🏀 OKC Thunder In A League Of Their Own — When It Comes To Pregame Prayer 🔌
Weekend Plug-in 🔌
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OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma City Thunder didn’t have a prayer in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
Except that they did — the final score notwithstanding.
Oklahoma City tips off each game with an invocation led by a pastor, rabbi or other religious leader. The Thunder are the only one of the NBA’s 30 franchises with a pregame prayer.
But the focus of the brief quiet moment before fans turn the Paycom Center into Loud City is not winning or losing. After Oklahoma City opened the championship series with a heartbreaking, 111-110 defeat to the Indiana Pacers, perhaps it should be.
“I have never publicly prayed for the Thunder to win,” said Michael Milligan, the pastor who offered the blessing Thursday night. “For the assembled 18,000, that’s pretty understood, if you know what I mean.
“But when I pray, I typically try to stress that there’s a God who loves us and wants us to love one another,” he added. “I just want to make sure that I’m communicating spiritual truths and God’s love in 20 seconds. That can be a challenge.”
Pastor Michael Milligan prays before Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City. (Photo by Keaton Ross)
Milligan leads the pastoral care ministry of the Crossings Community Church in Oklahoma City. He spends his days visiting hospitals and nursing homes and — as he explains — “doing a fair number of funerals.”
But a few times each year — including at the season’s biggest game so far — the devoted Thunder fan stands at center court and lifts his voice toward heaven.
Clergy members who give the invocation receive two free tickets and a parking pass — an especially nice perk for the NBA Finals, when prices can top hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
“As we gather for tonight’s game, we ask your blessing and protection over all in attendance as well as for the men and women who serve as first responders and in our armed forces,” Milligan prayed Thursday night. “For our global audience, let them see the Oklahoma Standard as living daily like you taught us — to walk by faith, be a voice of hope and be known by love. In your holy name, amen.”
Like Milligan, Stefan Reed, campus pastor at Life.Church in Midwest City, east of Oklahoma City, prays at multiple games each season.
“I love the emphasis that they place on it,” Reed said. “When I do the invocation, it’s right before the singing of the national anthem. So it’s a fairly prime spot in the order of events … and speaks to the importance of how they feel about it.”
Torrey Montgomery, senior pastor of Ignite Church Global in Moore, south of Oklahoma City, echoed Reed’s assessment.
“I think it’s an incredible thing,” Montgomery said. “It shows that Oklahoma has a resilience, and it has an honor for spirituality, our religion, something that’s important to our state.
“It’s amazing,” he added, “to take those few seconds and just say, ‘We’re going to stop for just a moment, and we’re all going to come together and pray.’”
Pastor Torrey Montgomery poses for a picture before leading the pregame prayer at an Oklahoma City Thunder game. (Photo provided by Torrey Montgomery)
Montgomery has an aunt who lives in Indiana and cheers for the Pacers.
“She called me and said, ‘Hey, don’t pray this series. We don’t need any of your prayers,’” he said with a laugh.
Maybe she said her own prayer before the game.
In the NBA, the shot clock lasts 24 seconds.
The Thunder’s pregame prayer has an even quicker buzzer (not a literal one, I don’t think).
“I thought it was a good experience,” said Tim Lewis, preaching minister for the North MacArthur Church of Christ in Oklahoma City. “We got to the game kind of early. They show you your spot … on the logo there at center court.
“The funniest thing is that they’re standing there with a stopwatch,” Lewis added.
But the time is meaningful, Reed emphasized.
“They’re very intentional about that space,” he said of team officials, “and it’s very important to them to make sure that that 20 seconds is succinct but impactful as well.”
Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt and his family attend a Thunder playoff game at the Paycom Center. (Photo provided by David Holt)
The tradition dates back to 2008 when the Seattle SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder.
In fact, the practice began even before that: It started in 2005 when Oklahoma City served as the temporary home of the New Orleans Hornets after Hurricane Katrina displaced that team for two seasons.
“So when the Thunder relocated in 2008, I think it just made sense for the team to maintain what we as a community had already experienced,” Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt told Religion Unplugged. “We didn’t know any different.”
Holt, a parishioner at St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church in Oklahoma City, sees the prayers as fitting for the Bible Belt community.
“I always remind people, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court have always opened their sessions with prayer, so it is not unusual in American public life,” Holt said. “Perhaps it is rare in the NBA, but we’re a community that places a high priority on faith.
“Having said that, we are respectful of all faiths,” the mayor added. “For example, I have opened both of my terms as mayor with a community prayer service that included Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith leaders.”
Rabbi Vered Harris, spiritual leader of Temple B’Nai Israel, a Reform Jewish congregation in Oklahoma City, said she considers it an honor to offer the invocation at Thunder games.
