As I am writing these words, I am about to participate in my first fantasy football draft. I have agreed—against my better judgment—to join with several colleagues and students to be involved with a fantasy football league. They said the draft party would have wings and cake. How can that be a bad thing?
For those such as myself, who have managed to avoid the time-consuming task of running a fantasy football team—if only the time involved were a fantasy—here is what is involved. You take a list of current NFL players in various strategic positions, then have a party at which you draft your favorites into a team of your choice. Then the actual performance of those players during the season generates statistical results—and winners.
Unfortunately, the draft rules require you to take turns with the other team owners, which means you may not get the players of your choice. Also, the week-by-week results require that your drafted players actually play and produce statistical results. So, no matter how much you may like Tim Tebow, it’s probably not wise to waste a draft choice on him for now.
As I am compiling my list of draft prospects—by the way, should I call Peyton and ask him to hold out until my draft pick is due?—it occurs to me that we might have some fun with a similar venture involving our favorite preachers. Does a fantasy preacher league hold any interest?
Part of the problem is determining what statistics will count during league play. Do we count actual noses in attendance? (Joel Osteen appears to be the top draft pick using that criterion.) Or do you include noses watching video screens (which would make Craig Groeschel your first pick on draft day)? How about actual minutes preaching each week? John MacArthur could be a highly placed draft pick if those stats are critical.
Of course, we’ll need more than one set of statistics in determining our top choices in preachers. We might count number of points used per sermon, number of illustrations per message or number of Greek and Hebrew references displayed. We might also count the number of Bible translations quoted per sermon—sort of a display of scriptural diversity.
When I suggested this idea to a friend who’s a deacon, he mentioned the real fantasy would be the idea that preachers could preach shorter sermons…which is further evidence of the basic lack of spirituality of some deacons I know.