Help! Need Youth Group Games!

[holysoldier5000]

Well I am running an all new Teen Bible Study in my area but I have got a problem... I can't think of any games to play! I need some help. I'm looking for some fun group games for 10 teenagers ages 13-16 mostly girls but some guys. Got any suggestions?

God Bless
~HS5K

[Zarn Ishtare]

Super Smash Bros
Super Smash Bros Melee
Halo
Halo 2
Quake
Unreal Tournament
Mario Party 1,2,3

Just to name a few.

[Steeltemplar]

Super Smash Bros
Super Smash Bros Melee
Halo
Halo 2
Quake
Unreal Tournament
Mario Party 1,2,3

Just to name a few.

<imagines the youth group watching in Unreal Tournament as a character gets blown to bloody bits by a flak cannon> Hmmm. Maybe a couple of those might not be youth group material

(Assuming that Zarn wasn't joking in the first place, which he may have been)

[Zarn Ishtare]

Well, it's really all a matter of taste.

[TheMelodyMaker]

(I don't think he was talking about video games, you guys... )

[DrNic]

Here's one we play at some of our youth group meetings:

- Choose a couple of topics (e.g Favourite holiday, Food, Funniest memory)
- Get every1 to write something about themselves for each topic (e.g Fave food = Chocolate Cake). Make sure they don't put their name on the piece of paper.
- When they're done get them to screw the paper up and collect them all in a bucket or something.
- Then pick a random one out, read what it says and see if every1 can guess who it is. Make sure the topics are fairly obscure (to make it a bit of a challenge) but funny.

We've played it a few times, it can be hilarious. Don't know if if it has a name or not.

Another one we've done:

- Choose some chapter out the bible that relate to the topic you're doing about.
- Get everyone in groups of two or three
- Tell them to read the chapter/s to their group and come up with a short drama play describing what is talked about in the scripture.
- Then get everyone back together after 20 mins or so (or for however long they need) and get them to act the play out infront of the group.

This ones better for rowdier or louder groups. Best if everyone knows each other well.

Hope these help dude!

[Syreth]

Okay, this game probably has a different name, but here goes. It's called 'fruit.'

1. Each person picks a fruit name (strawberry, bananna, etc.) and they are associated with their fruit name for the rest of the game.
2. Have a circle of chairs with enough chairs for everyone to sit down except one person, who will be in the middle with a foam bat or another such harmless weapon.
3. After this one person calls out someone's fruit name (cannot call their own) 4. The person in the middle has to hit the person with the fruit name that was called before that person calls out another fruit.
5. If they hit them, then they get to sit down and the person that they hit is in the middle.

Well, it was probably hard to follow or you have already heard of it before, but it was worth a try. Hope you have fun.

[Lynx]

a few ideas...

1) DDR. it's such a great party game!

2) a biblical scavenger hunt. break them up into groups and give each group a digital camera (you can also tell everyone to bring a digital camera if they have one and break them up into groups so every group has a camera). have a list of bible verses, the point of the game is to act out a word or the verse itself. the more creative, the more points they get. There's a time limit (we did 20-25 verses in 1 hour but you can cut it down accordingly), and at the end you have a showing of all the funniest pictures!

[DrNic]

2) a biblical scavenger hunt. break them up into groups and give each group a digital camera (you can also tell everyone to bring a digital camera if they have one and break them up into groups so every group has a camera). have a list of bible verses, the point of the game is to act out a word or the verse itself. the more creative, the more points they get. There's a time limit (we did 20-25 verses in 1 hour but you can cut it down accordingly), and at the end you have a showing of all the funniest pictures!

Lol! Thats an awesome idea! I'll have to suggest that one to our youth leaders...might be hard finding enough cameras thou :S

[Stephen]

Monster tag is fun. Its where you start with say, 8 people, 2 monsters. Make checkpoints the group must run to. If your tagged, you become a monster and must go after your former teamates. That, or DDR for the PS2.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Three Letters

D
D
R

[soul alive]

Sardines is always fun. My group wasn't too sure they wanted to play it when we went camping, but they ended up loving it and played for several hours.

