Play is Only Play if Freely Chosen

You have spent time planning the perfect game to pair with your Bible story. Visions of laughter, engagement, and deep connections swirl through your head. Yet, there are a few kids who do not want to play. What do you do? If you let them choose not to play, other kids might choose not to play. If you force them to play, they might actually like it. So you decide everyone has to play. Guess what? Those required to participate may be participating, but they are not playing. Play is always freely chosen.

Churches, homes, and schools have a tendency to overstructure and schedule our children and their activities. Research shows that children have less and less free play than ever before, and it has had negative effects, including hindering children’s abilities to play independently and deeply.

The church can help by not being another place that overschedules and overstructures kids’ time. You can be a champion for play and consistently offer children a safe place to play, wonder, explore, and create freely.

What is Play?

According to Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, being voluntary is one of seven properties of play. In his book Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, the seven properties of play are described as:

• Voluntary or self-chosen
• Apparently purposeless (done for its own sake)
• Inherent attraction
• Freedom from time
• Diminished consciousness of self
• Improvisational potential
• Continuation desire

While all of these need not be present each time, voluntary or self-chosen is critical. Dr. Peter Gray agrees and defines play as self-chosen and self-directed. When we take away the option to participate or not, we take away the play and many of the incredible benefits. We may keep some of the playfulness, but the real, faith-growing, meaning-making, magic happens in true, child-led play.

Theology of Choice

God’s Design for Human Freedom
God offers us many good things; choice and free will are two of them. These are not gifts that we grow into in adulthood, but are gifts for children as well.  For all are created in the image of God, we do not mature into it. Jesus “gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone” (1 Timothy 2:6a NLT). God’s design for us is to serve one another, not control one another.

In Deuteronomy 30:19 NLT, God says, “Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses.” God knows what is good and deeply desires for his people to choose life, choose obedience, and choose him, but he offers his people the choice.

When we offer children safe places and opportunities to practice making choices and experiencing freedom, they will know how to handle it when the world offers it to them. Play is the safest place for kids to practice those skills of making wise decisions, and the church can play an important role in helping children learn to steward their freedom well through offering freely chosen play. Dr. Stuart Brown writes, “Children’s play is serious business because it is the primary means by which they develop mastery over their environment.”

Play as Worship and Wonder

I will often describe play as anything we choose to do that allows us to enjoy God and his blessings. Delighting in God and the good things he has done for and given us is also a part of worship.

Children’s play is driven by wonder and joy. Learning is driven by those same things. It is why children learn best through play. Play releases dopamine. Dopamine brings joy. This sparks the brain and creates a desire to play more for more dopamine and joy. Imagine creating spaces and opportunities where playing with Jesus and the stories of the Bible were what released dopamine in the children you serve at church or at home.

When they are free to wonder and play in church, their play is worship. Worship begins to release dopamine, and worship helps them to experience joy. And, as David wrote in Psalm 16:11 CSB, “in [God’s] presence is abundant joy; at [his] right hand are eternal pleasures.”

Overstructuring Spiritual Development

When we overstructure children’s spiritual development, we send unintentional messages that children are not capable of a personal relationship with God. We tell them that they need us to act as a go-between for them and God. We also create environments where children do not get to practice owning their faith, and they may not discover the ways that ignite their faith.

Performance-Based Identity

Step-by-step crafts, highly organized games, and other high-structure activities can be discouraging for children, particularly for children who do not do them well. Imagine the child who cannot cut the fish out like the leader or the early reader who is always too slow at sword drills. Some children may feel like church or faith is about performance, when really it is about what Christ has already done for them.

Lack of Confidence in Hearing God’s Voice

When faith is overstructured, kids learn to listen to us, not the Holy Spirit. By giving kids choices, we help them build confidence in their ability to hear God’s voice. Also, they do not get the practice of doing many faith practices they are capable of. Instead, through play, we can invite them to listen to God’s voice. We can invite and model this through opening are free play with prayer, asking for the Holy Spirit to speak to us through our play and discernment to make wise and kind choices during play.

Missed Wonder and Awe

As we schedule play for the children we serve at home and church and offer back-to-back activities, we could be robbing children of opportunities for wonder and awe. By slowing down and offering free play, we create space and time for God to show up and the children to recognize him in their midst. When we rush through a Bible story, we skip the tiny details that children might have noticed. Like a toddler on a walk, stopping to explore every flower because everything is novel and wonderful. Play allows children to lead us on a toddler-speed walk through God’s Word.

Four Easy First Steps

1. Give children a choice to participate or not. This is not an invitation to be distracting, but to meet the needs and honor the choices of children. You can give them other activities, allowing them to watch, or have a leader sit with them.
2. Opt for open-ended process art instead of step-by-step crafts. Here is a YouTube Playlist to learn more about how and why to use process art to help children learn to hear the Holy Spirit.
3. Build in 10-15 minutes of free play into your weekly schedules. Provide any of the following blocks, art supplies, loose parts, animals, instruments, puppets, or Bible story props.It may take a month or so for volunteers and kids to transition into using this time well, or longer, depending on the regularity of attendance. If this is new, children will need to learn to feel safe to explore and play during this time.
4. Practice scaffolding play without directing it. This allows children to be the experts of their play, and your listening shows that you value their play, thoughts, and ideas.

The Abundant Life of Chosen Play

Play is often a lost art for adults, but it is a gift most children still possess. God designed children to learn and make meaning of the world around them through play. As we consider what children need for a rich spiritual development, play should not be avoided; it should be fully embraced. And, children cannot play without choice. The goal is not to completely get rid of structure, but to balance it with child-led, free play.

When children play with encouragement from Christian leaders and parents, they get to practice making choices that will help their faith to flourish. They learn to invite God into their play and their lives. Children fall in love with worship and learn to bring their whole selves to the church. Mr. Rogers once wrote, “It’s the things we play with and the people who help us play that make a great difference in our lives.” What if the Bible, the church, and God were those things and people?