"First of all, as someone who a big religious service for us is about 300 people — that's a lot of people in a synagogue in Oklahoma City — just the size of the audience is such a quick, gentle, I think, fun reminder of the diversity in our community when I get to participate," Harris told The Oklahoman earlier this year.
"Religion and prayer in Oklahoma is not uniquely in Oklahoma, but Oklahoma is not only about religion and God, it's about community,” she added. “It's about stating our values, regardless of where God specifically fits into those values, just the idea of humility ― there's something bigger than us. That's what it's about. There's something bigger than us."
In advance of the NBA Finals, a Sikh prayed at the Oklahoma City Council meeting this week, the mayor noted.
“I think these practices speak to our community’s recognition of a higher power and our willingness to acknowledge that. Faith carried us through some dark times, including and especially April 19, 1995,” Holt said, referring to the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, which claimed 168 lives.
My son Brady, a Thunder season ticket holder who earned ministry degrees at Oklahoma Christian University and Abilene Christian University in Texas, said he appreciates the pregame prayer.
Brady Ross, right, is a huge Oklahoma City Thunder fan. He’s pictured at a game with his father, Bobby; sister, Kendall; and son, Bennett. (Photo by Brady Ross)
“I think it’s a good way to bring everyone together on the same team (so to speak) before the competition starts,” my oldest child said in a text message.
But not everyone is a fan.
“It’s mostly nonsense. It’s pandering,” emailed my friend and former colleague Berry Tramel, a longtime sports columnist inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. “It’s scoring political points with the powerful and popularity points with the self-righteous.
“As a spiritual Christian and not a political christian, I find the prayers silly and unbiblical,” added Tramel, who has reflected on his late father pastoring a Pentecostal Holiness church. “In Matthew 6, Jesus said, ‘And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others…’ It gets even better, but you know what I mean.”
In the Tulsa World writer’s view, the Thunder asking clergy members to write out prayers and get them approved in advance “is the first sign that we’re off track here.”
“I do appreciate that they’ve had some rabbis pray from time to time,” the columnist said. “I don’t think we’ve had a Muslim pray. I would be quite impressed if that ever happened.”
Tramel’s bottom line: “It’s all ceremonial. I don’t think prayer should be ceremonial. Prayer should be sacred.”
(Agree or not with Tramel’s perspective, but his coverage of the team’s NBA Finals run is exceptional. Check out his insightful profiles of coach Mark Daigneault and NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.)
In an effort to be inclusive, the Thunder request nonsectarian prayers.
Ending the invocation by saying “in Jesus’ name,” for example, is not allowed, Lewis recalled.
While Lewis characterizes the pregame prayers as “super positive,” he said, “I’d kind of like to say his name if I had my options.
“I think they’re trying to be respectful of people of different faiths,” he added, “and it’s probably a gracious thing to go along with that.”
Tim Lewis with his wife, Tawni, at an Oklahoma City Thunder game. (Photo provided by Tim Lewis)
Montgomery conveyed a similar understanding.
“That is one of the stipulations,” the pastor said. “They don’t want you to say ‘in Jesus’ name.’ You can say ‘in your name’ or ‘in your amazing name.’ You can even say ‘in your Son’s name,’ I believe.”
Montgomery said he is fine with abiding with that request.
“The way I reconcile that within myself is that I believe I’m in Christ,” he said. “And wherever I show up, that name shows up because I’m in Christ, and I’m still praying with that same authority, if you will.”
Milligan shared a similar perspective: “I always try to bring it back to Christ without overtly bringing it back to Christ.”
Reed serves periodically as a chaplain for the Thunder and visiting players.
In his view, the public prayer reflects the organization’s heart and the team’s desire “to bring in God’s blessing.”
The Thunder’s approach, Mayor Holt suggests, “is intentionally inclusive and not exclusive.”
That tact, he believes, “is a strength for our community.”
Inside The Godbeat
I’ve repeatedly praised Deseret News religion writer Kelsey Dallas’ coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court.
She “truly owns the religious freedom beat,” I said one time.
“No journalist produces more vital work on that First Amendment right than Dallas,” I wrote another time.
So count me as a fan of her next career move: Dallas starts next week as the managing editor of the highly respected SCOTUSblog.
“I'll mostly be editing but will have an opportunity to write for the site as well,” she told me, “and will still consider myself a religion reporter at heart and remain in RNA! I'm excited.”
For those not familiar with the shorthand, RNA stands for the Religion News Association.
The Final Plug
Benyamin Cohen, senior writer for The Forward, spent over a month on his latest story.
“It’s about the closing of a 113-year-old synagogue in the Rust Belt and how they donated all their sacred objects (ark, Torah, even the stained-glass windows) to a 40-year-old Jewish farmer in rural Illinois who is building a synagogue in a two-acre cornfield,” Cohen explained in an email. “Next to a Lutheran church.”
Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.
Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 18 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.