Last week I was talking with one of the members of my team about why we play a game in our Sunday morning program. The general question was "Do we have to play a game? It just seems like that is not very spiritual and maybe our time could be better spent doing something else." I love the push, and I agree that every week it is not needed or even helpful. Yet, we talked about the fact that what we do is not for us, but rather for 11-14 year olds and fun is something of real value to them. We left our conversation with some things to chew on.
Fast forward a few days to this past Sunday morning. One of our female leaders was in the bathroom and there were several middle school girls in there talking (go figure, what else would they be doing in a bathroom). Two of the girls were attending our ministry for the first time and were asking the friend who brought them, "do you always play a game on Sunday morning?" When she answered "yes," the general response was something like "that is so cool, I think I could get used to coming to a church that allowed us to have fun at church."
Hmmmm..... So, how important is the element of fun in middle school ministry? I think it has a great deal to do with it. It may not the most important thing, but for middle school students who like to and need to wiggle and love to have fun, it's pretty important. We should make sure we understand our audience if we are going to be effective in our mission.
1 comment:
We play games a lot with our middle schoolers, and I have to remind some of our leaders the same things that you shared, "It's not for us. It's for them." I also try and remind our leaders that through our game playing relationships are being built with the students and trust in us as leaders is being built.
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