Putting on a VBS at an orphanage is a beautiful way to bring Christ into the lives of children who have very little hope and engage your students in the needs of others. Materials Needed: You will need three homes for hosting various parts of the dinner. Progressive dinners for adults have been around for years. However, you can plan a progressive dinner designed specifically for your students. Materials Needed: You will need money for concert tickets, transportation and adult supervision.
Christian concerts are an absolute favorite for many. There is something unique about the experience. It is unlikely they will forget the outing. Your prayer should be that this concert will be a pivotal event for your kids, one which solidifies their faith as they see so many other young people worshiping the Lord.
Materials Needed: You will need a movie on a DVD or through a streaming subscription, a place to watch the movie with your group, and snacks. Using a Zoom movie night is an easy way to keep your youth connected.
Frequently, it is hard for youth to get to spend time together. Reasons could be weather-related or, it could be pandemic-related. However, the fun does not have to stop for your youth group. Materials Needed: You will need money for a ski trip, appropriate clothing and ski equipment, and adult chaperones. A ski trip will be a great opportunity to have focused time with your students.
It will be easier to spend time with your group every day there because they will be away from the distractions of home. Many churches do pop-up events for small children, but your pop-up events would take place in the neighborhoods where your youth live. A youth pop-up event will be fun for your students. It is an opportunity to intentionally work toward reaching the youth in the surrounding neighborhoods of your church.
Are you looking for a great way to get your group back together after a long summer? Holding a pizza night will be a temptation that most could not resist. A build your own pizza night is a simple way to get your kids back through the doors and prayerfully bring new youth into the youth group.
This event will be the first time for many of your kids to pray for other areas in the world. When we pray for the lost and suffering of this world, the Lord allows us a glimpse into His heart. Materials Needed: You will need some world maps, black markers, paper, and pens. It is exciting to think that if your group is big enough, you can pray for the world in just one night! Movies in the park, what great fun for your youth group!
Your movie night will provide a perfect avenue to invite their friends. Materials Needed: You will need a projector, DVD player or any other streaming device, a projector, a king-sized sheet hung from two trees or two net frames for sports like soccer or volleyball, blankets and snacks.
This is an incredible way to bless your local refugee agency or Christian clinic. They tirelessly work to help women find ways to keep their babies or assist them with putting their babies up for adoption. Many young women would welcome a gift, and the agency could use any funds you raise. Materials Needed: You will need materials to make diaper trees, bags for bagging the completed diaper trees, and pizza for the volunteers. Many agencies are working to help refugees assimilate into our culture.
There are many beneficial ways that your youth could be a part of their ministry. When we teach our students to serve while still young, God will use their service to shape them into His instruments. Serving others is an experience that will stay with your kids for the rest of their lives.
God says in Acts that He is who moves the boundaries of people so that perhaps they will seek Him. Involving your youth in serving vulnerable members of our world population will help them see that some need prayers and help. Additionally, the Lord may use this event to call some of your youth into the ministry. There is so much emphasis on our digital life in our culture. Take some time to unplug from all the distractions that come from technological lives.
Set up a camping trip at a national park or some other camping area and make a memorable event that your youth will not forget. Materials Needed: You will need money for the trip, appropriate footwear and supplies, and adult chaperones. We all hear God better when we take time away from distractions, and the youth need it more than ever. Perhaps this will be the first time they experience the closeness of God as He woos them to be set apart for Him.
This trip will be an incredible opportunity to see Him work! What an exciting road trip when you are going to a conference! Load up your youth group and take them to a youth conference to be recharged and refreshed.
How often do we need this as adults? If adults need spiritual uplifting from time to time, imagine what our youth need.
Materials Needed: You will need funds for a trip, transportation and adult chaperones. Our youth are facing challenges and stresses every day that we never had to handle.
Give them a break from the sometimes toxic culture we live in and help them learn how to focus on Christ. We hope there are some fun activities and ideas here to help your youth group pray together and stay together!
How to Play: You will need to purchase a stuffed cat and mouse, or it could be a stuffed dog and cat. Ask your students to sit in a circle. Give the mouse to a student on one side of the circle, and the cat to someone on the opposite side.
