I have a bit of a thing for board games. Most people love to spend an evening in front of the telly or chatting over dessert, but in my family the board games come out. It just seems the right time on a cosy evening to draw battle lines and pit friend against friend, family member against family member, loved one against loved one all in the name of fun.
And I’m glad to say, I’m not the only one. It seems that there are secret board game connoisseurs across all of St Mary’s. I’m told that 80% of the members at the newly opened board game cafe ‘Sip and Conquer’ in Maidenhead are church family. Maybe a bit of hyperbole, but you get the point. It therefore seemed only natural to bring some competitive spirit here to St Mary’s on a Saturday night.
It was a shame I was so woefully underprepared. After volunteering to organise Games Night, I realised I owned but one board game, hadn’t made the church family aware of the event, and the date was just around the corner.
Luckily, we have an incredibly generous church family and a couple of messages found me four people willing to help with tea and coffee, a slew of games and Jane Thrift’s immeasurable patience.
Despite this, I worried the Saturday away: would people come, would there be enough games, would I manage to get into the church hall, would my singular pack of biscuits and multipack of crisps do the job? In the end, I sat down on my sofa and prayed.
“Lord,” I said, “I’ve not done enough to make this a success. I can count 11 people who have said they will come. I don’t have enough snacks. I’m not sure how to use the coffee machine. I don’t have a key to the church hall. I know I should have found this out, and I don’t really deserve your help, but I need it. Please.”
And I set off to church.
I kid you not that when I walked in the church was open for training and Johan Schoeman gifted me his key for the evening. There was a basketball hoop game in the hall. Someone, who didn’t know the Games Night was happening, dropped off three big boxes of cake and said she couldn’t stay, but she had these cakes spare. Another brought sourdough, another butter, another cheese. I thought we should move to the Nash room because it would look fuller and more cosy, but 45 people turned up, and we were overspilling the tables we had laid out in the hall.
And, boy, did we have fun.
There were people laughing, shrieking, meeting new people, eating cake, trying their luck with the basketball hoop. Someone brought Jumanji, and we were ready for Robin Williams to be raised from the dead. Others played that reliable fun one ‘Taco, Goat, Cheese, Pizza’ that I still don’t understand. Children were buzzing around on the deck in the last of the sun, and the people just kept rolling in.
It was fellowship at its finest. A family spending a summer evening just enjoying being together. My crisps were surplus to requirement. The cup had ‘runneth’ over, if you catch my drift.
And to top it all off my non-Christian friend who had come along asked for the first time what we actually did at church. I still haven’t quite got him through the door, but he wanted to know what all these lunatics were doing giving up their Saturday evening to just spend time together. I probably gave him an insufficient answer, but I told him that’s just what church family do, and did he want to come to the next one?