Fantasy football leagues have taken over the nation. It’s estimated that 33 million people are taking part in the game of picking NFL players for your own fantasy team and predicting which ones will perform the best from week to week.
Players pour over a mountain of statistics to pick the best players to help them win. They look at numbers like “Regression to the Mean,” “Opportunity-adjusted Touchdowns” and “Average Depth of Target.”
If it can be done for football, why not with pastors? But instead of determining a QPR (Quarterback Performance Rating), participants would calculate PPR (Pastor’s Performance Rating).
To find the rating you take the number in a pastor’s congregation, divide it by the number of satellite campuses, take the number of times you see them on TV each week multiplied by the number of New York Times bestselling books divided by the number of minutes their sermon goes over each week. Simple.
Comedian John Crist came up with the idea and in this video he gets together with three friends for a celebrity pastor fantasy draft.
Just like with fantasy football, each person starts by picking a team name.
Crist chooses “First and 10 Percent.” Aaron Chewning names his team “Show Me the Tithe Money.” Andrew Stanley heads up “Non-Denomination Domination.” And Tripp Cosby chooses “Take a Knee” (for prayer, not the anthem).
Each player picks pastors for their team based on the pastor’s strengths. Here are some of their picks and their expected value to the fantasy team.
Joel Osteen: “He has books in airports, preaches to a large congregation every week, great looking man, beautiful wife—the Tom Brady of pastors.”
Steven Furtick: “The highest applause break per sermon of any white pastor.”
Jesse Duplantis: “He’s about to raise $53 million for a new jet. His sermons per week average is about to skyrocket.”
Beth Moore: “Her twitter account right now—fire, dude.”
Joseph Prince: “The best hair in the draft.”
Andy Stanley: “He always converts in the red zone (holidays).”
Finally, the players get to make a “Rapid Fire Flex” pick. For this selection each participant picks a quality from three undrafted pastors to be combined into one super pastor.
Andrew Stanley picked a combination of Joyce Meyers’ TV numbers, Judah Smith’s fashion decisions and Francis Chan’s racial ambiguity.
Aaron Chewning wanted Rick Warren’s book sales, Brian Houston’s accent and Tim Tebow’s body. Even though Tebow isn’t a pastor and wasn’t on the board Chewning picked him because “I saw him at Catalyst and it #wrecked me.”
John Crist opted for TD Jakes’ stage presence, Tim Keller’s theology and Carl Lentz’s cell phone contacts, which likely included Selena Gomez’s phone number.
And Tripp Cosby finished the selection process by choosing Creflo Dollar’s tithe numbers, Levi Lusko’s stage props and Pope Francis’ twitter followers.
In case you’re interested in playing along Crist has this word of advice, “When your pastor is on bye week, always start your youth pastor—but expect way less production.”