A youth worker will play a song on a guitar or piano at a normal speed to start. Then they alternate fast and slow speeds to make the game great fun. The students pass the mouse and the cat around the group at the same speed as the music. They repeat this until the cat catches the mouse. The student left holding the mouse when the cat catches it is out.
You can devise a fun game for the losers that makes them feel a little less like losers. How to Play: You can choose any object for the students to pass, but they must do something with the item before passing it to the next person.
For example, if using a scarf, they wrap it around their neck once and then pass it to the next person. A bucket would also work. They would need to stand up and turn in a circle, then sit down and pass the bucket to the next person. One of the youth workers will sit with their back to the group and play a song on the guitar or piano. They will set the speed at which the game moves.
The key to the fun is that they must do something with the object before passing it on, and everything must move to the speed of the music. At the end of the game, the music suddenly stops. The last person holding the object is out. Trivia 2. How to Play: Draw an easily identifiable image on a large sheet of kraft paper or poster board.
It should be something recognizable. Attach the drawing or printed images on the wall. Make numbered sheets and use them to conceal the drawing. Write corresponding numbers on the back of index cards, and then write trivia questions based on your current lessons on the front side of the card. Divide students into teams, and each team will take turns drawing a number.
If they answer the trivia question correctly, they get to remove the matching number over the image on the wall and guess the drawing or scripture. The questioning continues until they reveal enough of the picture, and someone guesses what it is. How to Play: You will want to play this game in a space that is easy to clean. Fill portions of large-sized balloons with whipping cream and hang them from the ceiling or a tree limb outside. Hang the balloons with string or fishing line.
The string or fishing line allows the balloon to move freely and adds a little more challenge to the game.
Give the students a time limit to design and construct a sword out of aluminum foil. When time is up, blindfold the students and line them up in front of a balloon. Assign leaders to help determine the winner. How to Play: Print Bible story images from the internet and assign each photo a number. Write the corresponding numbers on index cards, fold them and place them in a bucket or hat. Each student will have a turn to draw a number from the bucket, and then you will show the student the corresponding photo.
If they can tell you what Bible story the photo represents, they get to keep the slip with the number. If they guess wrong, return the number to the bucket.
When they have identified all the photos, the person with the most index cards wins the game. You could play this game for fun or use it as a review time at the end of a series of lessons. How to Play: Divide students into small groups and give each group several rolls of toilet paper or crepe paper. Each group chooses a mummy, and the elected mummy stands still while their teammates roll them up.
In place of paper, you could also use fabric purchased in the clearance aisle of your local sewing store. You cut the fabric into long strips and use it in place of the paper. For an added element of fun, have props to put on the mummy once they finish wrapping. When all teams finish their mummies, award prizes to the first to complete their mummy and the most creative mummy. Tennis Bible Trivia Materials Needed: The object of this game is to have the most tennis balls in your basket at the end.
How to Play: Divide students into teams and give each the same amount of tennis balls. Ask each person a Bible trivia question. For each correct answer, they throw a tennis ball into a round laundry basket across the room. If the ball remains in the basket, it counts as a point for their team. If it bounces out, it does not count. At the end of all the questions, the team with the most balls that stayed inside their basket wins. The Photo Puzzle Materials Needed: With very little prep time, you can apply a lesson on God as the creator and designer of all things.
How to Play: Take a full-page magazine photo or printed photo and tear it into random, jagged pieces. Insert the pieces into a large deflated balloon.
Then blow the balloon up and shake things up. Divide students into small groups, and each group chooses a balloon. Assign a time limit and give a warning as the end is getting close. The game begins when the groups burst their balloons, then they try to put the photo back together.
The first team to put the picture together wins. How to Play: Determine the number of players you will have and get enough small balloons for each.
You will also need enough laundry baskets for each team. Each player has a turn at rubbing a balloon on their clothes to build enough static electricity for it to stick to them. Then they walk over to the laundry basket without the balloon falling or them holding it in place. If the balloon falls off, the player can reapply and start again from that spot.
