Mid size is defined as 30 – 49 people
Draw 3 circles on a white board with the circles representing world issues, local issues, and individual issues respectively. After the group comes up with some prayer points for each category, pray one point each out loud as a group.
40+ Note: If there’s more than 40 people, then select just 1 person per category to pray the prayer points in each circle.
(We made a lucky dip barrel for this at our youth group)
Ask the kids to each come up with a prayer topic (eg. Youth group, government, Africa, non Christian friends, war, etc.) Write the topics on pieces of paper and put them in the barrel (or on the wheel). Choose someone to come and spin the barrel and then pick out a topic. Repeat the process till you have 3 or 4 prayer topics and then ask the group for prayer points under those topics. When there is enough prayer points, pray through them as a whole group out loud.
40+ Note: If there’s more than 40 people, you can either: 1) limit the to just 2 topics; 2) select just a few of people (maybe 1 for each category) to pray the prayer points on the board; or 3) split into small groups to pray.
Bite size is designed to help people who don’t usually pray (or have never prayed), to pray out loud. Bite size prayer works by writing up two categories on the white board (usually ‘thanks’ and ‘ask’) and when the group has enough prayer points on the board for each person in the group to pray one, delegate the prayer points to everyone in the group. Go around the group and pray one bite sized prayer each – that means short i.e. “Thanks God for the rain, amen.”
30+ Note: If there’s more than 30 people, then select just a few of people (maybe 5) to pray the prayer points in both columns.
Prayer card shuffle is designed to help people who don’t usually pray (or have never prayed), to pray out loud. Give everyone a card and ask them to write a prayer for themselves in the 3rd person (eg. Mike writes on his card “dear God please help Mike…” etc). Then shuffle the cards and redistribute them. Pray out loud by going around the group one after the other, so that everyone ends up praying for another person. Ask the youth group to hold onto the cards and prayer for that person during the week.
40+ Note: If there’s more than 40 people then after the cards have been shuffles and given out, just allow 5 minutes for people to pray through their card in silence rather than out loud.
This game is a variation of poison ball. Using masking tape, chalk, or rope, mark out an court to play poison ball (the court should be rectangle and divided into 3 equal thirds). Divide the group into 2 teams. Team ‘A’ will stand in the middle section of the poison ball court and the team ‘B’ will stand each side. Like regular poison ball, team ‘B’ needs to eliminate team ‘A’ by throwing a ball and hitting each member below the knee. The added twist to this is that one member on team ‘A’ is given a Bible and given the title: “the truth”. Team ‘A’ needs to protect the truth at all costs. If “the truth” gets hit below the knee by the ball, not only are they out, but the whole team is out. The game goes for 3 minutes, and if team ‘A’ is able to protect “the truth” for the duration of the game, they win. Play this game as many times as you like and swap the roles of the different teams and who plays “the truth” each time.
Note: This activity requires a durable environment and lots of space.
Split everyone up into groups. Give each group a massive round weather balloon (preferably filled with helium for some extra excitement!) and a couple of textas. In a time frame of about 5 minutes, each group needs to draw (and label) a world map on their balloon as accurately as possible. The group with the most accurate world map is the winner.
Important! Have information sheets prepared before hand that focus on a particular country and perhaps a missionary there. Give an information sheet to each group to discuss the country, find out about its environment, politics, issues, religion, and then pray for that country.
This game works better with groups 30+. Gather a few different types of wrapped lollies and tape them under the chairs of your audience before the meeting. Keep in mind the different types, and the amount of lollies you use, so that the teams will be as evenly numbered as possible. Everyone looks underneath their seat, grabs the lolly, and then has to find the other people in the room with the same lolly. Once all team members have found their respective “gang”, they eat the lollies and turn the wrappers into team badges, and answer a few sharing questions.
This is a rip off of a popular board game Taboo. Make a bunch of cards that have Bible characters or recognisable Bible things (eg. Noah’s ark, temple, Ark of the covenant, etc.) and list about five words on the card that can’t be used to describe the person or object (Taboo words). Split the group into teams and have each team taking turns at going through the cards and trying to describe the Bible character or thing to their group. 1 pt. per correct guess to that team, and -1 pt. if that team takes a pass on a card or says one of the Taboo words.
