At my
continuing education conference last week I took a class on using table top
gaming in ministry. As Geeks we already
know the value of tabletop gaming. When
I was growing up often the church saw games like D&D as evil. Now there is a Theology of Play movement that
is using Gaming to enhance ministry and even grow disciples.
They talked
about the story of Mary and Martha.
Martha was all worried with all the work to be done. She was wearing herself to a frazzle, while
Mary just sat basking in Jesus’ presence.
There was no grand goal, just enjoying Jesus’ company and listening to
him. It is the same with playing table
top games. You are enjoying each other’s
presence. You are connecting with one
another. You are socializing. You are learning fair play. It is cognitively stimulating. They have even found that older adults who game have a smaller
chance of dementia. It creates community
in ways that the church has forgotten.
The biggest
thing is that in our modern logical world many Christians don’t understand that
we are called to live “as if” we live in God’s kingdom. But gamers live “as if” all the time. We play “as if” we were dwarven fighters, or
“as if” we were building a railroad.
Gamer’s get it. So, when we are
challenged to live “as if” we are living in God’s kingdom we understand how to
visualize it. That doesn’t mean it will
be easy, but we get it!
God also
wants us to have joy. We were created to
live in joy, but often our world of suffering sucks that away from us. Play helps us reclaim that joy that we were
meant to have. Gaming is like the
Sabbath. God rested after creating for
six days and calls us to rest, too. We
come back from gaming refreshed. We come
back with our humanity restored.
When God
created humanity in the beginning, God did not create us for stress or even
religious practices. We were created to
dwell with God. We were created to find
joy in God’s presence. We were created
to find joy in one another. It was human
sin that pulled us from this fellowship with God and each other. It is our sin that steals our joy.
So when we
play and game we find the joy that we were meant to have. When we game with our gaming friends we
actually see a glimpse of the paradise that God created and that Jesus promised
to restore. The hard part is getting our
gaming friends who believe that the church hates gamers, or that the church is
stuffy and judgmental that what God really desires for us is joy. Scripture tells us that when two or three are
gathered that Jesus is there. So when we
game, Jesus is there in the joy. God
desires to play with us. The joy we find
in fellowship with each other when we game is a reflection of the eternal joy
that we will have sharing fellowship in God’s kingdom. Let’s show the world how to live “as if” we
live in God’s kingdom by helping others find this joy.
