YOUTH WORKER'S IDEA STATION

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Look below to get fresh tried-and-true stuff!

SOCK WARS

This is a wild and goofy game but great fun.  Each teen should bring three pairs of socks WITH THEIR NAMES CLEARLY ATTACHED TO THEM.  Using a rope and a tarp, divide the room in half, as high up as you can go. Put half the teens on each side of the divider with their socks rolled up, like baseballs. On the word GO the teens throw the socks over the divider as fast as they can. This round is only 45 seconds, so they must move fast.  While they are throwing, toss in two beach balls, and tell them they are worth double points. Give them a ten second warning and then say "stop". Count the socks on each side of the divider. The team with the least number of socks - and beach balls - wins.   Second round is 1 minute, third round is 90 seconds.

FOLLOW THE FREQUENCY

This is best played in a gym. Get four of the scooters, the kind RAZOR makes. You may set up soft obstacles at different parts of the court. Choose four pairs of teens from the audience, and put a blindfold on one teen in each pair. The teen without the blindfold will be the guide to the one who is blindfolded. Each guide is given a different noisemaker (whistle, bike horn, etc.) The blindfolded teen is told the particular noise he should be listening for. At the word GO, the guide leading tries to direct the blindfolded teen around one object and then to find a prize designated just for his team. The crowd can start yelling and making noise to add to the confusion. The blindfolded teens should race on the scooter to find a hidden object in the room! The fun is in the teens trying to discern where their particular sound is coming from!

SHOOT AND SCORE
 
This is a twist on yesterday's trivia game.  In this game, held in a gym, if your team gets the answer right, you get one point, but then a selected teammate gets to go to the line and shoot a free throw.  If he gets it right, you get a bonus point.  It's a combination of the cerebral and athletic.  The first team to correctly answer the question gets to go to the line for the shot.  The others must sit and wait for the next question.
 
HERE ARE SOME TRIVIA QUESTIONS: The correct answer is in red.
1. Sharks apparently are the only animals that never get sick. TRUE OR FALSE?
2. The blood of mammals is red, the blood of insects is yellow, and the blood of lobsters is blue. TRUE OR FALSE?
3. The ridges on the sides of coins are called filings. TRUE OR FALSE?
4. The biggest pig in recorded history was Big Boy of Black Mountain, North Carolina, who was weighed at 5,904 pounds in 1939. TRUE OR FALSE?
 
5. The giant squid has an eye that is a meter or more in diameter. TRUE OR FALSE?
6. The side of a hammer is a cheek. TRUE OR FALSE?
 
7. The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat. TRUE OR FALSE?

TRIVIA CHASE
 
Divide your teams and put them on a basketball court, giving each team a basketball and have them line up on one end of the court.  When you ask a question, they must give the ball to a member and that member must run up the court and take a shot.  Of course, all teh teams will have someone running and taking a shot.  The first one in, however, gets to answer the question.  If they are right, they get 3 points.  If they are wrong, they lose 1 point.  The first team to 15 wins the game.
 
Here are some trivia questions for you...the correct answers are in red:

1. Sea water, loaded with mineral salts, weighs about
a. a pound and a half 
b. 2 pounds 
c. two and a half pounds
more per cubit foot than fresh water at the same temperature.

2. The animal responsible for the most human deaths world-wide is the
a. tiger
b.mosquito
c.
elephant

3. In a typical season major league baseball will require ______ ash trees worth of Louisville sluggers.
a. 3,300
b. 4,800
c. 5,200

4. The Chinese were using aluminum to make things as early as _____ AD. Western civilization didn't rediscover aluminum until 1827.
a. 300
b. 700
c. 1000

5. Pitcher Joe Nuxhall of the Cincinnati Reds hurled his first major-league game in 1944. Nuxhall, the youngest pitcher in major league baseball, was only ___ years, 10 months and 11 days old when he pitched that game against the St. Louis Cardinals.
a. 13
b. 14
c. 15

6. The dachshund is one of the oldest dog breeds in history (dating back to ancient Egypt.) The name comes from one of its earliest uses - hunting badgers. In German, Dachs means "______," Hund is "hound."
a. badger
b. blood
c. low
 

REWIND
 
Here's a fun game that gets more than its share of laughs.  Divide your teens up into groups and head to the basketball court.  This short game will get the teens giggling: it's a relay basketball shooting contest but it must be played with the teens running backwards!  Please note: teams do not play each other, or you will have too many collisions.  You will have a clock and time this contest. The winner is the team that scores the most baskets within 90 seconds.  After the teens score at one end, they must run backwards to the other end.  ALL RUNNING MUST BE BACKWARDS.  The teens may turn around to shoot only if they are at the foul line area...otherwise they must throw it backwards.