Rules:
1. One person hides, everyone else is 'it'.
2. The hider goes to find a hiding place while everyone else is kept someplace where they can't possibly see the hiding place.
3. The 'its' are released to go find the hider.
4. Once an 'it' finds the hider they hide with them and any other 'its' who have found the hider. Hence 'sardines.'
5. The last person to find the hider becomes the next hider.

This game is always more fun in the dark. It's better to play in a complicated place like a building with lots of rooms with stuff in them or outside with lots of trees or bushes or benches etc. With less mature kids, you usually need to instigate a moderator and/or rules about cheating (ie. calling out to the hider to entice them to reveal themselves is cheating).

Depending on the amount of people and the complexity of the hiding area, this game can last anywhere from 15 minutes on.


The toilet paper game can be pretty fun, it's a good get-to-know-each-other game.

Rules:
1. Need a roll of toilet paper. Inform the players that they need to take as much tp as they think they will need for an allotted amount of time (the weekend for example) as they will not have another opportunity to get any more.
2. Pass around the roll allowing each player to tear off as much as they need, make sure to stop kids if they start taking over about 15 sheets though.
3. Inform the players that actually, they now have to tell something about themselves that people wouldn't normally know for every sheet that they have taken, partial sheets count as whole ones.
4. Go around a circle taking turns till everyone has finished all of their sheets.

This can be very funny especially if people tear off a few yards of sheets. We played this at my group, and my boyfriend, not realizing, tore off about 25 sheets before I stopped him, and wanted to tear off more. Later he was rather chagrinned about having so many, lol.


A good quick game is the human-pretzel game. Have people stand in a circle and randomly link hands. Then have them unravel the knot/pretzel they are in without letting go of hands.


I also know quite a few more if you need any more suggestions. I've been a counselor at camps for years and helped out at youth group for quite a while as well, so I have a wealth of random game knowledge.

[Heart of Sword]

Vegetable Game. Go around in a circle and each player has to say a vegetable with their lips pulled around their teeth (like mimicing an old person). If you show your teeth, even if it's not your turn (like laughing), you're out. It gets hysterical, especially when sophisticated people play.

Three Letters

D
D
R

What about people like me who stink at it and will just embarass themselves? I like to play it anyway, though. XD

[Sakura15]

Three Letters

D
D
R

haha I wish my yg played DDR


One of the games we play alot is Trainwreck, where you have a circle of chairs and someone is standing in the middle, they will say something about theirself and if it's true about you too then you have to get up and run to another chair, but you cant sit in the chair next to you. (Gotta watch the guys because they love to cheat like that lol )

[Lynx]

Lol! Thats an awesome idea! I'll have to suggest that one to our youth leaders...might be hard finding enough cameras thou :S

that's why we told everyone who had digital cameras to bring them in. out of the 16 or so kids who came, 4 brought them, so we broke up into 4 groups of 4. it worked out perfectly.

Some of the funniest pictures included me juggling apples for "fruit of the Spirit", and two of the other girls dressed up like a bride and groom using dress up clothes for a 6 year old for a verse about marriage... it was really funny ^_^

[Deny_Yourself]

My husband and I are in Youth Ministry, so I'm gonna give you links to the websites we use for games! You'll never run out of stuff to do.

Pastor2Youth

Fun and Games

Egad!

Group's Youth Ministry

The last site listed is amazing, and is contantly updated. It includes games, Bible studies, icebreakers, discussions starters, etc.

God bless your ministry!! ^^

[Slater]

two words: Chubby Bunny. All you need is a bag of marshmellows(the big ones) or two. How it works is you put each person on the stage, one at a time. They pop a marshmellow into their mouth and WITHOUT CHEWING have to say "Chubby Bunny". Every time they do it right, you increment their score by 1, as well as the number of marshmellows in their mouth. When they lose it (which is a bit messy but hillarious), they get to sit down and let the next person go.

