Hut Church in Fairfield has come up with a novel approach to youth ministry, centred around playing board games with local youth in the local shopping centre.

The idea, now in its second term of operation, came from a desire to kick start a youth group that was culturally relevant and focused on youth from the local area.

“A lot of the guys at Hut Church did grow up in the area but they didn’t spend any time socially in Fairfield,” says Hut Church senior minister Steve Frederick. “A lot of them are from a Vietnamese background, whereas almost all the youth around Fairfield are Iraqi or Iranian, and so we just didn’t have any networks within the Assyrian community or with those youth. The guys from my church were a bit daunted, actually. I’ve never seen South East Asians sitting down with Middle Easterners in Fairfield, ever, and so it’s been quite exciting to see that as well.”

Mr Frederick says the group, which averages between 10-20 youth every Thursday evening, has also proven a unique avenue for meeting parents and local adults that have previously had no contact with the church.

A Bible Study has recently been added before the games start, with an average of nine kids from outside Hut Church arriving to participate.

"We've been doing the bible studies for two weeks now, so it is still pretty experimental," says Mr Frederick, "but the turn out has been good. We've ended up with an average of 9 kids turning up to read the bible with us before we open up the boardgames.

"Some kids who have turned up early for boardgames have decided to join in the bible reading on the spur of the moment, others deliberately came early to join in. We've even had a few parents listen in and encourage their kids to join. Running the bible reading meetings before the board games has also opened up conversations with parents and shopping centre staff about their own beliefs and experiences with Christianity."

Even the local shops have been supportive.

“On our first night here, one of the guys who ran a juice store near where we were doing our board games called me over and said ‘Ah, can you do this every night? The kids are always here, they run around, it’s chaos.’ He thought it was good to have something a bit more organised for them,” says Mr Frederick.

“We’ve gotten to know the cleaners, they’re a bit curious about it cause we’re here till quite late. So we have a bit of an agreement that’s developed, they let us know when they’re getting around to our area, and we back up and have the place clear for them by the time they get to us.

The game of choice for the group these days is backgammon, which traces its origins to 30th century BC Persia.

“We began by having things like Connect 4... different kinds of versions of Chinese checkers,” says Mr Frederick. “Games that have a bit of a visual presence to them. However, we’ve moved away from some of the more children-oriented games like Connect 4 because we did find it attracted a huge number of primary school kids and infants, and the mums would bring them and then sit to one side.

“We were more targeted at youth, and didn’t want to become just a child-minding service, so we’ve started leaving a few of those games at home, and are now using backgammon, and other older aged games. And that gets us in the pocket of kids from year 5 to year 10.”

Mr Frederick says the early success of the group can at least partially be attributed to its being an activity that the Assyrian community in particular enjoy and are familiar with.

“I noticed that the older [Assyrian] men, they have their own card playing shop fronts, owned by their specific communities from various places in Iraq and Iran and the like,” he says. “I noticed that they already do something similar to what we’re trying to do, it’s obviously not something that’s too far out there.”

“I think, when I first suggested it to the guys at my church, they told me they were pretty sceptical. They thought we were just going to come and sit by ourselves, and I don’t think they could imagine why anyone would want to join in with boardgames. I think for them it’s been a good process of learning about the culture of the area that they’re actually in. Even though they’ve lived here, because they’re from distinct ethnic groups, there’s not a lot of mixing, and I think, not necessarily a lot of understanding.”

The next step for the group is to start running a simple Bible study before the games, giving opportunities to share the gospel with local youth, while also networking them with school scripture classes and teachers, one of whom also attends the board game nights.