Summary: Done in the style of the TV show Shark Tank (also known in some countries as Dragon's Den). Three people come before the sharks seeking investment in their ideas. (This was written for a stewardship drive.)
Style: Dramatic. Duration: 12min
Actors: 1N, 3M, 3M/F
Characters:
Narrator
Father
Jesus
Holy Spirit
3 people presenting investment ideas to the God Tank.
Script
Narrator: Welcome to the God Tank, where entrepreneurial inventors seek backing for their endeavors. These sharks are willing to invest their own skills, and considerable time and wealth, if they like what they see. Now let's meet our sharks. First up is God the Father – He is the creative genius behind the entire universe. He was able to take absolutely nothing and turn it into absolutely everything. He owns the sun, the stars, the mountains, and vast resources that haven’t even been counted yet.
Next is God the Spirit. He is the inspiration behind millions of best selling books, movies, songs. He’s changed business, medicine, and politics around the world. His inspirational efforts have changed billions of lives. Let’s meet him.
Our third shark is God the Son. Known as the Savior of the World, God the son changes everything he touches. He has specialized over the years at taking broken-down ventures and breathing knew life into them so that they become productive positive life changers. He is responsible for starting two major holidays celebrated around the world and leads an international corporation with offices in almost every city on every continent. Here he is…Jesus.
First into the God Tank is Tank Terfel who is looking for an investment in his sports career.
Tank: Hello sharks, my name is Tank Terfel and I am offering a 10 % stake in my amazing sports potential – I was the captain of my ___________ (sport) team. The number one scorer, I’ve multiple college or pro teams contact me. I just need some help getting to the next level and ensuring that I will become a superstar. You know, pro athletes earn six and seven figure incomes, so I think I can be very valuable. So… who wants to team up with a super star?
SHARK TANK -Silence- Look at each other mumble –
Father: I might be willing to make a deal with you…. Tell me, how dead set are you on becoming a pro-athlete?
Tank: Completely, that’s been my life and my families life and dream for years, I practice everyday, and spend every weekend at game.
Father: How involved are you and your family in church?
Tank: Church? Uhh, with my sports schedule, I don’t have time for church.
S
HARK TANK: mumble – oooh, what a waste, how sad,.
SPIRIT: So, you and your family think that your ultimate purpose in life is to be a super sports star, earning a million dollars a year?
Tank: yeah, pretty much.
SPIRIT: And what will you do with your fame and money once you have it?
Tank: What will I do with it? I’ll be famous, and rich… I’ll buy a cool car, cool clothes, a cool house, I’ll try to get into the hall of fame, make commercials to make even more money and everyone will know my name!
FATHER: Have you considered the fact that less than 1% of High School athletes ever make it to pro, and that there are over 2 million sports injuries a year which can leave you unable to play. What would you do if you were injured?
TANK: That can’t happen, I just refuse to think of that.
FATHER: And what if you don’t get chosen to go pro? What will become of you?
TANK: That’s why I need you guys to invest me, to ensure I make it.
JESUS: I’ll make you a deal Tank, I believe in your potential, but I’ll need more than 10%. I want 100% of you, and I want you to make Church, studying the Bible and prayer as much a priority as your sports are. Do you think you can do it?
SPIRIT: I’'d like to go in on that deal.
FATHER: Me too, count me in… so… Tank we are offering all of our wisdom, guidance, power and influence to help you fulfill your dreams, but we want 100% and the change in priorities, what do you say?
TANK: Wait, you want 100% of me. But that means I have to give up complete control….
JESUS: TRUE…but you will gain the collective strength, wisdom and guidance of all of us.
TANK: but you all could change my dreams, my focus, my ambitions…?
SPIRIT: That’s true, we certainly could, but think about all that we have accomplished over the centuries. You have to ask yourself, do you trust us.
FATHER: you will have to believe that we want the very best for you and will lead you appropriately.