Real fun, we used to do it all the time at my youth group.

[DrNic]

I'm probably being really ignorant, but what does DDR stand for :S?

And yes, Chubby Bunny, is the awesomest (word?) game!!

[Warrior4Christ]

Another 'chairs-in-a-circle' game: There's someone in the middle, and one free seat. The people in the circle have to stop the person from sitting in the seat, and the person in the middle has to try to sit on the spare sit. The person who was supposed to move into the spare seat but didn't, is now the new person who goes in the middle. It's quite fun.

Also, another game which is probably easier for the quieter ones (although the rowdy ones may ruin it), is a counting game. The aim of the game is to count to 20 as a group (usually people seated in a circle on the ground). People randomly call out the next number that follows, and if anything other than the next number is spoken, then you need to start at one again. Two people saying the same number twice (usually at the same time) is the most common cause of restarting. It's harder than it sounds, and the calling out is totally unplanned. You can call out the next number any time. Once you master 20, you can move onto 30 or whatever.

DDR means:
a) MSP's bunny avatar, or
b) Dance Dance Revolution

[TurkishMonky]

my youth group has a thing for ultimate frisbee, if you have a field nearby.
object is to get the frisbee past the goal line. when you have the frisbee you can't walk, when frisbee hits the ground it changes sides.

[Peanut]

[quote="Steeltemplar"]:lol: <imagines the youth group watching in Unreal Tournament as a character gets blown to bloody bits by a flak cannon> Hmmm. Maybe a couple of those might not be youth group material ]
Actually, on a sort of funny note, last night when I was at an event for my youth group we had a room set up for a lan party. And the game of choice was Unreal Tournament.

[Mangafanatic]

How about Molecule? It's sort of a variation on the game of tag. Here's how it's played--

You need an even number of kids to play this game. That's about the only requirement. Start by putting all the kids but two in pairs of two. Each pair of two should link arms. Then, have the linked pairs form a circle, with about five feet between each pair. In the middle of the circle, you will place the kids who aren't paired up. Person A of the pair will be "it" and person B's aim is to keep from being tagged. Now, as person A and B are running around, person B can link arms with one person in one of the pairs in the circle. At this point, here's what will happen:
B=person who's running P=one person in the linked pair p=the other person in the linked pair.

Person B runs and links arms with one of the people in any pair.

Diagram:

B---------->P-p

Person B, once they link arms with person P, will no longer be it. Now, the member of the linked pair that was not grabbed by person B (p, in our diagram/example) will be it.

Diagram:

B-P ---------->p.

This repeats until everyone's tired and they don't want to play anymore. This has always been a big hit everytime I've seen it played. If you have any questions about the game (it is kind of complicated ^____^), feel free to ask.

Another Great youth group game is Blob. Now, you start with all your kids spead out in some open space with one kid selected as the person who's "it." The game's like tag in that "it" tries to tag someone and everyone tries to avoid being tagged. However, the twist is that once "it" tags someone, "it" and his tagged person link arms and continue to tag people. When the two it people find a third person, that person also links arms with the "it" people and continue running and tagging. They cannot break apart. However, once the it blob (Ah, the name makes sense, doesn't it ) has four people on it-- it breaks into two it blobs. These two it blobs then run around independently and start tagging people, repeating the linking onto people until they reach four people and then breaking apart into two groups. The game is played until only one person hasn't been caught by a blob. That person is, then, the winner. Yay! This one's really fun too.

[TurkishMonky]

Actually, on a sort of funny note, last night when I was at an event for my youth group we had a room set up for a lan party. And the game of choice was Unreal Tournament.

i've played halo at youth group on one occasion, and my college group plays halo 2 quite frequently...

[DrNic]

Well, I think ur gonna be playin games for about a week with the amount of ideas you've got here lol

[Felix]

Oh oh oh oh! In a nutshell, ultimate frisbee. That's like the only game my youth groups plays and we love it >O</

[Tommy]

Someone brought up Chubby Bunny. I DO NOT recommend it. It can easily cause fatal choking. This is going to sound insanely hyprocritical but I was the defending champion at my school.

