What if Proverbs 22:6 was an encouragement to recognize the individuality of each child and teach them accordingly? In the ISV, this proverb reads, “Train a child in the way appropriate for him, and when he becomes older, he will not turn from it” (Proverbs 22:6 ISV, emphasis added). Reading it this way might help us see that the children we serve at church and at home all learn and connect with God in unique ways. And, while play is universal for how God designed children to learn and develop, how they play varies.
Uniquely Created to Play
Looking at all of the unique and wonderful children you serve at church and home, I am sure you can identify many different personality types. But, did you know there are also play personalities? Dr. Stuart Brown, author of Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul and founder of the National Institute for Play, has proposed eight play personalities from his years of play research and study. He suggests we each have at least one primary play style, with one or two secondary styles. These play personalities are the explorer, the collector, the joker, the storyteller, the director, the competitor, the kinesthete, and the artist/creator.
After many years of my own work, I have found these personalities to be accurate and highly satisfying to those first identifying their play type. By learning to identify our own and then the children we serve, we can ensure that each of us is engaging with God in ways that not only bring abundant joy and growth but also allow us to feel fulfilled, seen, and known in our spiritual practices.
While the focus of this article will be on using these personalities and corresponding practices with children, I cannot underestimate the impact of this play on our own faith, even as adults. I personally struggled for years to consistently read the Bible outside of educational and ministry-prep pursuits. Once I discovered I am an explorer, something clicked, and I started reading the Bible to learn something new about God each day. I have not missed a day since. That was seven years ago!
The 8 Play Personalities
Below, I will introduce you to each play personality by sharing a few characteristics of the play type, connecting it to God’s character, offering a Bible example that exhibits similar engagement with God, and suggesting a few playful spiritual practices that may spark joy, wonder, and curiosity in children of that play personality.
The Explorer -Pursuing God’s Mysteries
Characteristics: Curiosity-driven, investigation-focused, discovery-oriented. Explorers love to learn and discover new things, especially things they are interested in.
God’s Character: God is omniscient, truthful, and wise. Explorers will experience joy and life growing in God’s likeness of these traits (Job 37:16, Heb 4:13, Ps 147:4).
Biblical Example: One example is Moses’ curiosity and exploration of the burning bush. Moses wanted to understand why the bush wasn’t burning up, and God met him there (Exodus 3:1-4).
Spiritual Practices to Try: Wonder walks to explore creation, using maps and timelines to understand biblical cultures and context, and playful word studies can be great disciplines to experiment with.
The Collector – Treasuring God’s Gifts
Characteristics: Gathering-focused, memory-keeping, treasure-finding. A distinct part of the joy and play for collectors is not only in collecting, but also in organizing and sharing their collections with others.
God’s Character: God gathers and collects his people. Tying collecting to a way that God shows love, provision, and protection for his people can be powerful for collectors (Isa 11:12, Mic 2:12, Hab 2:5, Matt 13:47).
Biblical Example: The tabernacle is a beautiful depiction of collecting, displaying, and sharing. Not only were supplies collected from the people to build the tabernacle, but artists and craftsmen were also collected to do the work (Ex 25-40).
Spiritual Practices to Try: Collecting items to represent prayers and sharing them, collecting Bible verses or stories about a particular theme, creating a scrapbook or memory box of the year in your ministry or home, or collecting and organizing resources for a service project or the church.
The Joker -Reflecting God’s Joy
Characteristics: Humor-driven, laughter-seeking, joy-creating. The joker loves to celebrate and laugh, while helping others to do the same.
God’s Character: God delights in, sings over, and enjoys us. The Christian joker understands that “the joy of the Lord is [their] strength” (Neh 8:10, Zeph 3:17, Ps 16:11).
Biblical Example: A joker doesn’t have to be the class clown. For example, Sarah, Abraham’s wife, learned to laugh at herself and what God had done for her, while inviting others to laugh as well by naming her son born to her at an old age, Isaac, which means “laughter” (Gen 18:9-15, 21:1-6).
Spiritual Practices to Try: Use humor in Bible stories, write silly psalms, songs, and prayers, share jokes that teach biblical truths, practice gratitude for the things that made you laugh that week, offer small groups, and include lots of celebratory worship.
The Storyteller – Sharing God’s Narrative
Characteristics: Narrative-driven, imagination-rich, story-sharing. Storytellers can use a variety of media to share their stories, such as their voice, art, words, photography, and more.
God’s Character: God shares his story through the Bible, and Jesus is called the Word (John 1:1-3). Empowering and equipping storytellers to tell God’s story and their testimony will bring them joy.
Biblical Example: Jesus was a master storyteller. He often spoke through parables and told many stories to his disciples and those who would listen to him teach (Matt 13:34).
