Game Night

Acts 2:42 - And they were devoted to the apostles’ teaching, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers.  

Instead of a worship service I spent the evening playing cards with a Las Vegas bank robber and a little girl who beat us both.  

You see, last week we were going to have a worship service that was going to be led by the Guests at the mission.  We were going to head down to Cornwall Park, which is a place that is special to a few of these guys, and they were going to explore the story of the reckless, runaway son (if you’ve spent any time in church you might know this story as the prodigal son) and teach us about forgiveness.  But most of these guys were sick, and they weren’t up for leading a service.  We decided to postpone their service until October.  Life happens.  

We still wanted to get together in September, so we hosted a game night.  Look, it’s going to take a long time for the youth, the poor and the disabled to cohere into some sort of group, because so many of our cultural influences push us apart rather than together.  This was a fun way for us to get to know each other and get comfortable being around each other.  And as we’ve been reading through the book of Acts, we’ve been noticing how often the early church ate together.  Back then, ink and parchment were incredibly expensive materials, so people didn’t write frivolously.  Details are important.  As we see how often the story talks about unusual groups of people eating together, we’ve wondered what it would be like for us to eat together when we get together.  

Last Wednesday, 26 September, was the day we got together.  I don’t enjoy being in a rush, so I left early the Mission to pick up the Guests and bring the back to my house so I could finish getting set up.  What happened next was one of the highlights of the evening for me:  The Guests sat down in my living room with my son Jackson, and they started reading his joke books and his “Worst Case Scenario Handbook”.  Listening to people who have survived some very terrible worst case scenarios was disruptive, and watching them hang out and have fun together for half an hour was beautiful. 

Other families came over, and soon we were all eating beef stew around the table together.  This is such a delightful way for us to live out our faith; I love it.  Coleton still loves to photobomb, and this was a fantastic moment for it: 

This active house with three teenagers has a lot of games, so it didn’t take folks long to find something that interested them: 

Emma also pulled out the waffle iron, and started cooking things like brownies and cinnamon rolls on the iron.  It’s one of our favorite things.  Next Thanksgiving, cook your dressing on the waffle iron.  Adjust the iron to the hottest setting, spray it with non-stick spray, put a cup of dressing on the hot iron, and push down on that lid as hard as you can.  In a few minutes you’ll have the crispiest, best dressing you’ve ever eaten.  You’re welcome.  

What can I say?  In so many ways it felt like a very normal evening.  People started and finished games, people wandered in and out of conversations, people got to know somebody else and be known by somebody from a different walk of life.  

And, yet, our differences still exist.  Many of the Guests would step outside from time to time to smoke a cigarette.  Smoking is a much less harmful addiction than the ones these Guests have had in the past, and it was good for us to experience that as a part of the rhythm of the evening.  “Playing cards with a Las Vegas bank robber” would make a great opening line to a country song, but the reality is starkly different and much more sad.  I also know plenty of high-functioning people who are deeply terrified of their brokenness and shame, and let me tell you, these Guests are outstanding listeners and great friends to people who need to connect with their own brokenness.  There is so much space for healing, love, forgiveness and new life around this table.  This evening was just a taste, just an introduction, to what ’the life together’ envisioned in the book of Acts can look like.  What a gift to be playing cards, getting clobbered by a little girl, and laughing together.  

At the end of the evening we sang “happy birthday” to one of the Guests, and then we called it a night: 

At the end of the evening, as we were cleaning up, Emma says to me, “Dad, this was great.  I love how you read the Bible and then say, ‘hey, let’s try this and see what happens’ and we got to do this with eating together and playing together tonight.  Way cool.”  

Way cool indeed.  Can’t hardly wait for October’s service.