Tebow’s rise touches faith community

    I’m pretty brave to write about Tim Tebow after Sunday’s atrocious game against Detroit.
    Tebow may be a man of faith but let’s just be glad Daniel fared a little better in the lion’s den.
    Still Tebow has captured my imagination as apparently he has for many of you. Last week’s Tebow craze was Tebowing.
    In the wake of the “miraculous” Oct. 16 win over the unholy Miami Dolphins, people were literally dropping to their knees in admiration for the most popular starting quarterback in the NFL.
    Tebowing, according to tebowing.com, “is the practice to get down on a knee and start praying, even if everyone else around you is doing something completely different.”
    This, obviously, could be a passing fad. And, after Sunday’s game, a better way to emulate Tebow might be to go to a public park and pretend to be chased around for 60 minutes by a group of 300-pound men.
    Passing fad aside, I wondered what area churches might think of this fad. After all, churches have been encouraging their parishioners to take part in Tebowing for hundreds of years.
    I asked Rob Kelly, the senior pastor Northern Hills Christian Church in Brighton, what he made of the Tebowing craze?
    “No doubt, some people are doing it to mock Tebow, but most I think do it as a sign of respect or support,” he said. “Others just want to jump on the latest thing.”
    But could people actually be praying to Tebow? Asking him not only to guide the Broncos to a win but bestow healing on their sick Grandma or help them ace a geometry test?
    Kelly doubts it.
    “I don’t think people are actually praying to Tebow,” he said. “In fact my guess is that most are not praying at all. I guess in one respect it minimizes or belittles prayer, but again I think most people are doing it for fun.”
    He does worry that the fact that Tebowing is a current pop-culture phenomenon might be an indictment of how are society, as a whole, views prayer.
    “To some degree it is probably commentary on how little our culture thinks of prayer or the reality that we have a God who wants to hear from us,” Kelly said.
    Tebow’s beliefs and his actions clearly leave him subject to fanaticism, criticism and even mocking. A couple of Detroit players, in between pile-driving Tebow into the turf Sunday, did some Tebowing of their own.
    Kelly finds irony in the criticism because Tebow is the antithesis of the modern-day pro athlete. The type of role model we have resigned ourselves to the fact that doesn’t exist anymore.
    “In an age where many athletes are known for abusing women, violating the law, a life of greed and selfishness ... it’s kind of nice to have someone who is known as the guy who stops and prays no matter what else is going on,” Kelly said.
    If it gets a few people genuinely thinking about the power of prayer, Kelly is OK with that. The night before I asked him about Tebowing, he came across a Tweet containing a picture from an ill kid that said “Tebowing while chemoing.”
    “Pretty cool,” Kelly said.