A few years ago on our mission trip, we played a game one evening called “The Awesome Game” when a different outing was cancelled. We had THE MOST HILARIOUS time, and now it has become a staple for our youth ministry on Kickoff Sunday.

Here’s what you do:

• Type up a list of different challenges — I’ll share mine below. You want these challenges to be a mix of things. You want to do some things that cause them to get to know one another, some that give good photo or video opportunities, or some that are just OBNOXIOUS.
• Cut up those pieces of papers, and put one copy in a gallon-sized plastic bag.
• Split your students up into groups (we did small groups). Give each group a bag and a time limit (anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes).
• Give some way for them to count what they’ve done — give them another bag, tell them to ball up the ones they’re done with, or put the ones they’ve done in your pocket.
• At the end of the time, the team that has done the most wins!

Here are some examples of challenges you can place in the bag:

• Make a two-minute video talking about your love for cheese
• Interrupt another Small Group completing their challenge.
• Run around for 60 seconds yelling “We won! We won!”
• Come up with a team chant
• Join in another Small Group completing their challenge
• SOMETHING STINKS! Walk around the room for 60 seconds and act like you’re trying to find the smell. Get obnoxious!
• TIME TO PROPOSE! Have two people give a two-minute proposal, with everyone else encouraging them to break up.
• Create your own “challenge” like Ice Bucket Challenge or  KeKe Challenge. Make a one-minute video inviting people to take part in your challenge.
• Spell out MSM (for Middle School Ministry) on the floor by laying down!
• FORM A BAND: Sing a nursery rhyme at the top of your lungs using full air-band motions and sounds
• Go to the Ga-Ga pits outside and play one round of Ga-Ga Ball (basically–hitting the ball and not getting hit in the feet–if you get hit, you’re out!)
• Play Duck-Duck-Goose for 2 minutes
• Challenge another group to a dance battle. Battle it out for two minutes, even if they don’t participate back.
• Run up behind other players and make farting noises for an entire minute.
• I’m not crazy–you’re crazy. Create a straight jacket that one person must wear for the remainder of the game.
• Choose one person to stand on one foot for the remainder of the game
• GET ON ALL FOURS! Each person choose a different farm animal and act it out for one minute.
• MAKE A PROMO VIDEO: Choose an accent and talk about why Middle School Ministry is awesome for an entire minute.
• Each person must do 10 jumping jacks.
• Do a runway walk from one end of the Great Hall to another
• Have one person pretend like they’re underwater until the next challenge is completed
• Try to get another group to dance like robots with you.
• Each person talk to another person on your team like they’re your celebrity crush
• Pretend like your clothes itch. Scratch, roll on the floor…JUST GET IT OFF!
• Run up to another group. Narrate their challenge like a Sports Announcer
• Have everyone spin around 5 times, then walk ten steps in a straight line
• Run up to another group and tell them “YOU MADE ME CRY” and drag it out until they ask why!
• Choose one player to talk like a cat the rest of the morning.
• Run up to another group and ask them if they believe in fairies until someone says yes!
• VROOM VROOM. It’s the Indy 500! We’ll let you off with just one lap, though: run one lap around the gym.
• 1,2,3,4, I declare a thumb war! Have a thumb wars tournament. The winner gets cheered by the rest of the group!
• Go around the circle and say your FULL NAME–INCLUDING MIDDLE!
• Create a new Yoga pose and give it a name! Everyone must do the yoga pose.
• RAP TIME. One person raps while everyone else beatboxes.
• Choose a fitness instructor–lead the group in a workout routine for an entire minute!
• TIME FOR THE GREAT DEBATE: Debate for two minutes on whether you are pro-pickle or anti-pickle.
• TIME TO RAGE: Run up to another group, and start a mosh pit! (for those of you youngins…that means to jump up and down, bumping into other people)
• Pick a random object in the room and make a one-minute commercial for it.
• Start a back-rub train: Each person must rub the shoulders of the person in front of them. Once you’ve rubbed for 30 seconds, turn around and rub the other person’s shoulders.
• Start a conga line–take one lap together around the gym.

Here are some videos from our adventures:

Grass Eating Challenge for @ywmissions . We tag THE WORLD.

A post shared by St Luke’s Middle School Min (@stlukesmsm) on Jul 10, 2017 at 7:48pm PDT

We love Playdoh. @ywmissions

A post shared by St Luke’s Middle School Min (@stlukesmsm) on Jul 10, 2017 at 7:48pm PDT

Let me know if you try it!