Spiritual Practices to Try: Giving children the opportunity to share Bible stories, not just listening to them, is powerful. Allow them to tell stories through art, puppets, and acting. Also, sharing and teaching to share testimonies can be impactful. Listening as they share stories as prayer requests is a practice you can do to love them well and model that God cares to hear their stories. Storytellers may also enjoy journaling through art and words.
The Director – Leading Like God
Characteristics: Organization-focused, leadership-oriented, vision-casting. The director may sometimes be called bossy, but they have a vision, and their joy is to bring it to life.
God’s Character: God is sovereign and patiently leads us in bringing his plans to completion (1 Chron 29:11-12, Col 1:15-20, 2 Pet 3:9).
Biblical Example: In the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah leads the people to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem in only 52 days. He also works with Ezra to bring the people back to following the Law of Moses. His directing helped restore the Israelites’ community after the exile.
Spiritual Practices to Try: Directors are great at and enjoy planning. Use their gifts to help you plan special events, holiday programs, lessons, or mission projects. Allow them to lead prayers and be a servant leader to your substitutes. My little director also loves to help decorate and set up VBS and other special events.
The Competitor- Striving for God’s Excellence
Characteristics: Achievement-focused, goal-oriented, improvement-driven. While we often harshly judge competitors, we can help them enjoy the competition regardless of the outcome.
God’s Character: Though God has no competition, for he is holy, he helps us to grow into Christ-likeness and excellence (John 15:1-6).
Biblical Example: Paul uses several athletic competition metaphors in his writings. He uses competition to encourage self-control, discipline, and perseverance (1 Cor 9:24-27, 2 Tim 4:7).
Spiritual Practices to Try: Clean-up races against the leaders, setting personal goals for memorizing Scripture or reading the Bible, team challenges against the clock, and using goals and challenges for service projects. When planning for competitors, we need to keep the impact on others in mind. Many children are intimidated or overwhelmed by competition. For this reason, I always suggest that competitions be optional and against the clock or leaders when feasible. Play loses its playfulness when it hurts others.
The Kinesthete -Embodying God’s Action
Characteristics: Movement-driven, physically expressive, hands-on learning. The kinesthete finds great joy in moving their body.
God’s Character: Jesus modeled this in the incarnation. He was fully human and fully God (John 1:14, Acts 17:28).
Biblical Example: David danced with all of his might before the Lord. He used his entire being to worship and praise God, putting aside what others thought of him to fully embody his worship (2 Sam 6).
Spiritual Practices to Try: Kinesthetes may enjoy active worship with dancing and movements, nature walks, labyrinths, serving with their bodies, and acting out skits and Bible stories. You may also want to try full-body prayers with intentional and directed movement.
The Artist/Creator -Imaging God’s Creativity
Characteristics: Creation-focused, beauty-seeking, expression-driven. Artists/Creators are not identified by their talent but by their joy and love of creating, like their Creator Father.
God’s Character: God is Creator and infinitely gracious with his creativity. We see this not only in creation, but in his blessings, the way he directs our steps, and how he uses all things for good (Gen 1).
Biblical Example: Solomon is an example of the artist/creator. While he may not be known for painting or drawing, he led the building of the temple and wrote quite creatively (1 Kings 6-7, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon). Not all artists/creators use art supplies; some may invent, write, or enjoy creatively solving problems.
Spiritual Practices to Try: Prayer journaling, decorating and writing skits for Bible stories, open-ended art projects, “I wonder” questions, singing and dancing, making music, writing songs and poems, studying the Psalms, illustrating Bible stories and inviting them to decide how to respond to a story are all helpful faith-building practices for the artist/creator.
Practical Ministry Tips
While it may be easy to recognize some children’s play personalities, it is not always the case. And, because children are very much creatures of play, many enjoy a wider variety of types of play. It is beneficial to offer a variety of spiritual practices that meet the play preferences of all the types throughout your ministry. This does not mean weekly, but being intentional to offer varied ways of engaging God over a few weeks or months, depending on your programming.
Children’s ministries are often great at offering play for competitors, but may not offer as many options for directors or storytellers.
Some activities and spiritual practices will bring joy to multiple play personalities for different reasons. For example, finding Bible verses on a particular theme may be wonderful for explorers and collectors alike, though their reasons for experiencing joy in the practice are varied. Or, creating and acting out a Bible story could be fantastic for directors, storytellers, and jokers.
How Will You Play?
My hope is that you will see yourself in one or more of these play personalities and begin to identify them in the children you serve. Also, that it would become more than just knowledge, that it would move you to playful action. That you would find ways to play with God and invite others to do the same. So, I wonder, how will you play?