With the end of the basketball season in sight (maybe next year Pistons), here are a few terms in basketball world and their usage in the church world too:

Alley-oop: Teens caught behind the church skipping the worship service. 

Center: Only allowable placement of the communion table in the front of the sanctuary. Don’t even think of moving those plastic flowers given in memory of Grandma Smith in 1994. They are Center too.

Dribble: Communion cup failure.

Double dribble: When a worshipper’s spouse likewise spills his/her communion juice.

Double Double: How many scoops of ice cream is permitted at the church social.

Dunk (Baptist version): The only baptism method allowed.

Dunk (Episcopal version): Communion by intinction, please.

Fast Break: Cheating during Lent.

Fouled Out: Potluck disaster when the chicken is gone. (Fowl? Foul? You know what I mean.)

Free Throw: A complimentary lap blanket made the by the senior ladies’ missionary society

Full court: A bride with six bridesmaids.

Half court: When three bridesmaids get sick from the shrimp cocktail at the Bachelorette Party.

Hoops: What the youth pastor has to jump though to get an increased ministry budget for “coffee with the kids.”

Lay Up: Clergy is down sick, who’s going to preach?

Opening tip: At the beginning of the sermon when the preacher indicates it’s going to be a long-winded affair.

Over and Back: The church hopper returns.

Pick and Roll: Grabbing a worship folder and promptly making a telescope out of it.

Point guard: The person who tallies the boys vs. girls’ competition in Vacation Bible School 

Power forward: The preacher is sick, but preaches a fiery message anyway

Rebound: After telling a groaner joke, the preacher tells a funny one.

Shirts vs. Skins: The potluck dilemma between eating more fried chicken skins or popping the buttons off your garments.

3 Pointer: The preacher’s sermon.

Travelling: What evangelists used to do.

(Rob’s Basketball Memory Lane: 14 years ago today, June 16, 2008, I was in the Boston Garden with my friends Dr. Larry and Lynn Bollinger and Rev. Rod Green watching the Boston Celtics defeat the Los Angeles Lakers to win the NBA championship. I have never had more drunk Bostonians—not the Bollingers—hugging me following that game on the way out of the arena).