Without traditions to keep the purpose of things intact, the super bowl may have morphed into a drum-corp demonstration…or a dog show…or perhaps the “football” part might have disappeared and we’d just be watching commercials and a lame half-time show on Sunday.  Without tradition the Daytona 500 may have completely lost the “racin” part by now and have become just an infield camping event/beer party for drunken red necks.  Oops…that would be Talledega.   Traditions are good.  They’re needed.  They keep organizations and events from losing focus and direction.

Traditions can be bad.  They can keep us from growing and becoming more effective in our purpose.   If football completely followed tradition, the Super Bowl would be a bunch of skinny white guys in leather helmets playing without pads in front of a few hundred fans.  If the Daytona 500 completely followed tradition, they would still be racing on Daytona beach in 1953 Chevrolets with no seat belts dodging a few hundred fans/soon to be injured crash victems.  Ignoring tradition is good.  It helps us grow…keeps us from dying.

  Whether you’re talking about the Super Bowl, The Daytona 500, or Sunday church services, they all have traditions.   The big question is what traditions are important?   What traditions should be changed?   What should NEVER be changed?