Created to Play: How Taking Hobbies Seriously Grows Us Spiritually
Brianna Lambert
3 min read ⭑
The squeal of the radio bounced against the concrete walls of our basement as my husband carefully turned the dial. Beside him, my eight-year-old perched on the white folding chair, clutching a small black microphone in his hand. His slight form arched with expectancy toward the unintelligible sounds coming from the speaker. It was the fourth weekend in June, or what’s referred to by ham radio operators as Field Day. On this day, radio operators across North America set up their radio stations in public spaces and homes in an attempt to contact as many stations as possible in a twenty-four-hour window. It was nearly midnight, and we had around fourteen hours to go. Beside my husband, pillows and sleeping bags spilled from the tent we set up in our basement. My two other kids lounged beside me on the floor, crunching popcorn and anxiously waiting for their own chance to talk.
In between muffled words and radio static, a solid voice became clearer: “CQ Field Day, CQ Field Day” rang out loud and crisp. My son immediately pressed the microphone button in his hand and began to repeat my husband’s call sign. The remaining four of us cheered quietly as my son exchanged information with a man sitting hundreds of miles away from our Indiana home. My son closed the exchange with, “73,” shorthand for “best regards,” and excitedly called out, “Michigan again!” His brother and sister jumped from the floor and raced toward their empty map of the United States to shade in another color inside the shape of Michigan.
Aedrian Salazar; Unsplash
Their maps began white but through the evening had transformed into a bright patchwork quilt. Colors painted states across the country and beyond: New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Washington, Puerto Rico, and even Canada. Each colored territory signified one person tethered to us for a moment. Though my three kids have never known life apart from smartphones and video calls, the connections made on Field Day every June still captivate them. Strangers, often thousands of miles apart, link for a moment through a simple radio and an antenna.
While every hobby provides opportunities for community, some specifically name us Connectors. It may not be radio waves that pull you to another, but instead the tiles of a board game spread out over the kitchen table. Others huddle around the screen of Monday Night Football as they link arms with anxious fans around the country. Some forge friendships with a game controller and a multiplayer video game on a Friday night, while others do so on the RC racing field. Each link welds us to another player, radio operator or friend holding a stack of cards across from us. These hobbyists not only connect with others but also carefully connect plays across the board game, on the screen or with their car. They play within the restrictions of their hobbies, connecting the actions that will hopefully lead to their objective. Between the dice rolls, time-outs and victories, these hobbies quietly pull us out of isolation and renew our connections to each other and to our ordered world.
“We shared the same purpose and the very same need for a Savior. Sometimes along the way we forget this. Maybe a game of Monopoly can help.”
Certainly, every hobbyist who plays within community will get the chance to reorient themselves to the connections God has made us for. Hobby clubs, groups and teams not only allow us to worship together, but they also remind us that we aren’t alone in this world. They urge us to renew the communal ties that so many of us have lost in an individualistic culture.
The superficial ties that link us as sports fans, game players and even ham radio operators can prod us to stop considering our life as a grain of wheat in a bucket and instead notice the chain that links us to the women and men around us. That evening in our basement, my kids and I connected with image-bearers across the globe through our ham radio, but our contact wasn’t new. Even before we pushed the button on the microphone, we were connected by the God who breathed life into our frame. We shared the same purpose and the very same need for a Savior. Sometimes along the way we forget this. Maybe a game of Monopoly can help.
Brianna Lambert is the author of Created to Play: How Taking Hobbies Seriously Grows Us Spiritually. Her articles and essays have appeared in Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, Common Good, Mere Orthodoxy and elsewhere. Brianna also serves on staff at Gospel-Centered Discipleship and helps serve with the women’s ministry at her local church. You can follow her writing on her Substack newsletter, From Glory to Ordinary.
Taken from “Created to Play” by Brianna Lambert. Copyright © 2026. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press.