The winner is the team with the most balloons in their basket. How to Play: Ask for everyone to put some personal items on a table. It could be things like sunglasses, a watch, keys, a hairbrush or comb, a pen, chewing gum, etc. Ask for a volunteer to be the detective. Allow them a few minutes to look at the objects on the table, and then they will leave the room.
Another volunteer will choose an item from the table and conceal it in their pocket, purse, or somewhere in the room. Now the detective returns and must first determine what is missing from the table and then who took it.
Once they guess which object is missing from the table, they then interrogate the other students to discover the thief. Allow your detective a set number of questions based on the group size and assign a time limit for each round. The questions should lead them to who took the item. For example, is the thief a boy or a girl? Tall or short? Hair color, wearing red or blue, etc. They interrogate the students until they guess who took the object, have used all their questions, or until time runs out.
How to Play: Fill your balloons partially with water, and you want them jiggly. Give each team a shovel. Divide your teams into two groups and station them across from each other. If possible, have the same number of players on each side. Give the first player a shovel and place a water balloon on the shovel. They must then take the shovel and balloon as quickly as they can to their team member across from them, and this continues until every person has had a turn.
The first team to pass the shovel and balloon to all the team members wins. If they drop the balloon, they must return to the starting point and begin again. How to Play: Create several good story beginnings and write them on index cards. Read the opening line of a story and choose the first youth to say the next part. It surprised him to see her standing where she was.
You can decide when to end a story and move on to another one. Escape Room Bible Trivia Materials Needed: As far as youth group games go, this one certainly is unique and offers a fun time! How to Play: If your church is big enough, choose different Sunday school classrooms for each escape room. If too small for this, prepare several areas of the church to use for the escape area.
Assign at least one leader to each room. They administer the questions or tasks to each team that enters. Divide students into teams, and they choose an escape room to start with. It could also be a Pictionary-type task where one team member must draw a picture of a bible subject, and the others guess what it is. Your escape rooms can be as fun and crazy as you like. If they cannot complete the task, they move to the next room and do not receive a token.
Once all teams have attempted each room, the end the team with the most tokens wins. How to Play: Design duct tape dartboards with some tape sticky side out.
Put it on the ground, at an angle, and not flat. Use duct tape to put a line a few feet away from the board. Assign a leader to keep score. Put some duct tape, sticky side out, on each ping pong ball. Divide your group into teams and give them enough ping pong balls for each player.
Based on your number of players and allotted time, assign the number of chances each person gets to toss their ping pong ball at the target.
You can divide your board into point sections like a dartboard and keep score that way. Or you can assign a point value to each ball that sticks and count how many are on the board after each team member has their turn.
The group with the most points wins. How to Play: Divide a playing field or grassy area into lanes. They need to be wide enough that a participant can roll their pumpkin easily. Purchase enough pumpkins for your teams to each have one. Get equal-sized and shaped pumpkins so that each team has the same chance of success.
Put half of a team on one side of the lane and the other half opposite them. The object of the game is to roll a pumpkin to their team member across from them as quickly as possible. The teams roll a pumpkin back and forth until all team members have had a turn. The first team to finish the relay wins. How to Play: Set up some rain boots along the wall with plenty of space between each boot.
Divide your youth into teams and give each team the same number of pennies. They should work together to determine the best way to pitch the pennies into their boot. Mark starting points at the same distance from each boot and let the pitching begin. Each team member should have the opportunity to throw their pennies. Once all the youth have tossed their pennies, the winning team is the one who has the most pennies in their boot. Alternatively, you could use a bucket, an opened umbrella, or a can.
The Quickest Hands Win Materials Needed: This is a great icebreaker game as the youth get to know each other by working together.
How to Play: Get a set of playing cards for each team and put a pack on each table. It would be a good idea to cover your tables if they are slick. Divide your youth group into teams and assign a table to each.
The first team who successfully builds a card house with the most cards wins. You can award a special prize to the team who uses all their cards. Hit the Cans Materials Needed: This is a simple carnival game adapted to be played inside and with teams. How to Play: Assign a point value for each can. Recruit a leader to be a scorekeeper.
