Teamwork and the Church

Pastor Eric Kregel

Several years ago when I ran a church junior high ministry, I had lunch one day with a fellow who came up with highly imaginative games for our summer camps. Over a burger and pop, I said, “Kids are into role playing video games and I’d like to see if we could come up with a game that simulated that experience. You know, have items they had to find, monsters they had to defeat, and terrain they had to cover.” Andrew, our game guy, agreed. “The problem,” he said, “is that those video games are so individualistic. When you play them, you’re stuck, alone, to accomplish some quest and everyone else works against you. If we’re to be a Christian camp, our spin has to be that you work together in teams: using the gifts and talents of other people.” “And,” I said, liking this idea all the more. “The game should end, somehow, where all the teams work together to beat a common enemy or threat.” I thought for a bit, while I took another sip of pop. “But what can we have as a common enemy or threat?” “A clown,” Andrew said with conviction. “I’ve always been freaked out by clowns. They have big shoes, a big smile painted on their face, and wear bright colors. Something’s not right about them.” So we brainstormed an idea for this game. Every night at camp after dinner, the kids in our youth group would divide into teams and search around the camp for magical items (and if there were kids who didn’t like the idea of magic, we’d call the items ‘high science tools’). They pretended to be superheroes of some kind and, the only way they could win, was to defeat the enemy: the clown. Months before camp, the volunteer leaders spread the rumour there was a guy who lived near the camp who would stalk the grounds in the dead of night wearing a clown mask and chains. We warned the kids not to touch him because the last person who did mysteriously disappeared. Some kids forced us, for their own sanity needs, to admit we were spinning a yarn, while most saw through our fables as a way to build up this mammoth game for camp. We got to camp and, after dinner, got into the game with much success. Our magical (or ‘high science tools’) items were hid around camp: a plastic bat, an air-horn, a gas mask, and a neon-coloured rope. All of these items could be used, in some way, against the other teams but proved no match for the roaming clown. We told the kids they were to run from the clown and, under no circumstances, let the clown “get you”. We said to them that the clown looks for strays, kids who are not with their team. We really didn’t have any plan if the clown got near a student, it was just a device to keep the kids running and feel like something/someone was chasing them. The night the clown made his first appearance, both Andrew and I dressed up as clowns. Typically, I would wait at the bottom of the hill and Andrew would wait at the top, only Andrew would meet them at the top, giving the appearance that this fellow could teleport mysteriously from one place to the next. After doing this several times, I met with Andrew only to discover he padded his stomach with a pillow. Asking him about this, he replied, “Well, I have to look like you, Eric.” I gave him no comment. The last night, we told the kids that each team and their magical (or “high science tool”) item could not defeat the clown by itself but they had to work together. For about an hour, the teams had to work on putting aside their week’s worth of competition and rivalry to be united against the clown. After they banded together, they went hunting for the clown. Marching in mass down a long, dark, winding road with only their flashlights leading the way. After an hour’s search, their lights spotted a menacing, multi-coloured figure standing at the road’s summit. Hand in hand, they slowly crept to the clown. Andrew, inside the mask, told them resistance was useless. A girl put on the gas mask and accompanied a shaking boy clutching the plastic bat and air horn. The boy was told that if he tapped the clown with the bat, the rules would allow him to “freeze” the clown. If only the boy had done just a light tap! Instead, as he was overcome with fear and a newfound, raw courage, he swung at Andrew with the bat, knocking him down to the knees. As Andrew knelt to the ground, the boy blew the air-horn at the “clown” four inches from his ears. In triumph, the boy yawped, “We beat you! All of us beat you, clown!” At this point, Andrew gathered his composure and called off the game announcing that everyone was a winner. Later that night, Andrew asked at his cabin what they thought of the game. One boy smiled. “I know why you had us play that game,” he said. “You’re trying to teach us about the church. You see, we’ve all got to stick together and work as a team because there are things like clowns out in the world (Ex. drugs, anger, prejudice, gossip), trying to get you. No strays, no one is to be by themselves or the clowns of this world will get you. And we all have items and talents and skills, that we use together and not by ourselves. And Jesus ... He’s the magic that makes everything work.” Andrew agreed, pleased that the kids got the idea behind the game, although later he wanted to add the correction, “Or Jesus is our ‘High Science’, if magic isn’t your bag.”