21 Giant Marshmellows.

I lost the availability to say "Chubby Bunny" at 16 but they let me keep going to see how far I could go.

I would go with Mafia, kickball, capture the flag (wouldn`t work well with the older girls, TRUST ME), and Duck Duck Goose.....

Shut up, that game is sick.

EDIT: My youth group always does DDR.

[Uriah]

We have the same problem.. Well, Not really, it's just that the person in
charge absolutely despises anything fun..

There's a board game called settlers of catan that I bring down and play sometimes. You'll probably only be able to find it at a hobby shop,
but it's great for 4-8 people, you build your own board each game so you can
split into groups depending on how many peices you have. The game probably
has a web site if you want to look for it.

[Anna Mae]

Okay, this game probably has a different name, but here goes. It's called 'fruit.'

1. Each person picks a fruit name (strawberry, bananna, etc.) and they are associated with their fruit name for the rest of the game.
2. Have a circle of chairs with enough chairs for everyone to sit down except one person, who will be in the middle with a foam bat or another such harmless weapon.
3. After this one person calls out someone's fruit name (cannot call their own) 4. The person in the middle has to hit the person with the fruit name that was called before that person calls out another fruit.
5. If they hit them, then they get to sit down and the person that they hit is in the middle.

Well, it was probably hard to follow or you have already heard of it before, but it was worth a try. Hope you have fun.

I have played a similar game, except that instead of fruit we used animal noises. That can get pretty funny.

[christianfriend]

a few ideas...

1) DDR. it's such a great party game!

2) a biblical scavenger hunt. break them up into groups and give each group a digital camera (you can also tell everyone to bring a digital camera if they have one and break them up into groups so every group has a camera). have a list of bible verses, the point of the game is to act out a word or the verse itself. the more creative, the more points they get. There's a time limit (we did 20-25 verses in 1 hour but you can cut it down accordingly), and at the end you have a showing of all the funniest pictures!

Thats what my YG does! ^^ its realy fun, I recommend it to all YGs! ^_^

[ChristianKitsune]

MAFIA!!! greatest game ever! especially when more sophisticated ppl play and everyone remembers that it's all for fun (and not get in arguments and all), and if everyone knows each other fairly well.

there are several versions of this and many more variations in roles etc. but I'll just explain how I play.

object of the game: "townspeople" including the "police" and "doctor" must guess/find out who the "mafia/assasins" are and lynch them before they all get "killed".

okay, setup: chairs set preferably in a circle (much easier later on).
start with a deck of cards, one card for each person playing (excluding the game mod) for your group of 10, include 2 aces (assasins), 1 king (police), and 1 queen (doctor)]http://www.princeton.edu/~mafia/[/url] Princeton's Mafia Brotherhood website lists a ton more interesting variations for more experienced games.

I WAS GONNA SUGGEST THIS!!

THIS IS SOOOO FUN!! EVERYONE LOVES IT!!

We get creative at our youth group, once we did a LOTR version..it was great!

I will also suggest a game.

I will call it "Bites" (Because we never really named it)

but it's a lot like name that tune

Here is how you do it, you get two teams, and you number them off then let's say the two number ones from each them go against each other,

they have to sit at a table, and an object of food is placed before them. They have to try to better their opponent by eating the food in less bites.

Let's say Person A said he could eat a pack of sardines in 5 bites, but Person B said he could do it 4...Person B would have to eat it in four. If he does, his team scores, if not the other team does.

This gets really fun, and if you are creative enough, you can get really good food, or really nasty food and mix them.

I once had to eat "Lemonaide mix" It was so horrible, my stomach hurt so bad. BUT it was fun! (I could like feel the lemonaide inside me...it was WEIRD!!! And everytime I tried to take a drink of water, I made lemonaide! )