Five months ago I had an idea: what if we created a space for us as a congregation where the goal is to come together and play? As I chewed on it and bounced it around with the staff and elders, I thought of a hundred reasons why we shouldn’t do it. As the reasons NOT to do it escalated, I decided to try thinking of reasons we should at least try it. Here’s what I came up with:
Playing together builds God’s rhythm into our lives. In all of the things we do throughout the year we strive to be “worshipers in community engaged in ministry.” In the Old Testament, God’s people would stop their normal routines at different intervals to come together in Jerusalem to celebrate God’s ongoing faithfulness to them. It was part of their rhythm; they looked forward to these times and were shaped by them into who God wanted them to be. In the same way, we need times together that we look forward to, times which interrupt our
normal routines and invite us to the simple act of enjoying one another as fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord.Playing together teaches us to be together without an agenda. There is an old saying that “time is money.” In other words, time is limited, and so it must be used in the most efficient way possible. And yet it is important to remember that efficiency is not the goal of every second of every day. And play helps us to remember this. When we play, nothing is necessarily produced or accomplished or achieved, reminding us that we are not simply meant to be endless producers. We remember that we relate to the Lord through grace, not as ones who have produced our way to him. Furthermore, we remember that we relate to others through grace, not by what they can do for us or how we can use them to get what we want.
Playing together expresses praise and thanksgiving. Psalm 126 is perhaps the best articulation of this. It recounts an experience for God’s people in which they have experienced some sort of restoration to the Lord. In addition to language that recounts the faithfulness of the Lord there is also language of laughter and joy. Verse 3 is my favorite: “The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad.” It’s almost like this is saying “come together to praise to the Lord for his goodness, and then, in the gladness that this creates among you, go play together! To remember the Lord is to be intentional to celebrate, and this is intended to create joy within us, a joy that finds expression in play.
Playing together provides perspective in our suffering. All of us encounter various levels and types of suffering in our lives, which can create discouragement and hopelessness. It can begin to feel like the biggest or most real part of our lives is our suffering; and yet, this is not true. For those in Christ, what is most real is that we have been forgiven through Christ’s death and connected to his life through his resurrection. When we play in the face of our suffering, we are not trying to avoid or be naïve about our pain, but rather we are declaring that we can have joy in the midst of our suffering because Christ is bigger than the trials we walk through.
Playing together cultivates child-like trust. At one point in his ministry Jesus points to children as an example of the kind of faith he desires for us to have. Perhaps one reason for this is because children play. They play because they can humbly trust that the bigger issues of life are taken care of. They play because they do not worry. Should it be any different for us as adults? Jesus tells us he will take care of us, that we do not have to worry or be anxious. When we play, we are expressing that we trust in the Lord, a trust that he is the one who carries us.
And so, this Sunday, we will play. It is as important as anything else we do. As we continue to grow in being worshipers in community engaged in ministry, may we use play as a key ingredient, recognizing that it cultivates joy within us and reminds us that the Lord desires for us to know him as our greatest enjoyment and delight.
See you at the Spring Fling!
Ben
monthly resources
In this classic book Richard Foster makes the case that the goal of spiritual disciplines is to cultivate joy in the Lord and celebrate his goodness to us.
You can also check out the following article for more on the importance of playing together as a church.