I ran across – actually my good friend Tim Briggs sent me a fascinating article on Barna.org entitled “Futball to Football: What Americans Think of Sports.” Over the next several posts, I will comment on aspects of this article that I found especially interesting.
Here are the first two –
1. Americans think sports are important.
2. Americans think sports are too important.
IMPORTANT – When asked about the importance of sports in our culture, according to the Barna study:
more than four in 10 adults (43%) strongly agree that sports are an important part of American culture; when you factor in those who also “somewhat agree”—an additional 46% of adults—it’s nearly nine out of ten Americans (89%).
9 out of 10 Americans agreeing on something – that is almost a miracle in itself. This acknowledgement of the importance of sports demonstrates that sports, in various forms, are a part of the vast majority of our lives. As such, the universal language of sports now “spoken” by so many of us, makes sports a powerful bridge to connect with people. The broad capability of this bridge is one of the key reasons we at CSO are involved in sports ministry.
TOO IMPORTANT – When asked whether sports were too important, according to the Barna study:
nearly two out of three adults (67%) believe, firmly or somewhat, that Americans place too high a priority on sports.
Sports are broken!!!
Not only do we believe that but so do 2/3rds of Americans.
Before giving these results, the Barna article pointed to several indicators of this unhealthy obsession of sports. One they mentioned that I hadn’t seen was the fact that the highest public employee in most states is a college coach!
We are trying to do something about this brokenness. One of the tools we have developed toward that end is For the Love of the Game. Spread the word. We want God to redeem the idolatry of sports and would like him to use us toward that end.