BOB THE BUILDER
 
This is a fifteen-minute game that is a good team-builder, where the kids get to know each other. Divide your group into groups of 4 to 6, and try to mix them where some of the teens who don't know each other will be mixed together. Give each team the following:
 
50 sheets of laser print (white) paper
10 sheets of construction paper (any color)
a small handful of toothpicks (around 30 or 40)
a roll of scotch tape or duct tape
3 pages of newspaper
4 wire coat hangers
On the GO whistle, each team must to build a structure that is at least one foot high. The idea, you tell the teens, is for your structure to hold as many shoes as possible.  To qualify, the structure must be at least one foot high and hold at least two shoes.  One by one, go around the room and see how many shoes each structure can hold without collapsing. Start with your shoes and your other adult leader's shoes, then work your way through the teens' shoes if the structure holds up.  The construction that can support the most shoes without being helped wins a can of Coke for each member.

IN THE CLOUDS
 
This is a fun game that is easy to manage.  Everyone must have a chair.  They are to stand on their chair. Divide the teens into two teams and let the teens choose where they want to put their chair; once they decide, they cannot move it for the duration of that round!  On two of your four walls, you will have taped a 3 x 4 foot poster board - these are the goals for one team.  On each of the other two walls, you will tape a yellow poster board of the same size.  On the word GO!  you will release thirty balloons.  The teens may bat the balloons toward one of their "goals" and if they hit the poster board, that is one point.  The teens may hang and lean to move a balloon, but they may not leave their chair!  After three minutes add up the score and let the teens elect where they want to move their chair for the next round.  This is a fun strategy game.  Adult leaders can retrieve balloons that are too far away to reach.

BALLOON BASKETBALL

For this game, depending on your youth group, you will need a good number of balloons - at least thirty or forty. This will be played inside of a basketball gym. Divide the teens into two teams and line the balloons in the middle line as best you can. On the signal, the teams are to bat the balloons toward their goal (basketball backboard). Merely hitting the balloon against the backboard is worth two points, and yes, they may stand there and keep hitting it against the backboard - it's up to the other team to stop them.

The fun is found in the high number of balloons, which gives everybody a chance to get involved in some way. Each round is three minutes long. Play three rounds.

BEACH BALL BASKETBALL

If you have a basketball court, indoor or out - here's the game to play. You will need about four or five beach balls, which give you extras in case one or two burst during the game. Divide your teens up into two teams. You can have as many on the court as you want. One team is aiming for one basket, the other is going for the other basket.

Everyone must be seated on the ground and may only bat the beach ball; no holding and throwing. Two beach balls are played at the same time. Each team tries to move the ball toward their basket and hit the ball up so it will either hit the backboard, net or rim.

Points are given this way: One point for hitting the backboard, one for hitting the net and two for hitting the rim.

SARDINES

If this game is well-supervised and you have a lot of indoor room, this game is pretty funny. This would be a game for a special night - it would be too long for just a Wednesday night game. If you have a generous amount of indoor space, this is great especially for a lockin. First of all, send one person out to hide in a regular old "Hide and Seek". Give the first person five minutes to find a hiding spot. Then blow the whistle for GO and then send the rest of the group out to try to find the person hiding. When they find the hiding person, they hide there with them. Keep playing until the last person finds where the group is hidden! Set a twenty minute time limit for each round.

TEXTBOOK SLAM

For this game have an old heavy textbook, one you wouldn't mind getting dirty or scratched. One of your teens stands in the middle of a circle of teens who are sitting in chairs. The teen in the middle is carrying a textbook. Each teen holds out one hand in front of them. The middle person walks around the circle, and at random grabs someone's hand. That teen must rise and follow the person with the textbook. This teen must then get someone else's hand, and they must follow. That person does the same, grabbing a hand, and so on. As they all troop around the circle, they are waiting for the drop of the textbook (dropped flat with a SLAM) When the person with the book drops the textbook, everyone walking must find a chair and sit in it. One person will remain standing, because there are not chairs for everyone - one is missing. The remaining person then picks up the books and starts the next round. The teen may take the chain out of the circle and to the farthest reaches of the room before he decides to drop the book. The mad dash is a great opening game.

INDOOR GAME: IN THE BARN


Gather the teens into a large circle, with each teen getting a chair. After you circle the chairs, select one teen to be in the middle and remove that teen's chair. The person in the middle , you explain, is a poor lost farm animal trying to find his way back into the barn for the night. You yell "TIME TO GET INTO THE BARN. You then yell "change barns if...', finishing the sentence with whatever qualifier you wish: "You are wearing white socks" or "you wear glasses" or "your birthday is in a month beginning with the letter J", etc. Anyone who qualifies must get up and run to an empty chair. Note: the chair must be at least 2 chairs away - no shifting to the next seat! Obviously one teen is left in the middle after the scramble. The person left without a chair must stand in the middle while you yell the next qualifier.