If possible, recruit a leader for each location to restack the cans. Set up a pyramid of cans on a table or the floor for each team and mark starting points at the same distance for each.
Give a ping pong ball to each team member. Each person steps up to the line and throws their ping pong ball, trying to knock the cans down. At the end of each turn, record the score, and then the next youth takes their turn. Once every person has had their turn, you can tally the score or do another round.
The one with the most points wins. Water Pitcher Relay Materials Needed: For this fun classic game, you will need enough plastic water pitchers, round tubs, and plastic buckets for the number of teams you will have. How to Play: Divide your students into teams. The first person for each team will start by running across the field to the round tub and filling their water pitcher. Note: the water pitcher can be as small or big as you want.
They must get back to the other side as quickly as possible to empty their pitcher into the bucket. They then pass their pitcher on to the next person in line.
You could add some fun by putting objects in the middle of the path and asking them to circle around it going and coming back. The first team to fill their bucket wins. How to Play: Take the large playing cards and tape the printed images on the face of the card. Mix them up and place them face down on a table. Assign a time limit for each turn and time each student. Each youth will come up and try to find all the matches in the quickest time. How to Play: Purchase enough tennis balls for each team.
Collect enough clean aluminum cans to use as bowling pins. You can fill the cans with sand or pebbles to make the game a little harder. Recruit leaders to help keep score for each team.
Each student gets two chances to know all their cans down. Assign the starting score of 50 points for each turn. Deduct 10 points for each of the cans that remain upright. The team with the most points wins. Harvest Hay Maze Materials Needed: Take advantage of the late summer hay harvest by setting up a challenging hay maze.
How to Play: Locate a friendly farmer who will loan you a trailer full of hay bales. Draw your complicated maze on paper for that the volunteers can see the design they are working toward.
Recruit adult leaders to set up the maze. Bribe them with food, and you will get more to help. Set a timer and have the youth start one at a time. Once one is halfway through the maze, start the next player. The person who gets through the maze the quickest wins. Dunk the Youth Pastor Materials Needed: Your youth will line up for an opportunity to play this game, so you should brush up on your Bible trivia. Each youth gets a turn at asking you, the youth pastor, a question.
Each wrong answer results in a turn, hopefully, to dunk you. This is a fun summer game that would be great for use with your youth Vacation Bible School. How to Play: You will choose your own trivia questions or facts and write them on an index card. Set up enough whiteboards for each team. Divide your youth group into teams.
Give the first player of each team a trivia subject to draw. Have your youth leaders keep track of the teams who successfully guess their subject. The team with the most completed trivia questions wins. Pin the Answer on the Map Materials Needed: All you will need to do this fun question-and-answer time is a map of biblical Israel, pushpins, and a list of geographical questions. How to Play: Prepare a list of questions on biblical geography.
You should have a well-balanced list of questions, from easy to hard. Here is an example: Question: Where did Jesus walk on water? Answer: The sea of Galilee. Easier for those newer to the faith and harder for those who have been in church for a long time. Place your map of Israel on a bulletin or corkboard. Provide enough color-coded pins to cover all your questions. You should have a different color for each team. Divide your group into small teams. Every student should answer a question.
If the student answers the question correctly, they get to put the pin on the map at the location they answered. If they answer incorrectly, the question goes back into the mix.
Once the students have answered all the questions, the one with the most pins on the map wins. Guess Who Materials Needed: This is an easy way to just have some fun. How to Play: Choose one student to leave the room. They will be the ones asking questions. All remaining students in the room will sit in a circle. The student outside now returns to the room blindfolded and enters the circle. How to Play: Choose two students to start the game.
They sit in chairs facing each other. Give one of the students some index cards with random words written on them. Assign a time limit to the game. Start the timer, and the person holding the cards says words that will lead the person opposite of them to guess the correct word.
