April 17, 2000

Zany games teach teens to stay afloat in life
___By Michael Leathers
___Illinois Baptist
___CARBONDALE, Ill. (BP)--To understand what makes Brian Lukes tick, all you have to do is read the handwritten note from his teacher on his third-grade report card. "Brian would be better served," she wrote to his parents, "if he concentrated more on his studies instead of organizing games for everyone else."
___If only his teacher could see the 46-year-old today.

DRAWING INSPIRATION from the biblical account of Jesus walking on water, one game at God's Miracle Games 2000 had youth crawling across inner tubes held together with ropes to reach 'Jesus,' waiting in a rowboat to hear their memory verse. (BP photo by Stan Turner)

___He's still orchestrating games, undoubtedly wilder and crazier than any ideas he ever conceived for his childhood comrades. These games are part of a regional youth event sponsored each year by First Baptist Church of Cobden, Ill., where Lukes is a deacon, and held in Southern Illinois University-Carbondale's Student Recreation Center. Lukes is the assistant director of facilities and intramural-recreational sports at the center.
___The event features 10 games all linked by a common spiritual theme-- this year it was "God's Miracle Games 2000"--and each game revolves around a miracle in the Bible. The imaginative activities spring from Lukes' passion to see teenagers have a real relationship with Jesus Christ rather than going through the motions at church.
___During the course of this year's games, which began Friday evening, March 17, and went on until nearly 3 on Saturday morning, one team of youth hopped into paddleboats two at a time in the center's indoor pool. Pedaling furiously underneath a spray of water, they crossed to the other side to retrieve a stuffed animal in the Noah's Ark game. The more animals they brought back before time ran out, the more points they received.
___Nearby at the indoor track, teens played a game that mirrored the men in the Bible who broke through a roof so their paralytic friend could get to Jesus. Four youth lowered a dummy on a stretcher to their teammates on the track below. They ran with the dummy around the track, shouting out exuberant praises that the makeshift mannequin had been healed, as part of a timed relay.
___And over at a racquetball court, more youth frantically rewrote Christian lyrics to "Louie, Louie"--other groups opted for "Twist and Shout"--while choreographing a performance to be videotaped and shown later. Props and costumes--a drum set, toy guitars and a saxophone, plastic microphones and kazoos--littered the court.
___All this spirited chaos takes about seven hours to run its course, the product of three to four months of intense planning.
___As the high-energy rally inches closer each year, Lukes admitted he sometimes wonders if he's crazy to put so much energy into it. But "the Holy Spirit won't let it go," he said.
___About 90 adults staffed God's Miracle Games 2000. The rally is in its 12th year, starting out as an open-rec all-nighter to give the church's teens something to do. It soon evolved into an organized recreational event, which later incorporated a central spiritual

BRIAN LUKES

theme.
___Some of the past themes have taught teens about the real meaning of Christmas, the reality of the resurrection and that there is no such thing as luck, Lukes said. First Baptist Church of Cobden commits $1,500 to the outreach, with donations and an admission charge picking up the rest of the costs. Students came from 10 other churches, including Methodists, Catholics, Pentecostals and Nazarenes.
___To keep the games organized, workers divided the youth into 10 teams. Each team started at a different game, rotating to a new one every 20 minutes when an air horn trumpeted the signal. Often starting out with a brief devotion, each game had an assigned memory verse that youth had to recite during most of the games to earn points.
___As part of a game that reflected the time when Peter caught an abundance of fish in his boat after obeying Jesus, the teens first watched a clip from the widely used "Jesus" video depicting the biblical account. Then they marched to two canoes in the pool, taking turns casting a net into the water to try and snag plastic-foam cylinders, red and blue plastic boards and two bobbing duck decoys--the latter being top point prizes.
___Another game, based on Jesus feeding 5,000 with a few loaves of bread and some fish, was a timed relay race. A team member ran to the end of a gym, recited the memory verse and raced back with a basket of sandwiches that team members had to eat before going back for another helping.
___It sounds simple enough, but the catch was in the ingredients. Sardines and peanut butter were wedged between some bread slices. Others contained Tabasco sauce and pickles. Each team ate five loaves of bread and a couple of fish sandwiches. And one adventurous soul earned bonus points for his team by volunteering to swallow a live goldfish.
___The most meaningful game on the program for Lukes wasn't even a game at all. The stop, called "No Greater Love," was in the dance studio, where Lukes waited with a set of metal spikes. Asking the teens to hold the spikes for at least 30 seconds, he showed them another clip from the Jesus video, in which Jesus was whipped and beaten, carried his cross to Calvary and was nailed into place by Roman soldiers.
___That was the price Jesus was willing to pay to atone for the sins of everyone, Lukes said. "Did you hear John ask you to become a Baptist? No," he said, referring to the message earlier in the evening. "Did you hear John ask you to become a Catholic? No." Christianity is more than belonging to a man-made denomination, he said, challenging them "to look inside of you" to see if they had surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ.
___

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