Fantasy Football vs Fantasy Church

     One of the biggest trends right now is playing fantasy sports especially fantasy football. This is where you "draft" players to form an imaginary team and you play against other imaginary teams that your friends have drafted. You get points based off of the performance of the players you drafted. The better they do the more points you get and hopefully your team will have more points than your friend's team so that you can take home the victory. I have been playing fantasy sports for many years. I have played fantasy football, basketball, baseball, NASCAR, golf and even though I don't know anything about hockey several years ago I did play hockey on Yahoo Fantasy Sports. I didn't know any of the players, what position they played or if they were any good or not so I drafted random players based on their rank numbers. I drafted the 6th rank player because that has always been my church softball number. I drafted the 22nd ranked player because that is the day I got married. I lost interested after a week or two and didn't pay any more attention to it until the end of the season when I received an email congratulating me on winning the season and the post season. I can hear all the hockey fans reading this groaning.
     To be good at fantasy sports you either have to be extremely lucky or spend some time researching the players. You need to know who will give you lots of points every week. Who got hurt and will not play. Who is struggling and who is getting better. You have to watch your line up almost daily for changes. You have to see what all the other teams are doing. You have to know what every player you add to your team does well. Players that do everything good get picked up fast, then the guys who do a few things good and lastly the guys who do nothing good.

     Over the weekend as I was adjusting my line up I got to thinking. What if we played Fantasy Church. You would draft "members" to be a part of your church. You would get points based on the "member's" performance. So you would get points when they attended church, for how long they prayed each week, for how long they studied their Bible and how many times they invited people to church. Maybe even points for tithing, serving on committees and singing in the choir. Of course there would be negative point earners too. Just like when an quarterback throws an interception it cost you points so would skipping church, falling asleep during preaching and sinning.
     If we could do that would you get drafted? Are you faithful enough that someone would want you to be a member of their church? Would you be drafted in the first round because of the work you do in your church or would you go undrafted because you would cost the team more points than you earn? Would you be a name everybody was looking for or that one that nobody knows what they do? We don't serve our church, or God, so that we can gain points but our performance still matters. Ask the servants in Matthew 21 found out their performance mattered. To the two servants that worked hard the Master said, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’ Matt 25:21 (NLT). To the servant who didn't work hard the Master had different words. In fact He called the servant "wicked and lazy" (NKJV). So our performance does matter. There is no points awarded for the deepest indention made in a church pew or for the most complaints given on a Sunday. There are points, or blessings as we call them, given to those who work their fingers to the bone, study till their eyes hurt, pray till their throat is sore and sacrifice till it hurts. Which are you? The good and faithful servant or the wicked and lazy one?


Parting Thought: Remember Birthdays are good for you. The more you have the longer you live.