Posts by danieljkoren:
A life-giving game
The God who breathed life into the first human came and walked among us, saying, “The words I speak unto you are life.”
We, then, can either speak life with Him or kill people with our words.
I’ve been shocked at how hard it is for me to casually “speak life.” I’m more fluent in the language of current events, complaints, problems, and distractions.
Listen to what is said in the news and you will not find much good, uplifting conversation. Life-giving words do not flow freely in modern society, it seems. We have to learn a new language.
The role of the church is to give life to one another. To help develop a skill in lifting each other up with life-giving words, I came up with a “game.” It’s the kind of game where everyone wins.
Here’s how to play. First, everyone has to understand that there are four key areas each human develops. Jesus referred to our heart, soul, mind, and strength (body). You can find good things to say about each person in your local church on one or all of these elements.
Put everyone’s names in a hat (or bowl) and have another hat with the words “spiritual,” “soul,” “mind,” and “body” on individual pieces of paper multiple times (more pieces than there are people in the group). You will find it less awkward if you have men’s circles and women’s circles.
Each person draws a name and then a category.
If you have a really small group of 4 or less, you can each draw names and do your best to speak to that person’s qualities in each of those four categories.
They then speak to that quality in the randomly chosen person. For example, looking at the named individual, one might say, “You have strong spiritual sensitivity. I love how you pray with people who are hurting.” For the soul, one should speak to the person’s goals, desires, and personality, like so: “You have such a sense of adventure and inspire us to take on challenges many of us would never attempt without your encouragement.” For mind, one might say, “Thank you for taking the time to learn so much about organizing teams like you do—it really helps us all find our place.” For body, one could say, “Thank you for staying after the event Friday to move chairs and putting your muscles to work so some of us didn’t hurt ourselves.”
The person who is addressed simply responds with a meaningful “Thank you.”
Everyone wins in this game because when you “give life” you come alive yourself! The first time we did it, we didn’t want to stop. It should become more than a game, but a natural thing we do to build one another up often.
Pray before the game that the right things will be spoken that each person needs to hear and confirm what the Spirit is saying to the church. I’d love to hear back from you how this goes and other ways you learn to give life back to one another.