The team wins if they can get through all the words given to them. If they lose, they are out. If they win, they wait for a playoff. Once all the teams have had a turn, you take all the winners and start the process all over again to pull out the next group of winners. Now, do a playoff round. The team to guess the greatest number of cards wins. Pick Your Box Materials Needed: This is based on the millionaire game that was popular a few years ago.
How to Play: Get a large selection of cardboard boxes and write large, bold numbers on one side with a marker. Fill each box with something. It could be a box of balloons they escape when they open the box , or it could have some candy or treats.
Every box should have something inside, but one should have a special gift. Maybe a gift card to Sonic or another favorite local spot. Create a list of trivia questions that are a review of material you have studied over the past few months. You should also include some basic questions to use if you have new members in your group. Set up your room like a game show set.
Organize the boxes on tables, and have the youth leaders bring the boxes to the students. Line up the students and start the game. You go until someone gets the box with the special gift. A student must win an opportunity to open a box. Start by asking the first student a trivia question. If they answer the question correctly, they get to choose a box. Help Me, Who Am I? How to Play: Write the name of famous people with a marker on an index card.
You can choose biblical characters, or movie stars, authors, or all these mixed. Have the room set up so that you have chairs in groupings of two, facing each other.
Have enough chairs for all the youth to sit in. Divide your youth group into sets of two and put tape on the index cards, and tape it to their foreheads. The students take turns asking questions about who the person is that trapped to their forehead.
Set a time limit and then say start. They take turns asking questions. They ask questions until they have both identified the famous person written on the sticky note on their forehead. This continues until all the students have had a turn or until time runs out. The quickest score wins.
How to Play: Set up a playing field or gym with stations of fun things. Example : The index card states that they must put the firefighter pants on and run back across the field to the next team member. To start, put the blanket on the floor and divide the kids into two groups. Have half of them sit on one side of the blanket and half on the other. Take some time for everyone to introduce themselves and tell the group a little something about them. Then one group at a time, have them cover themselves with blanket and decide, without making any noise, who should leave the blanket first.
The chosen one stands up that the group that wasn't under the blanket tries to remember that person's name. The person who was named then sits out the rest of the game. It continues until everyone has been named. Just like it sounds, this is a team building game where participants really have to break the ice. Get a few old big t-shirts and some bowls that are all the same size.
Put a shirt in each bowl and fill with water. Then freeze the bowls. Having everyone start at the same time, have the groups figure out how to get the shirts out of the ice. The kids will be getting to know each other in no time as they try to figure out what to do. Form two circles of chairs, one circle inside the other, with the chairs facing each other. Have participants pair up and sit across from each other.
Give them a question that they both have to answer. Once they are done, have the students on the inside ring move one chair to the left and the ones on the outside ring move one chair to the right.
Ask another question. Repeat as long as you want to play, asking different questions along the way. This game is simple but effective, and a lot like "Would You Rather". The main difference is that instead of longer questions, "This or That" is simple one word options. The youth are given sticky notes and a pen and are instructed to write down 3 facts about themselves, without writing down their names on the paper.
The papers get collected and posted on a wall. Then a volunteer gets the ball rolling by going up to the board, choosing one of the notes not their own , and reading out the facts. The group then tries to figure out who the person is. The first one to guess correctly as long as it isn't their own gets to choose the next note. This game is a good conversation starter and kids find out a lot of interesting information about each other.
Designed to get kids talking, this one is good for older kids, but can easily get out of hand depending on the dynamics of the group. It also works better with smaller groups so it would be a good idea to break the kids into groups of 4 or 5. Design a chart with a list of 6 questions, each question next to a number.
Next to the number, write down a "get to know you" question. Then go around the room a couple of times and have each student roll the die and answer the question that matches the number they come up with.
Just like it sounds, the kids sit around in a circle and go around one at a time saying something about themselves like, "Never have I ever been on an airplane. This is another effective icebreaker for all ages.
It can also be played with the leader asking the questions and the youth answering. One of the most well-known party games, if played wisely, this is an effective icebreaker. It definitely needs supervision because questions can easily get out of hand. The best way to avoid that is to have the leader ask the questions. Get together a list of questions as well as a list of dares that aren't too embarrassing or difficult.