Note: I’ve done this game with 120 teenagers and it works a treat!
Here is a pdf of Bible Taboo cards (email me if you want the Word doc.)
JUST ADDED! A pdf of the Bible Taboo Cards in Deutsch (German)!
** If you like this, you might also want to check out:
Taken from the theatre sport game show “who’s line is it anyway?”. Split into 2 or more teams of 3-5 people and give each teams a set of props (eg. broom, cushion, hat, hula-hoop, brick, aqua noodle, etc…). Give each team 5 minutes to come up with as many Bible stories as possible which they can act out in 30 second skits using the props. Have the teams perform in front of a judging panel (probably made up of leaders) and score each skit on: Use of props; team participation; comedy value, paraphrased biblical accuracy etc… Rotate through the teams as they perform their skits. If a story is acted out by more than one team then the points for that 30 second skit are halved.
30+ Note: If there are 30 people or more, then give each team a Bible story and let them find a way to work the props into the story (could use broom as a horse etc…). The groups will need time to read the story and prepare a skit, at least 10 minutes for prep and 2 minutes to perform. Depending on the number of groups this activity may take about 30 minutes.
Here is s clip of the ‘props’ activity in action at salt youth group petersham:
This game takes a lot of preparation!
Pick some famous couples from the Bible (eg. Samson & Delilah, Mary & Joseph, Ruth & Boaz, Abraham & Sarah, David & Bathsheba, etc. Or some famous groups of people from the Bible, eg. Shadrach & Meshach & Abednego, the 12 sons of Israel, 12 disciples of Jesus, etc.) and create some information sheets about them (including details of where you’d read about them in the Bible, who they are, their role in the salvation story of the Bible, and some prayer points to thank God for). Here is a link to an online dictionary of bible characters that is very useful. Put up the information sheets about the Bible characters on the walls around the room.
Create some sticky name labels for each name in the famous couple or group (eg. a label for Samson and a label for Delilah etc.) and distribute the labels randomly to each person. Give everybody 5 minutes to check out the information sheets and discover who they are and who their match is (eg. If it’s “Samson” they need to find “Delilah”). Once everybody has made their match and formed their pair or group, they sit together with the info sheet and talk about what they discovered about their bible character and then pray the prayer points. Bring everybody back together and pick some people to share who they were and what they discovered.
Note: Even if people have little or no Bible knowledge they should be able to work it out from the info sheets.
This is a good revision game, but you’ll probably only want to do this once a year… it’s pretty gross. You will need rubber gloves and lots of bubble gum. Divide kids into groups. Give each group a plate or flat dish and 3 or 4 packets of bubble gum. In 10 minutes each group needs to chew their bubble gum and make a sculpture out of the gum that relates to a Bible story or teaching point from past weeks (or that night). Warning: it smells pretty bad and rubber or latex gloves are a must!
Variation: Can do with play-doh for something less gross…
A version of the TV game show “Don’t forget the lyrics!”. This game is played in teams. Read out a verse in the Bible and leave off the last few words. Tell the contestants how many words are missing and the contestants have to guess what the missing words are. You can play this game in rounds ie. New Testament verses, Old Testament verse, Obscure verses (for more points), Well Known verses (less points), and you can have rounds where the number of missing words increases each round. The aim of this game is to teach Bible verses and significant points of Biblical theology.
Here’s an example: Mark 10:43 Jesus said “whoever wants to become great among you must ___ /_____ /_________” (be your servant). We might expect that whoever wants to be great must be the smartest or have the best skills, but Jesus says be a servant, and that’s a significant theological point for Christianity.
You can find a list of good Bible verses at the back of “Changing the World through Effective Youth Ministry 2” K. Moser, Aquilia Press, 2005.
-40 Note: This game works best with a maximum of 4 groups of 10 people… otherwise it takes too long and there’s too much down time for other groups while they wait for their turn.
Here’s 2 versions of the game in powerpoint (.pptx)
(x) christian (m) ministry (2) to (y) youth 