On December 10th, James Naismith's original rules of basketball--which he penned in 1891--
will go up for auction. As I was reading the story, it struck me that Naismith's version of "Basket Ball" might very well be the first youth ministry game in recorded history. He created the game as a YMCA physical education instructor, at a time when the "C" in YMCA was emphasized. Like all great youth ministry ideas, the game was created at the eleventh hour just before a deadline. In addition,
Naismith reported later that the young men who played the game did not show much interest at first and had a hard time keeping to the rules, including tackling one another, paving the way for other youth ministry games that would suffer the same fate.
So, until I find out otherwise via scrupulous and tireless research, I hereby declare that James Naismith created the first youth ministry game in early December 1891. As always, I am open to being shown wrong, so please let me know if you discover an earlier youth ministry game.