Then start play by going around the circle and asking each person if they want a truth or dare. Get a clean mason jar and a number of big popsicle sticks. Write a "get to know you" question on each stick and place them all in the jar. Have the kids sit in a circle and have the first one pick out a stick without looking. Then have them answer the question.
After that, the next person pulls out a stick and answers a question. Make the questions a little more detailed so the youth can't just answer with a yes or a no. That will foster more dialogue. Put the funnel into the clear tubing and crack an egg into it. Hold the tube so that the egg settles into the middle, and then have the first pair of kids each take a side, and put the garbage can between them.
After each pair goes, have the winners face off to determine the champion. A few feet should be plenty. Supplies: enough cans or bottles of soda for each contestant to have one, garbage can. When they come up, have them remove a sock. Open a can or bottle of soda for each kid, and have them put their sock on top of it the top of the can or bottle should be all the way at the bottom of their sock. This is too easy. Pass your soda to the person on your left. Whoever finishes first wins.
Keep the garbage can close. Visiting a nursing home is a wonderful way for your youth group to serve together because everyone can do it, and it shows your kids that sometimes attention and conversation are profound gifts we can use to love others. Your students will be nervous about talking to strangers, and they may struggle to find common ground. So, before you go, talk to your group about ways they might start a conversation, or encourage them to play a boardgame with someone.
You may also want to caution them about some of the things they might see or experience. Equip them to be successful. Give them tools to show the residents and staff that they are loved and that they matter. Pro tip: Call the nursing home you plan to visit in advance.
Talk to them about the ideal times for a large group of visitors. It will also help to get a heads up about their specific guidelines and any recommendations they have about what to bring games, books, small pets, etc. Public parks are for everyone in your community to enjoy.
They can also be difficult to maintain and keep pristine. In just a couple hours, your youth group can bless your community and serve your neighbors in a tangible way by cleaning up this shared space. You may even find that it creates opportunities for conversation too. People will be curious why so many kids are picking up trash and cleaning up the area, and some of them may even want to join you.
You could also talk to your city council or parks and recreation department to find out about projects where they could use volunteers. This could allow your students to do some more interesting jobs like landscaping , and if your parks are already pretty clean, this is another good way to have a visible impact.
If you can, try to take before and after pictures to help kids feel a stronger sense of accomplishment. This will help others visually connect your act of service to a church that cares about the community, regardless of whether or not neighbors talk to you. And regardless of whether people are able to do their own yard and house maintenance, many people will appreciate the gift of a cleaner yard.
Depending on the season, where you live, and what equipment you or your neighbors have, students could do jobs like:. Every youth group game or activity you ask kids to participate in should have a larger purpose. Or to create an experience students will want to share with their unchurched friends. This feature allows you to:. These are just some of the things you can do through this Church Management System to make your life as a youth leader much easier.
Click here to schedule a demo and learn more. Talk to an Expert. Ryan was a volunteer youth leader with Young Life for eight years. Now he teaches people about the Bible on OverviewBible. He lives in Bellingham, Washington with his wife and three sons. Who Am I? Cost: Free Prep time: 15 minutes Messy? Make sure your categories and questions are relevant to the kids in your group the broader the better , but here are some categories you might use: Social media Celebrities Sports Music Movies Food Youth leaders Resist the temptation to make every question ridiculously hard.
Outdoor Youth Group Games When the weather is nice or at least tolerable , it opens up opportunities to play some messier, more involved games.
Charades with a twist Cost: Free Prep time: 0 minutes Messy? Visit a nursing home Visiting a nursing home is a wonderful way for your youth group to serve together because everyone can do it, and it shows your kids that sometimes attention and conversation are profound gifts we can use to love others. Clean up a park Public parks are for everyone in your community to enjoy. This feature allows you to: Create a group that includes all the contact information for the kids in your Youth Group.
Communicate with your Youth Group members via email or text message. Schedule events and easily track attendance. Manage your Youth Group on the go through the Lead App.
Ryan Nelson.
0コメント