Published by IVP on May 19, 2026
Genres: Non-Fiction, Christian Life
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What If You Saw Your Hobbies as a Form of Worship?
Maybe you're an athlete or collector, a chef or film critic, a painter or video gamer. Your hobbies aren't arbitrary passions. The same God who formed your muscles and nervous system also formed the specific ways you love to play. He understands the delight you feel in your garden or your excitement as you open up a new board game. And he calls it good.
We often view play as a distraction from life's serious responsibilities, but in Created to Play, Brianna Lambert reveals the ways God blesses your hobbies and uses them to form and pull you into worship. Lambert explores ten different titles you may inhabit in your play: Beholder, Curator, Maker, Herald, Restorer, Connecter, Nourisher, Mover, Caretaker, and Historian.
This book helps you view your hobbies as opportunities not just for individual expression but also for communal enjoyment. With winsome practicality and theological reflection, Lambert draws you to glory in the God who loves and teaches you through play.
With Created to Play, you will:
Explore how hobbies shape your spiritual formation, offering a fresh perspective on the theology of hobbies and leisure.
Identify yourself among ten unique roles we take on through hobbies, uncovering how play shapes your identity in Christ.
Learn to embrace rest and joy through hobbies, reenvisioning leisure as life-giving rather than wasteful.
Challenge your guilt around play by learning how hobbies can form you spiritually, draw you into worship, and help you reflect God's character.You can experience how God is already participating in your hobbies with you, sharing in the joy they bring. If you are seeking a biblical perspective on your hobbies or struggling to enjoy leisure amid the demands of a busy life, this book can help you reclaim play as a vital part of spiritual formation.
Play isn't about what you get or achieve but about who you become in the process.
Every once in a while, I read a book that is totally different than anything I’ve ever read before. In Created to Play, author Brianna Lambert offers a unique and much-needed corrective in how we think about leisure and hobbies, and I enjoyed it tremendously. Lambert encourages Christian readers to see play as part of a flourishing life, rather than a guilt-inducing distraction or simply a means to an end. She gives examples of many different ways that hobbies can enrich our lives, showing that they are part of enjoying God’s creation and bringing glory to Him.
The chapters throughout this book focus on different groups of hobbies. For example, in the chapter about “the heralds,” Lambert focuses on hobbies that involve declaring goodness and beauty to others, such as writing, singing, taking photos, and book reviewing. (I loved the unexpected shout-out to book reviewing, of course!) Other chapters are about themes like nourishing people, making things, restoring objects, and curating history. Even though some hobbies fall into multiple categories, the author did a great job of thinking through how to organize them, exploring the spiritual significance of each variety of hobby. No matter how niche or unusual someone’s favorite hobby is, it will fit into one of these categories.
In each chapter, Lambert reflects on the spiritual meaning behind that type of hobby, and she describes both the “deep joy” and “key temptation” that comes along with each one. I found each chapter insightful, and this book guides readers in thinking about how what we do for fun shapes us as people and grows our character, whether we realize it or not. Lambert emphasizes that we should enjoy our hobbies as good gifts from God, rather than treating them as self-improvement exercises. Nonetheless, she shows that being playful comes with all kinds of physical, mental, and spiritual benefits.
Created to Play: How Taking Hobbies Seriously Grows Us Spiritually is a soul-stirring, joyful book, and I highly recommend it. Regardless what you like to do with your free time, this book has wisdom and encouragement for you. Also, don’t skip any of the chapters! Even when a topic didn’t appear relevant to my interests, I still found some of the bigger ideas helpful for different aspects of my hobbies and life experience. Everything about this book was a blessing to me, and I highly recommend it.
