As the Raising the Nation Play Commission publishes its eagerly awaited report on play, Gareth Crispin investigates the power and importance of play for our youth, children, communities and churches
Today the Raising the Nation Play Commission released it’s report Everything to Play For: A Plan to Ensure Every Child in England Can Play - it shows that spaces and opportuntities for play in the UK are being eroded and that perhaps unsurprisingly youth and children in the UK are some of the unhappiest in Europe. How can parents and churches play their part in addressing this? Well before we get to that let’s wind back and think what play actually is.
What is play?
Play is a funny thing. Everyone knows intuitively what it is but struggles to define it. It’s fun, but it is also a serious business. We associate it with children but deep-down love it as adults. It comes naturally and yet we seem also to spend a lot of time working at it. Play, it turns out, is a bit of a paradox.
Play theorist (yes there is such a job!) Johan Huizinga defines play as having a number of facets. Firstly, play has to be voluntary; if it isn’t, it can never be play as it becomes a forced task. Secondly, whilst the rules of any play must be freely accepted there have to be rules – when people break the rules play is ruined and others claim, “that’s not fair!” Thirdly, and perhaps, most importantly, for something to be play it must be done for itself – an activity is not play if it is done for a benefit that comes from it. Play comes with joy but it is not explicitly done for the joy.
Professional footballers provide us with a helpful picture of this last point. Once, a former Premiership footballer told me that every single professional he had ever met stopped enjoying playing as soon as he received his first pay cheque. Once you play for something else other than the game itself it stops being play and it stops bringing joy.
Why is play important?
Everything to Play For, acknowledges the need for play to be done for itself rather than for anything else it also does go on to list out a myriad of benefits that do come from play. Fostering play amongst children is the way to combat many of the issues faced further down the line. It improves mental health outcomes, helps develop communication and language, improves physical, personal, social, and emotional development as well as helping with a range of life skills such as, risk analysis, problem-solving, self-regulation, negotiation and resilience.
Read more:
It’s not all in the head - Physical activity is really important for the mental and spiritual health of youth and children
Why God invented the game: Five faith‑filled reasons sport matters to your family
The online world: Friend or foe for Christian youth and children?
These effects are felt throughout someone’s life, from childhood, through adolescence and on into adulthood – it is even suggested that they will be key in helping emerging generations adapt to the changing world that AI is bringing about. Because play fosters creativity, curiosity, imagination and builds critical cognitive skills it will be central in helping children and young people negotiate an every changing social and work landscape.
How can we encourage play in our homes, communities and churches
The report gives us good enough reasons to promote play in our homes, communities and churches, but also notes some challenges such as the reduction of local authority funded play areas, the reduction of school break times and the negative link between poverty and play spaces. In promoting play, we might therefore consider not only ideas that impact our own homes and churches but also initiatives that build opportunities for play in our local area as a blessing to them.
Play in the home
If you’re anything like me, when your sons and daughters say they are bored a switch is flicked. You go into activity provision mode, racking your brain to think of what to do (if you’re like me) or simply bringing out one of your ready-made ideas (if you’re like my wife). We might be tempted to sit them in front of a screen (it gives us a rest right!?) but the harder options are often the ones that bring most benefit, curating a space to play can be a great gift for your children. Sometimes this might mean bringing out a board game (yes youth and children still do play them), playing video games WITH them, or using physical playful objects such as Playdough or Hama Beads.
what is creation if not a cosmic act of play on God’s part?
Most importantly though it will be helpful to build up the capacity for our children to learn to create their own play. This might be difficult for some of us to see through as we may be in a cycle of provision where our children expect us to do everything and never let them play freely. Gardens are prime places for children to play freely but 1 in 8 families have no garden (1 in 5 in urban areas) – if you have a garden maybe this can be an opportunity for you to bless others by encouraging them to use it when possible.
Play in our communities
You might have amazing facilities near you, but many don’t. Many areas suffer from a dearth of places for youth and children to play. This issue requires local campaigning to improve provision in our public places. You might need to write to your MP and local council and start social media groups to create a support base for change. Clearly there are funding issues, but it is possible to also find sponsors, businesses and benefactors in the local community that will be open to providing the funding needed to refurbish what is there and create new facilities too.
Play in our churches
Whilst all the above is good, Christians have a great deal more to think about and say. When I once asked a four-year-old why God made the world he sniffed and said nonchalantly “coz he wanted to” - what is God’s creation if not a cosmic act of play on God’s part? If you doubt that check it back against the definition we started with – it fits.
In C S Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the White Witch oversees a hierarchical, tyrannical regime in Narnia; by contrast, there is a great sense in which life with Aslan is like a game, a fun game, a good game. The children play with Aslan at various points in the story, but it is not open-ended, boundaries support the game, make it possible, Alsan provides a framework for what can and cannot be.
Maybe we should encourage our church ministers to think about how a more playful attitude can be fostered in our churches. Maybe instead of having all elements of a church service nailed down to the nearest ten seconds we could have times that are less planned, more opportunity for organic authentic response. Some of the most profound and moving moments in my church experience have been unplanned. Perhaps that should not surprise us, after all, no one ever told Aslan when to stand up and sit down.
This article was originally published in February 2025 after publication of the Raising the Nation Play Commission’s interim report.
