Mike Smith
Are games still an effective resource that we must utilize in order to engage our students in ministry, and how can we fight through the entertainment barriers to get the kids involved?
Games have been around for many years, but it seems that this generation has strayed away from the desire to be involved in games that involve a group of kids. Many of them would rather be at home on the internet, watching TV, or playing video games. The book, Best-Ever Games states 7 reasons that games are still valuable today including: games are universal, stress-relieving, improves person's feel of belonging, and a few other good reasons. Acknowledging these benefits of games shows me that these games are still an important tool to use in effective ministry. In order to engage the kids, we need to be of encouragement and try to help show the students the benefits of playing games by pushing them to be involved, but never in a demanding, forceful manner.
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I really like what you said about not being forceful in encouraging the students to be involved in the games rather than texting, surfing the internet, or whatever else they could do with their electronics. Fighting through the entertainment barrier is definitely a tough fight. I just think we need to be more fun than the devices they have. They are almost to the point of boredom with their ipods, smartphones, etc (which is why those companies are always updating their products, to keep the customers interested) so if we can stay ahead of the game with REAL games they might find them more interesting since they will be sort of "new" to them because all they know is an electronic world.
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I agree that we need to encourage them to get involved with the games but forcing them will only drive them further away. We need to get creative to make the games more appealing to them so that they will want to step away from the world of technology and step into the world of using their bodies and minds together.
ReplyDeleteRachel Elder
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to games, keeping kids interested is the biggest challenge. All the points that have already been made are exactly correct. Kids are not interested in anything that is not electronic these days and its hard to grab their attention by playing boring games that, may not on there ipod or ipad ect. It needs to be the youth pastors job or whoever the leader may be, to promote how exciting and fun their ministry group is and what exactly this group has to offer kids out there.
Tyler Cheek
ReplyDeleteI feel like the success of games relies more on the person conducting the games even than the participants playing. While I was a teen I was blessed to have an amazing youth pastor named Jeremy Thompson. We would play a game every Wednesday night and it would never get old. Most of this is because Jeremy wouldn't only tell us how to play then send us off, but instead he would play with us and have a blast doing so. All of us would see him playing and enjoying himself and it would challenge each of us to do the same.
Games are still effective because of how beneficial they can be. Fighting through the entertainment barriers are a huge issue and it absolutely needs to be dealt with. Some really good as well as simply ways to get this done is by taking current tv shows including tv game shows and relating them to the games you are preparing for your ministry. For example, when fear factor was very popular my church did a contast similar to it, no we didn't have anyone eating live bugs but we did nasty things that challenged the group as well as brought in those watching into cheering and such. Recently I've heard of churches doing things related to deal or no deal and even the show wipeout. Implimenting these things into our game expierneces seems to be something that can easily be overlooked which causes engagement to soemtimes be left behind.
ReplyDeleteAre games still an effective resource that we must utilize in order to engage our students in ministry, and how can we fight through the entertainment barriers to get the kids involved?
ReplyDeleteI think that they are still very effective and like Tyler said it helps if the leader is playing the game with you and is excited about it. I think that we can find ways to incorporate technology into meetings, but I think games are important in helping to develop community. Also, like it was talked about how it can be engaging for people to play games that are taken from popular culture. There are a variety of ways to engage students with games and it is important to find ways to creatively connect the games to life as middle schoolers or high schoolers see it.
Ben Evans
ReplyDeleteI believe that games are still very valuable to our ministries. Games make students think differently than what they would normally think and it stretches them to do things that they probably wouldn't normally do. I remember different games that would help me to realize my strengths and weaknesses that I would have never really thought about outside of that context.
As for the entertainment barrier, I believe that we need to somewhat incorporate entertainment into our games and services. This is not something that should be done constantly because then the students might to associate media with church. While it brings up memories from those games and services, it might also make some bad associations that the church will have to deal with later. While I'm sure there is a happy medium for that, I can't pinpoint where it is at this point.
Justin Metz
ReplyDeleteWhen games are done correctly something beautiful happens. In all honesty though. When I was in the youth group I have to sadly say I was usually one of the guys that stood off to the side and listed all the reason in the world as to why whatever game we were playing was stupid. Although done a little differently and I had a few more years to mature I got to intern at a church that executed games beautifully. I go to witness a youth pastor bring together teens from so many different backgrounds every meeting with a game.
As for the media aspect I think that media can be used in games. Is it needed to be used in every game played... No. Its all about finding that happy medium that Ben or I can't pinpoint :)
Like pretty much everyone else, I agree that games certainly can be useful in ministry. I think the biggest key, like you mentioned, is to not get caught up in just doing games as entertainment. I think to get away from that we have to get in the habit of explaining the significance of each game to the teens. It is also good to reflect on the game afterwords and maybe discuss what significance the game had and what we can learn from it.
ReplyDeletegames are a for sure effective way of ministry. i mean, these are kids we are talking about you know. sure there are huge barriers with the entertainment industry and all the electronics that are out there today.... but when push comes to shove... when a kid comes to youth group.. he or she has energy and what better way to burn off that energy, than to play a game that gets their blood going and then tie it in with something practical and there ya go :)
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