At Christianity Today, we care about football. If a few recent stories—on "Our Shaken Faith in Football," "The Joy of Sports," and the Christian adoption of the culture of "Sports Fanatics"—come from our thoughtful engagement of America's hardest-hitting pasttime, then our fantasy football league, currently in the midst of its 26th season, demonstrate our pure enjoyment of the sport.

According to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA), 33,559,990 people participated or will participate in fantasy sports in the USA in 2013. It has become a multi-billion dollar industry, often inspiring obsessive devotion to managing one's team: the FSTA estimates that the average fantasy players devotes 8.67 hours per week to his or her fantasy team. And since 1987, a group of CT employees have been contributing to those eye-popping statistics.

On September 3rd, 14 current and past employees gathered in the CT conference room, laptops at the ready, for the fantasy draft. This was the first year for a computer-based draft; in the past, the entire league would gather with cheat sheets and take turns picking from team rosters. Now the computers do the work but most of the members still gathered together to enjoy the annual kickoff.

Over the years technology has streamlined the process quite a bit. In the beginning players would have to write down their rosters on paper and exchange with their opponent of that week. During the actual game on TV they would watch the crawl at the bottom of the TV to see how their players were doing. The next day they would have to check the newspaper for the stats of the players and manually calculate their score. Now NFL.com takes care of all that, and players can enjoy watching the games and rooting for their guys.

The Fantasy Football league offers a way for employees to get to know others in the company they may not professionally interact with much, or to see their coworkers in a more casual context. "I would have never guessed that (GiftedforLeadership.com editor) Amy Simpson was a NFL nut," says Jennifer McGuire, Art Director of Books & Culture magazine and 16-season veteran. "Having (CEO) Harold Smith play was great, titles are removed when it comes to playing. We still have team owners who are past CT employees. It's good competition and brings out the fun side in people, even in the trash talk."

Although CT's offices are firmly located in Bears country, the league also brings together fans of many NFL franchises. "I'm a Packers fanatic and I will always have some Packers on my team," says McGuire. "There are several team owners here like that, we call them heart picks: I will have Packers, (Vice President and Editor in Chief, Church Leadership Media Group) Marshall Shelley will always have a Bronco, Harold Smith will have a Detroit player, and (former CT editor) Mark Moring will always have a Washington Redskin."

Each player pays a $10 entry fee, which goes toward the end-of-the-season pizza party and awards. The winner of the league's Super Bowl wins a coveted trophy—a small football on a small plunger, which is, according to McGuire, "older than a few of our team owners." But the bragging rights are the real prize—last season Senior Media Operations Coordinator Wes Jakacki took home the trophy in his first year. But the bragging rights only last a year—with the 2013 season well underway, it's once again anyone's game.

Laura Leonard is associate editor of BuildingChurchLeaders.com.