Reverse Charades

"Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many."
-1 Corinthians 12:14
     I'm sure most of you reading this know what the game charades is. At my church, we like to play a variation of charades, known as "Reverse Charades". The premise of the game is just as simple as charades, with one interesting twist. Instead of one person acting out a word to the rest of the team, the team acts out a word to a single person. Although the game is simple, it is extremely fun to play. It's really fun to act out the words with your teammates, and to watch the other teams struggle to act out words.
     While playing reverse charades a couple days ago, I noticed something fascinating. When a team is acting out a word, the players tend to get very close to the guesser. I wondered why this is, and then it hit me; each member is trying to gain the attention of the guesser. What the players don't realize is that by doing this, they undermine the other players. Since a player is trying to demand the attention of the guesser, they want the guesser to only focus on them. However, the game is much easier when the players work together to act out a word, rather than trying to act it out alone.
     As you might have guessed from the verse I chose for this post, I'm going to connect this idea to the church. In reverse charades, everyone thinks they have the best interpretation of the word, so they try to act it out alone. However, if each player commits to acting the word together, the guesser has a much easier time figuring out what the word is. I believe the same is true in the church. Many times we have different interpretations of the Word, and we demand that our interpretation gets the most attention. What I learned from reverse charades is that in order to work together, sometimes you have to sacrifice your belief of how the word should be portrayed. In the same way, in order for unity to exist in the church, we sometimes have to sacrifice our belief of how the Word is meant to be portrayed.
     Of course, every person's interpretation of the Word should not be ignored. We shouldn't just submit to a single person's interpretation of the Bible. In reverse charades, you have to decide who has the best interpretation of the word, and then commit to that person's idea. People in the church are better at interpreting different parts of the Bible, and we should be willing to hear everyone's ideas. We then can decide as a church to work together to interpret the Bible in the best way we are able. The church struggles mightily if the people only demand that their ideas be heard. We should work together so that the Word of God prospers in our church.
-Smart