Last week controversy erupted when New England Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady held a press conference in which he repeatedly denied knowing of any tampering with footballs prior to the Patriots’ AFC Championship win. Since then “Deflategate” has been hotly debated by pundits, politicians, and even scientists. We don’t know much about deflated footballs, but we wanted in on the fun. So we took to Twitter with a related ministry question for church leaders:

What is the ministry equivalent of playing with a deflated football?

Some of the top responses:

Planting people in the congregation to respond to an altar call to get things moving. @TylerWS

Referring to transfer growth as “revival.” @MarkDrinnenberg

Ghostwriters and sermon research assistants. @jr_briggs

Counting visitors as regular attenders. @JoelMayward

Putting a little something “extra” in your water when you preach a fire & brimstone sermon. @BamaBacon

Plagiarized ...