Last night my church had a special Sunday Night service. (A few years back, we ditched this Sunday Evening service; but occasionally meet for special guests and the like.) Well when combined with a special leaders-only meeting before the service, I had to check out on the Cowboy-Eagle game at halftime. Now for those of you without serious Sunday Morning commitments, you might have never thought about how the Cowboy game interacts with the duties of a Sunday Morning minister. And if you aren’t an avid football fan, this is all very foreign to you.

Not having my Dish Network DVR, would throw me back into the stone age of actually using VHS tapes to record the game in the back room, then getting home and watching the VHS tape I recorded to in the front room, while recording the second half in the back room on a separate VHS tape. Make any sense? Well 4 years ago I thought it was a genius idea! Anyways, having my DVR now makes most things simpler.

The only thing not simple is the avoiding of all things that might leak the score of the game or GOD FORBID the final results. So last night, I sit at church doing my duties trying to avoid those conversations that will ultimately lead to the final score being revealed. I kept myself off the Internet via my computer, my cellphone, and didn’t listen to any radio on the drive home. Culminating in a 3 hour dispensation of silence on all things Dallas Cowboys! You have no idea how often I’ve done this only to check a voice mail or text message to have my plan ruined! Am I the first person to ever do this? Am I alone in my quest?

Normally you’d think all that planning and avoidance would get me favor from the Football Gods, but not this time…..instead, the Cowboys lose, in a game that makes you want to jump off a bridge afterwards. Eagles 38, Cowboys 24.

Now if in reading this you are disappointed in the shallowness of my story, and wonder what the world is coming to when a local church pastor is lamenting missing his televised football game; please bear in mind that I only do this because I can. Of course when I’m out of town travelling to speak at other places or serving on the mission field; I cannot record sports games of interest and therefore do not care if I see them live in my living room. I do what I do, because it’s feasible to do so.