Don't Be a Pew Potato!

By the time you read this, the game will be over. What game, you ask?

The Texas Tech game that gave Bobby Knight his 880th win?
The UT bowl game squeaker?
The amazing, amazing Boise State win over the Sooners?

None of the above. I’m talking about the Ultimate Couch Potato Contest in Chicago’s ESPN Zone sports bar. Last year’s winner, Jason Pisarik, is back to defend his title. As I write this, the accountant and three challengers have to sit in recliner chairs in front of a 15-foot screen tuned to college football bowl games and inane pre- and post-game commentaries. They are allowed a 5-minute break every hour, but otherwise have to keep their stare on a TV screen and get served food and drink.

The only woman in the competition is holding her own against the men. “I don't know how guys do it,” said Stacy Gleason, a 39-year-old mother of three. “I’m doing this for girls everywhere who don't get to do this while their husbands morph into the furniture watching sports on TV.”

The last man standing--uh, sitting--gets a prize package valued at almost $5,000, including a 42-inch high-definition television, a recliner, gift certificates, and a trophy featuring a live spud.

Pisarik won last year at the 30 hour mark, but the world record is held by Canadian Suresh Joachim who watched TV for an unbroken 69 hours and 48 minutes in September 2005.

Kind of reminds me of the old definition of football: a game played by a bunch of men in desperate need of a break being watched by a bunch of men in desperate need of exercise.

Reading about couch potatoes got me to thinking about another kind of potatoes: the pew potatoes. Every church has an abundance of these sedentary saints who do little more than offer commentary on what others need to do.

Make a new year’s resolution that you won’t be a pew potato in 2007! Get involved in Sunday School or Common Ground on Sunday mornings . . . sign up for a Hillcrest Institute class on Sunday nights . . . attend the “Success to Significance” retreat . . . commit to a mission trip . . . take a volunteer position at church . . . renew your personal prayer life. In other words, put your Christian convictions to work!

God bless your 2007 with him!

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