A Need to Be Involved

I have been reading and really enjoying the book "The Gospel According to Starbuck's" by Leonard Sweet. One of the things he comments on is the increased need for people to participate in something rather than just be spectators. He points out that American Idol, which asks people to vote is hugely popular whereas most major sports struggle to retain their audiences. He also notes that things like Fantasy Football help to provide interaction instead of simply being a spectator. Part of me finds this hard to believe, even as a young adult, someone who is supposed to fit into these stereotypes, I watch sports and enjoy the spectator part. On further consideration however I realized that my sports watching has grown as I started to do Fantasy Football. Perhaps the thing that hit home the most to me was watching the Super Bowl last night with my youth group. In the final 2 minutes 30 seconds of the games, which is a fair amount of real time, but still not a huge amount, one of my youth sent 300+ text messages in an attempt to have Laurence Marooney voted as the MVP for the game. For him watching the game was fine, but what made it better was the fact that he could have a small influence on some part of the action, he was enjoying getting to be a part of things. Not sure what to do with this anecdote yet ... but it does reinforce the fact that churches need to make sure we are finding ways to engage people, not simply intellectually, or as spectators, but as active participants in worship and all other areas of ministry.