There are many different Bowl games at the end of the football season. College games include the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl. The championship game for professional football is the Super Bowl. Football players dream of finishing their season playing in one of these famous football games.

When I was in High School and college, our church had a flag football game on Thanksgiving morning. We called it the Turkey Bowl. We continued that tradition when I became the pastor of our church in Tucson. We moved the Turkey Bowl from Thanksgiving Day to Sunday afternoon when we continued the tradition at our church in California.

The original idea was for the younger men in the church to play a flag football game against the older men in the church. Usually the older guys could outplay the younger guys. But, as the years passed, the younger players got better and the older players got slower!

Over the years we made some changes to the Turkey Bowl. We invited women to play and we put older and younger players on both teams to make the game more evenly balanced.  

I always reminded players on both teams that the goal was not to win the game – the goal was to not get hurt! All of us had to go back to school or work the following week. So we emphasized that this was a friendly contest – try to not get hurt and try to not hurt others.

We did have a few injuries over the years. Many years ago when I was in college our pastor injured his knee and had to preach sitting on a stool for several months after the Turkey Bowl. One year in Tucson I broke two fingers and spent most of Thanksgiving Day in the hospital emergency room. I had to wait for a doctor to finish his dinner before he came to the hospital to help me.

The Apostle Paul used athletic terms to teach spiritual lessons. He said prayer was like wrestling (Colossians 4:12). He used the image of boxing to illustrate need for self-discipline (First Corinthians 9:26). He used the example of distance running to emphasize the need for endurance in the face of persecution (Hebrews 12:1). Living your life as a follower of Jesus is a lot like a long-distance race which requires endurance, self-discipline and a lot of prayer.

Let me encourage you to enjoy Thanksgiving with your family and friends. If you include a flag football game in your holiday activities, try to not get hurt and try to not hurt others. You will be glad you did and they will too!

Read 365 more stories and articles by Mark Hopper in his book – Let Me Encourage You. You can purchase two books for $30 plus postage. Order your books today at markh@efreedb.org.