On Sports
Nothing besides the Bible may have as big an impact on your ministry as sports. No fooling. We are a sports crazy nation. You need to study, understand, utilize and be on guard about sports.
Sports as God
Far too often the things of God come in second place to sports. Families choose traveling hockey teams over Sunday morning worship. Church officers choose the Tuesday night basketball game over leadership meetings. Catechism students choose football practice over class. And who can blame them? Sports are far more exciting than church activities!
You might be amazed at what people spend on sports: uniforms, tickets, betting, traveling, fancy recording equipment. And talk about evangelism! No one evangelizes like a sports fan. He is ever ready to share the latest good news about his team.
Be careful. To speak against sports is to be… a spoil sport. And no one likes a spoil sport! Yet if people make sports their God, pastors are compelled to call the thing what it is: idolatry. Be prepared to say so.
You, too. Because of the ubiquitous nature of sports in America, pastors can easily give themselves over to an untoward interest in sports. Be on guard. The difference between an interest and an idol is not great.
Sports as Liturgy
Liturgy is not dead. It is alive and well and being lived out at a college football game near you. They use vestments with proper liturgical colors: home team, away team, throw back uniforms, band uniforms, refs in black and white, even the ushers have safety green. At certain times the fans stand up and sit down and stand up and sit down. You will hear them singing the same songs week after week, some of these songs have not been changed for decades! Congregants chant pieces of the liturgy over and over: GO GREEN, GO WHITE. Many times through the game the worshippers share the greeting of peace, “High five it baby.” Communion is distributed both in the stands (like Methodists) and in a continuous concession line (like the Catholics)—Hot dog here. Get your hot dog!
This is not blasphemy; this is necessary. Study sports as liturgy. Our Sunday practice of Christian liturgy could be enhanced if we learned lessons from sports liturgy: think about the intensity of preparation that precedes a game, watch how the crowd gets geared up for the kick off, consider the high level of involvement of the crowd during the game, don’t be leery of using old songs—but do them with gusto! Who knows, if you learn the right lessons from sports liturgy, people make actually be glad when the service goes into overtime!
Sports as Lingua Franca
You need to know and follow sports. It is the lingua franca of America. If you are going to communicate with people in America, especially men, you must have a working knowledge of basketball, football, baseball, hockey, golf and NASCAR. You don’t have to know it all, but knowing last night’s score or the latest standings helps. The further north and west you go in the country the more you need to know about hunting and fishing. In some areas you should know something about Big Time Wrestling. If you are working with younger people knowledge of X-Games and soccer are necessary.
If people are into sports, and if you want to be into people, then you need to be into sports. Sports help conversations get started, “Hey, did you see that game last night?” Sports provide great sermon illustrations. Sports teach about human nature and the thirst for community.
So be a sport. But be careful. Sports are a double-edged sword.
For further reading check out C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity” and his conversation about competition.