Is your fantasy church in a fantasy league?

I’m ready for some football!

About this time of year, I’ve gone long enough without my favorite sport. I like baseball, occasionally tune into basketball, and find other sports interesting, but nothing is as exciting as American football.

Real football that is, not the fantasy.

There’s a lot of fantasy out there, as countless thousands participate in pseudo-leagues “managing” their fantasy football teams. These are guys who are so into football they put a great deal of time, effort, and passion into creating what their idea of the winning team would be. Some guys have as much passion for their fantasy team as they do for the real sport!

Sometimes we approach church as if it were a fantasy team. Many put a lot of time, effort, and passion into their fantasy church, rather than in the reality of turning the actual potential into what it can be.

Too often, our fantasy of church is nothing like what we have to serve and work with in real life. We might dream of mega churches and multi-site ministries, but have a small congregation of less than 90 people who need to be served, discipled, equipped, supported and —especially — loved. The pool of giftedness and talent among other leaders in the church may not live up to what your fantasy draft pick would be, but it’s what you have to work with.

One Twitter friend of mine insists on Twitter being the perfect way of “experiencing church.” Tweets shared with people they really don’t know feeds the fantasy of the perfect fellowship in a perfect congregation. All without the real life hassles and commitments that come in being a real church body made up of imperfect people who live out all the challenges and responsibilities of real church.

This isn’t fantasy football, this is the real thing!

The real church, made up of real people, with a real potential that our real God has for it. That potential looks more like the church we read about in the New Testament than it does a fantasy in 2011.

Which are you pursuing?

Scotty