After yesterday’s post about Boring Meeting Bingo, it’s only fair that I tell you about Silent Sermon Bingo. A decade or so ago, I was working as a Director of Religious Education at a Unitarian Universalist church. It was my first year working at that church, and the parish minister asked me to figure out how to better integrate children into the Easter service, which in that church was about the only time when the children were expected to sit through a full-length sermon. Fortunately, I had heard about Silent Sermon Bingo (I think it was Emily Leite who told me about it):–

Every child gets a bingo card upon entering the church. It’s a typical bingo card with a five-by-five array of squares. In each square are words that children might expect to hear during an Easter sermon (making sure there are at least five words in a row that the minister promises to use in the sermon). The instructions on the bingo card give the usual rules for bingo, with this added rule: “The most important rule is that this game is SILENT, so DON’T shout ‘bingo’ when you win!”

As you might guess, this game requires pretty good reading and comprehension skills, so it is really aimed at ages 9 through 12 — we came up with other activities to help out younger children (coloring books, mazes, etc.).

I have a very fond memory of sitting in the congregation about two pews back from a ten-year-old girl who was often rather, um, boisterous during intergenerational worship services. This time she was quiet as a mouse, hunched over her bingo card, listening intently to the sermon. About twelve minutes into the sermon, I saw her cross off one last word on her bingo card, then pump her fist and whisper, “Yes!” After that, the game apparently took so much out of her that she was quiet for the rest of the worship service.