I’ve played this game many times with great success.

Give each member a few sweets (in wrappers e.g. smoothies), 4 or 5 should do. They should not eat the sweets. On your signal, members are to interact with each other. The catch is to try and get others to answer “yes”, “no” or “I don’t know” to any question you may ask them. If someone answers with any of these, they have to hand over one of their sweets to you.

Soon everyone will figure out how the game is played and the cunning guys or gals will succeed.

I like to get them going by giving the signal to start, and then asking : Do you guys want me to play along? (or some other question). Without fail, most will shout “Yes!”. I then collect sweets from all of them

There will also be disputes amongst 2 players as to the handing over of sweets, but there always tend to be enough eye-witnesses to say who should actually win sweets. Or you can just catch them off-guard and ask: Did he/she get you to lose a sweet? If they answer yes or no, they lose a sweet to you.

At the end of the game (you decide when this is. usually 10 minutes is enough), those who managed to lose all their sweets are to entertain the rest by singing a silly song with actions, or something to that effect.

This is a great ice breaker or right in the middle of a talk to freshen them up.

Form two teams and have the teams be at least 10ft apart facing each other. Name one team heads and the other team tails. Then take a coin and say something like: When I toss this coin and it says heads – the heads team has 5 seconds to laugh as loudly as they can while the tails team can’t laugh or smile. And this procedure goes the same for if it lands on tails – the tails team has 5 seconds to laugh as loudly to try and get heads team to laugh or smile.

Some other variations can be:

• Crying
• Coughing
• Funny Faces
• Sneezing
• Yawning

Its also fun to do youth leaders verses students too.

This is a game that can take up to a week or two to complete. It’s sometimes played whenever there is a little break of some kind such as spring break, Thanksgiving break, Christmas break, or it can be played anytime.

Disclaimer: This game may or may not be appropriate for your group. Example: If their was a shooting at your school or a recent death in your youth ministry. Or it may just not work for your group. You are the youth leader and your job is to decide.

How To Play: The youth leader asks who wants to play and once everyone has said whether or not they want to play – the youth leader then assigns each person a person that they are targeting to shoot with their Nerf gun. BTW – each person that is playing has to have their own Nerf gun otherwise they can’t play or you will be purchasing Nerf guns.

When a student gets hit with a Nerf bullet – they are required to give up the slip of paper of the person they were trying to target to the person who got them. This slip of paper is now the new target. The game is played until there is only one left.

Rules: Obviously this game will go a lot smoother with rules.

• This game won’t be played at: Church or on church property, Home, School, or at work.
• Players must agree to play fair since this game will be taking place outside of Church.
• The players must make an attempt on their target at least once every 3 days or they are considered out.
• Stress that the game is much better and more fun when they keep secret who they have.

Additional Stuff:

• Though they are shooting at each other with a dart gun – this game really gets students thinking about each other outside the church walls and can actually be something that brings the group closer.
• You may want to consider having an older group of students because sometimes the middle school group has a hard time following the rules.
• It’s fun
• It’s cheaper then paintball
• You can change it up by having a “Gotcha Night” instead.
• Double check that all players want to play

Our Brilliant Society!

I like to think of a weekend retreat as one big lesson broken down into a few different sessions, so I often plan activities or object lessons that will carry us throughout the weekend. I just got back from a weekend retreat with our senior high kids, and we tried an idea that seemed to carry a pretty powerful punch.

On Friday night, I asked our kids to sketch a self-portrait. When they had finished, we began to talk about our inadequacies. Using the stories of Jeremiah and Moses, we dove into the idea that we often feel as if we aren’t qualified to do the work of God. I asked them to list their excuses on the portrait they had drawn. Some of the things written were: “I’m too young,” “I’m shy,” “I’m an addict,” “I’m not smart enough,” and many more.

When they were done, I explained that we all see ourselves this way. Our portrait of ourselves is often skewed toward feeling inadequate, and noticing our flaws, but God told Jeremiah (chapter 1) that he had planned out his life years in advance; Jeremiah had been made to do these great things. He could not believe the lie that he was too young, or not good enough.

Throughout the weekend, I had a large shredder set up at the front of our worship area, and I challenged our kids to reject the lies on their portrait, shred the image, and start risking great things for God. It was really neat to be in the midst of worship, prayer or devotional time, and hear the “grrrrr…chhh…grrr” of the shredder as another kid prayerfully made a decision to trust God.

Although not every student responded well, it presented a strong visual and interactive prayer time for many of our students to evaluate what they could for God.