JESUS: I am here to give life! Life in all of its abundance!
TANK: Ummmmm…. I…..
SPIRIT: You’ve got to decide!
TANK: …. NO, I can’t, I want to be in charge…. (WALKS AWAY)
GOD TANK: J: sooo sad, S: he had so much potential, we could have done a great deal through him… F: he is a great kid, very sad. J: he could have been a wonderful witness as a sports star…oh well.
NARRATOR: Next into the Tank… Dr. Alberta Frienstien who wants the sharks to help her promote her life changing discovery.
Dr. F: Hello sharks, I am Dr. Alberta Frienstien, the smartest person who has ever lived. For generations people have sought to discover their origin. People want to know where they came from and what their purpose in life is. People come up with religions, others with evolution tracing us back to the primates. However, after extensive study, experimentation and research, I have come up with the answer and I want you sharks to help me bring that answer to the masses.
Father: Dr, this sounds very intriguing, I personally have great interest in helping people discover their purpose and origin. However, before I consider investing, could you tell us exactly what your conclusions are?
Dr. F: But of course. I have concluded that human kind came not through a progressive long chain of evolutionary sequences, but instead was spontaneously generated out of milk.
HS: Excuse professor, but did you say out of milk?
Dr. F: Yes, you see the calcium and proteins and other essential amino acids found in milk lead to the inevitable conclusion that human life spontaneously burst forth out of milk.
Jesus: Are you serious, Dr. F?
Dr. F: You are surprised by my conclusions I can tell, as the world will be, but believe me, there is great evidence of my conclusions and the ramification answers the fundamental question of our human purpose.
Father: Which is?
Dr. F: Nothing, we simply exist, we live, we die, that’s it.
Jesus: sooo… there is no ultimate purpose to life?
Dr. F: Well of course, all people should be good and strive to better the world they live in to enhance survival and secure longevity as a species, but there is no ultimate responsibility or purpose, except to be, to exist, to be free…
HS: I think I’m going to have trouble investing in this.
Jesus: Dr., what proof do you have of spontaneous generation from milk?
Dr. F: I have this large book of all my conclusions and experiments.
Jesus: and are your conclusions backed up with empirical, reproducible, observable evidence?
Dr. F: Not exactly by observable evidence, but as we study the solar system and especially the stars in the milky way there is conclusive suggestive evidence that…
HS: …wait, conclusive suggestive evidence? what is that?
Dr. F: Well, its rather complicated, you would have to read my book.
Jesus: But you have no physical reproducible proof?
Dr. F: The conclusions I draw can be reproduced if you follow my methodology.
Father: Dr. a couple questions. 1. Where did the stars come from which you talk about? 2. Where did the milk come from? That humankind according to you… spontaneously generated from?
Dr. F: The milk? Umm well, that will be my next book and theory, which I trust you will want to fund as well.
Father: Doesn’t it make much more sense that something as complex as human life, was created by a more complex creator?
Dr. F: That might make more evidential sense, but as an intelligent person myself, I cannot allow myself to believe that there is a more intelligent creative being in the universe than myself and, of course, milk.
Father: But you don’t know where the milk came from?
Dr. F: Well, not at this stage in my research.
Father: I’m sorry Dr. F, but I think you are denying the truth that sits in front of your eyes. I cannot invest in your totally un-proven and illogical ideology.
Dr. F: But, but....
HS: I would like to invest in you Dr. but not in this theory you are suggesting, I would like you to revisit your theories with openness to the idea of something greater and more concrete and sustainable than milk. I would like you to consider the possibility and research the evidence that there could be an all powerful and purposeful creator, rather than beginning with your current conclusion that no such being could exist. Then come back and we can talk again.
Jesus: Dr. you are very intelligent, but I fear too that you are blind to a great deal of evidence that sits before you. I also will invest in you, if you begin with the openness the Holy Spirit is suggesting, I am by the way, a specialist in opening blind eyes.