A few years ago, PJ took me on THE MOST CREATIVE date: Mario Kart down at Fountain Square. It was so much fun–there were people in costumes, racing around in a cross between a go-cart and a tricycle. The crowd could purchase water balloons to throw at them, and it was just amazing.

PJ and I wanted to recreate this for our youth ministry, so we tested it out last year, and it was a huge success…so we did it again! Here’s the video from last years’:

Mario Kart: Invite Night edition from St. Luke’s UMC Youth on Vimeo.

SET-UP:

• 10 boxes total will be set up, in 2 sets of 5.
• Under each box should be one of the following: a dodgeball (AKA a “shell), a printed out picture of a Mario Star, or a toy banana
• Finish line with tape
• Tape around the room to mark off the course (take a look at the video to understand how we did it!)
• Trikes at the finish/start line (we rented ours from a local party rentals place)
• We purchased helmets for each trike

HOW TO PLAY:

• Students will race the course using trikes and helmets.
• Twice, there will be a set of 5 boxes that students MUST stop for and choose an item.
• Shells (Dodgeballs) students take with them and may throw at another student. If hit, student must stop for ten seconds and shout ONE MISSISSIPPI…TWO MISSISSIPPI…
• Bananas stop students suddenly for ten seconds. They must shout ONE MISSISSIPPI…TWO MISSISSIPPI…
• Stars give STAR POWER. An adult will push a student for ten seconds, giving them a huge boost! During this 10 seconds they can’t be hit by dodgeballs.
• First student to the finish line wins!

It’s that easy to play! We had this as part of our “Giant Games Night,” with giant Jenga, Checkers, Hungry-Hungry Hippos, Twister, Human Fooseball, and more!

Nerf Night is a favorite of our students, one that they look forward to each year. I’ve put on Nerf & Nachos Night for the last three years, and we are looking forward to it again Friday!

We purchased:

• Nerf Elite Strong-arm Blaster–purchase directly from Hasbro to get a reduced cost, plus tax-free
• Safety glasses for each student
• Elite Darts: These darts are the best “cheap” Nerf Darts

We communicate to our students that they may bring their own Nerf Blaster (we label it with painter’s tape and duct tape as soon as they walk through the door), but to leave the darts at home. I recommend being careful about the language used for Nerf: saying “darts” instead of ammo, “blaster” or “toy” instead of gun, things like that.

Another thing that is important is to establish the rules for the evening:

1. Load the Blaster properly.
2. Wear your goggles at all times.
3. No aiming toward the head.
4. If you get hit, you are out until the next game.
5. Ricochets do not count as hits.
6. Darts that are on the ground are fair game to pick up and reuse.
7. Each round might have specific rules for that game–listen to your game leader!
8. When you are listening to the rules, Blaster is on the ground and hands are in the air. (This is so they’ll listen and not fidget)
9. Have fun!

Nerf Games

Round One – Basic Nerf

• Students will be in four teams (designated by paper wristbands)
• Students will use barriers to eliminate the other team.
• Once out, people will come to the sides of the gym and root their team on.
• You can add in bases–essentially, a target on all sides of the gym for teams to protect. If a team’s base gets hit with a dart, the game is over for the team.

Round Two – Hunger Games

• Each person gets a Blaster, and scatter them around the four sides of the room.
• Put the darts in the center of the room in the “Cornucopia.”
• Students race to the center to grab darts for their Blaster and hit each other.
• Last person standing wins.

Round Three– Zombie Nerf Tag

• One to five people are designated the “Zombies.” They each are equipped with a gun.
• All other Blasters are put into the center of the room (if students brought their own Blaster, that also goes into the center–we allow students to grab whatever Blaster they’d like, but you can have the rule that students who brought theirs get theirs).
• The Zombies hit the living with their Blasters. When a person is hit, they go grab a Blaster.
• This continues until the last person without a Blaster wins!

Round Four– Dodgeball Style

• The people are split into two teams
• Each side has a Blaster. All of the darts are sprinkled along the center line of the room, like you would for Dodgeball.
• Students race to the center to grab darts for their Blaster and hit each other. They must stay on their team’s side.
• Like dodgeball, the last person standing wins for their team! At a certain point, like when there are five or less on one side, you can call “NO BOUNDARIES” and they can cross to each other’s side.

Round Five– Capture the Flag

• For this game, the teams will use the hallways of the church on the first floor only. We close all rooms in the church, so that students don’t go in. We tell students “if the door is open, you can go in, but you cannot go into closed doors.”
• Each team gets their color of bandana for their team.
• Each team hides their color flag around the church–point each team in a general direction. Have an adult go with them so that it’s “semi-visible.”

