The not talked about challenge of youth ministry is coming up with new and creative games that will continue to keep students stoked as you continue into service or groups. My team and i have spent COUNTLESS hours attempting to come up with the most creative and enjoyable games as possible to help make your youth group a place where kids want to be!
- Trash Can Gauntlet
This game works by placing 4 lines of tape on the ground that all intersect in the middle. You will split your group into 4 teams. Each team will line up behind a line of tape. No 2 teams should be lined up behind the same line of tape.
Each team will receieve a trash can. They will place the trash can over the body of a student. When you yell go they will all run backwards to the other end of the tape and back. As you can probably imagine there is often a significant collision in the middle that keeps the game VERY exciting. Helmets are highly reccomended for this one!
2. We Friends Tho
This is a game inspired by the Netflix show Squid Games season 2. The game is simple and doesnt require more than tape and cones. You will start by creating a large circle with tape on the floor. Then you will need cones set up around the room/field circling the circle of tape you made. You want the cones to be roughly 25-30 feet from the taped circle if your room allows. At the start of each round everyone will start in the ccircle and music will begin to play. As the music plays they will start walking in a circle inside the tape. When the music stops you will yell a number and the goal of the game is the students have to fill a cone with that amount of people.
For example, if you yell 4, then there needs to be 4 people at each cone. If a cone has more or less than 4 people, then that entire group will be eliminated. If someone never mamde it to a cone, they will be eliminated. You continue playing until there is 1 person standing. This game starts and can even end friendships.
3. Make That Scene
Lookign for a game that requires absoluley no materials or prep. This is the perfect game for you. You split the room into teams. Once done you will give them a scene to create. It can be a famous scene from a movie, or just something you created yourself.
Examples could be, Roasting marshmellows around a campfire, a zombie apocalypse, the final battle from the avengers endgame, and so much more. Once you describe the scen the teams will have 30 seconds to start creating the scene. Once the 30 seconds ends all teams must freeze. You will judge the scenes and award which team is the winner of that round.
4. Tube-of-Warfare
A youth ministry classic! You will want the heavy duty rubber inner tubes for this one as things can get a little rough. You will split your group into teams. You then want to split those teams into guys and girls. After this you will place the inner tubes in a the middle of your playing area, stacked ontop of each other.
You will call a gender(boy round, girl round). Once you yell go they will run to the middle and attemt to get as many tubes and bring them back to their teams side as possible. The team with the most tubes will win that round. We often play this gam with minimal rules which the students always enjoy. It can get a little crazy in the middle.
5. This or That
There is one similarity across all teenagers. They all are opinionated. This game allows them to share those opinions. You will need 2 posterboards. On one you will write “This”, and on the other you will write “That”. You will need 2 people, wach holding a posterboard on opposite ends of the room.
You then will move all students to the middle of the room. You will give them 2 options. Example:
This-Mcdonalds, That-Chik-fil-a
They will go the side of the room that represents their opinion. It can also be even more engaging if you add a mic in the crowd. Someone to go ask the students why they chose this or that. They often get very passionate to share their opinion.
These are some of the games that we have found to be certified bangers. No matter the time or place, they always work and they all require minimum prep and setup. I hope these go as well for you as they have for us and please comment down below and let us know your thoughts on these games or maybe some of your own classic youth games.