Father: Dr., I know you can make a great difference for the good of humanity, but not with your current theory. Begin again, and I too will help you.
Dr. F: Well, you have given me some things to think about. I will revisit my theories and come back again. I appreciate your desire to invest in me and hope we will be able to work together down the road.
Jesus: We do, too. Don’t wait to long to begin your new studies.
HS: Here, start with this book.
Dr. F: The Bible? But I long ago dismissed this book as mythology.
HS: Read it before you simply dismiss it, and study the impact it has made and the evidence of its truthfulness.
Father: I look forward to hearing about your conclusions after you have thoroughly investigated it with the openness that was previously suggested.
Dr. F: OK, I’ll get right on it… thank you for your interest (leaves).
Jesus: He might be smart enough to discover the truth if he really sets his mind to it.
HS: I’ll work on him!
NARRATOR: Next into the Tank is Bob, who needs the sharks to put feet on his floundering business venture.
Bob: Hello sharks, my name is Bob and I am offering a 50% stake in my company for an investment of $100,000. I invented this awesome, neoprene soda and beverage thingy majigee, that keeps your beverage cold and your hands dry. It can be imprinted to advertise and it's cool… so who wants to invest.
J: Excuse me ___ but this look like lots of other beverage holders, what makes yours different?
Bob: Uhh… well… nothing really… I took an already successful idea and have brought it to you for an investment.
HS: Bob, did you invent this product? You said you invented it…
Bob: Ummm, well, actually, I lied. I found it in the street.
J: And you're trying to sell it as a business?
Bob: I try to sell everything I find in the street. See, I don’t have a job, I got kicked out of my house, I have addiction problems, and I just don’t know where to turn. The God Tank is my last chance.
Father: Let me see if I understand you. You want us to invest $100,000 in something you picked up on the street, have no proprietary rights to, cannot reproduce. You have no success in business, or in life for that matter.
HS: (not unkindly) Has anyone ever called you a loser, Bob?
Bob: Yes, everyone, my parents, my kids, my wife, my old boss, I just can’t succeed, I don’t know what to do.
HS: Stop the madness.. Bob. You don’t have a business we can invest in.
Bob: …I know… I just, I don’t know— I shouldn’t have come, I’m sorry. (starts to leave)
J: Bob wait… I can’t invest in your company, because it isn’t a company, but…I will invest in you.
Bob: What? You're going to give me money?
J: No, I won’t give you any money, but I specialize in new beginnings…delivering people from their pasts and showing them a new future. I believe the HS might be willing to go in with me on this deal to, He specializes in offering wisdom and inspiration.
Father: I want in too. Bob, we will offer you all of our wisdom, guidance, inspiration, forgiveness and love, for a 100% stake in your life.
Bob: You’ll invest in me?
ALL: We believe in you, if you're with us.
Bob: What does it mean to be with you?
Father: It means we are partners, but we have the controlling interest in your life. We want you to listen to our wisdom, follow our guidance, turn to us when you have questions and concerns...
HS: And we will guide you by Word and Spirit.
J: it will be a 100% change in your life Bob. Are you willing to make a 100% change?
Bob: I don’t know… I have a lot of questions, I’m afraid to give up control…but...
ALL: …but?
Bob: But I sure haven’t accomplished anything good with my life doing it my way. You guys have changed billions of lives for the better.
HS: Do we have a deal.
Bob: if you’ll take me, you have a deal.
All: Amen! Good decision.
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© Copyright Joseph Beggs, all rights reserved. The script may not be
reproduced, translated or copied in any medium, including books, CDs and on the Internet, without written permission of the author.<br>
This play may be performed free of charge, on the condition that copies are not sold for profit in any medium, nor any entrance fee charged. In exchange for free performance, the author would appreciate being notified of when and for what purpose the play is performed. He may be contacted at:
United Presbyterian Church of Atco,
www.atcopres.org