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Each year for the past four years, I’ve celebrated the Olympics in some way with our students. This year I had help–our high school director and I created some really fun games that our students really enjoyed.

Here I’ll recap the games that we did yesterday, along with the graphics that I made on Canva (you may steal them for yourself!). I”ll also throw it back and re-discover some of the games I did in years’ past.

2018 – Winter Games

This year we combined all of 5th-12th grade together for our Olympics. We planned our games for 144 participants, to be placed in random teams through paper wristbands at checkin. We gave all of our Adult Leaders pinnies to wear (leftover from another event), and called them our official “Olympics Referees.” As this image flashed on the screen, the Olympic Fanfare played to get students’ attention. We planned for 12 teams of 12, eliminating 3 teams per round. For teams that were eliminated, we had plastic clappers so that they would have something to “play with” to keep them engaged.

Biathlon is a game I’ve never given much thought to, until I realized it’s the most youth-ministry game ever (next to Curling!). We gave each team two shoe boxes–we had several leftover from Operation Christmas Child years ago. We placed tape at the “start line”, then placed Nerf Guns on the other side (two per team to keep the game moving quickly, so that adults had enough time to reload Nerf guns). Students did this relay-style.

Remember those ice packs you’d get as a kid from the nurse, made from paper towels and zip-lock bags? We made ice packs by making a thick stack of paper towels, wetting them, putting them in baggies, then placing a little more water in them and some food coloring to make three different colors of ice packs. I made a score board with painter’s tape on the table (I’m mad I didn’t get a picture of this!). Three teams went at a time, and the team that has the least points at the end of round is eliminated.

One of my favorite games of all time is a game my good friend Elisa taught me, called “Snot River.” You give the teams two two-by-fours, and they have to figure out how to get their entire team across the river without touching the floor. We gave the two-by-fours to the students and told them that however they could get across, go for it! They just had to remember that the floor is lava/snot/ice and they can’t touch it. We had a time limit, and at the end there were only three teams left, but the team that had the most people across won. We placed them in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd going into the final rounds.

We pre-chose ten songs for the students, and our high school director even made some hilarious videos to go in the back of each of the songs. We chose:

• Uptown Funk
• My heart will go on
• …Are you ready
• Don’t Stop Believing
• Despacito
• Filthy
• Thunder
• U Can’t Touch This
• Havana

The first place team got to choose their song first, then so on. While teams chose their songs and did their strategies, I played this workout video that I’m obsessed with to get students moving…so they didn’t get bored. Middle schoolers are always bored and demanding that I entertain them. What’s more entertaining than this?

The medals we gave out were pieces of candy on ribbon. Creative, right? Cheapest way to award your participants, and let’s be honest; they’ll throw anything you give them away…but they WILL eat candy.

Summer Games 2016

We did an Olympics “Invite Night” (which is our outreach-ceneterd monthly event). One of my favorite pieces of the evening was the Taco Bell Olympics games that we did up-front with students. Purchase that here–I highly recommend it! The games included:

• Baja Blast Relay
• Crunchwrap Curling
• Loaded Griller Javelin Throw
• 12-Pack Marathon

We gave students stations that represented some games you might play at the summer games:

• basketball
• volleyball
• soccer
• broom ball (like hockey, but in the summertime!)

Shout to Hebrews 12 on “running the race” as your lesson theme. You are welcome. We also had inflatable globes that students could hit during worship, and hung flags around our chapel.

Winter Games 2014

My games get less clever as we throw it back further and further. This year I did Hockey and Ice Skating, and they were a hit! But we ALSO had:

Field Curling–There’s one hula hoop in the center, and each team gets three frisbees. One team member from each team takes turns throwing their frisbee. Whoever is closest wins their round. Whoever has most round wins gets the medal!

Medal Hunt — fill a kiddie pool with Orbeez and plastic medals. Place up to 4 people around the pool. Put one minute on the clock. The kid who collects the most medals using their feet wins! Hint: do this outside. It took us a while to clean this up from the retreat center we were at!

Sled Relay — First person in line puts the second person in line in their sled, and they race them to the other side. Second person gets out, runs the sled back, and then carries over the third person to the other side. First team to finish the relay wins!

ending thoughts…

There is so much more that I could say about how to incorporate the Olympics into student ministry. It’s such an easy win to do the games in some way each time it rolls around. For us, each year has been different: This year, on a Sunday morning; two years ago, at a special event; four years ago, as a part of a retreat weekend. It’s an awesome way to get students interacting on teams and relating a sport that should be appreciated to their own story.

I encourage you to consult Pinterest for more–there are lots more games, snack ideas, and cool ways to customize the Olympics, no matter the size group your have