COTTON AND NERF

Talk about a crazy sight! This game is one that you DEFINITELY want to have in your teen photo album. You will need duct tape, cotton balls (like you can buy in Walgreen's), and small Nerf balls.

Divide your group into teams, with one teen being designated as the "target". Have an adult leader wrap them in the duct tape, sticky side out. The idea is for the teens on the team to take the available Nerf and cotton balls and aim them at their duct taped target. The team with the most Nerfs and cotton balls stuck on their target teen wins. When a Nerf hits and holds, have an adult pluck it off and toss it back to the team. The cotton balls can stay on. Nerf balls are two points and cotton balls are worth three.

INDOOR GAME: YOU'RE PART OF THE FAMILY

Here's an activity that could give an antidote to self-centeredness. Before the activity, put out one sheet of paper for everyone attending - one sheet for each person, with their name written across the top. During the gathering, hand out the pages along with pencils, making sure that nobody gets their own. Tell the group that at no time are you to receive a paper if your name is on it.
At the sound or a whistle give each teen 40 seconds to write a note to the person at the top of the page. It is not to be signed by the writers. They are to write why they want that person to remain part of the family. Reasons like "Because your smile is great", "You are a good example of a quiet Christian", or "You are a lot of fun to be around" are all good answers. At the end of each 40 seconds blow the whistle and tell the teens to exchange papers.
After about six rounds of this, have the papers sent to the name on the top of the page. Each teen will be able to see a handful of kind messages, telling them they are special. Such friendly comments lets the teen know he is among others who share a special friendship with him; he need not be selfish or self-centered, feeling like a "lone wolf."

TOE JAM

This is a gooshy, gunky fun event but don't have the game on carpet - a concrete floor or grass field will do. Fill a large tub full of jello, but on the bottom of the tub, dump a few handfuls of pennies, nickels, quarters, dimes, and about three or four Hot Wheels cars. Blow the whistle to start, and the two teams of teens must take of shoes and socks, race tot eh tub and use one foot to pull out as many objects as they can using only their toes. Allow each teen 20 seconds to grab an item. You may want to add other items like dice, a rubber ball, a ring, or a pencil.

AFTER-CHURCH GAME: TOUGH GUY CONTEST

Pass the word around that at the evening after-church afterglow, you will be having a "tough guy competition" among other highlights such as refreshments, etc. Then when your teens gather for the event, select four volunteers from among the guys. Bring them up to the front and give each one a lemon and a pair of work gloves. The winner of the contest will be the guy who can peel the lemon within five minutes - and eat it, with as little facial expression as possible.
Downplay the speed part when it comes to eating - we don't want anyone choking. You may even want to divide up the competition. Make the first part the peeling with the gloves under the time limit...THEN announce the eating part! The guys will have thought the peeling part was the only competition! Get the cameras out for this one. The more the guys try to disguise their looks the funnier it will get. Award the winner something sweet like a bottle of Lipton's Tea or a candy bar.

BIBLE ALPHABET

BARB AND JEREMY SENT IN THIS BRAIN TWISTER FOR YOUR TEENS:
Players are required to find a Biblical name beginning with each letter of the alphabet in turn. Those taking part sit in a circle and go into the circle if they can't think of a name for that particular letter. The next person continues on. This is a good twenty minute game.

You could have the players face some fun "forfeits" if they cannot get a letter correct. Make them face one of these challenges if they slip up:

SOME GOOD FORFEITS
1. Count as far as you can with a single breath.
2. Recite the alphabet backwards.
3. Say four very complimentary things about yourself.
4. Sing the verse of a song.
5. Blow out a candle blindfolded.
6. Imitate a donkey.
7. Nurse a pillow and sing a lullaby to it.
8. Eat a yard of string, rabbit fashion, nibbling it into your mouth.
9. Try to "sell" your left shoe to someone, holding it in your hands.
10. Eat a jalapeno without drinking any water.
11. Act the entry of a burglar into your house.
12. Spell your (full) name backwards.
13. Yawn until you make another one yawn.
14. Say "The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" at 3.5 words per second six times without any mistakes.

SMARTIE and SPOON RACE

Couples take part in this. They run with their hands behind their backs. One member carries a teaspoon in his mouth. At the far end of the room is a line marked on the floor, and on each line lies a Smartie candy for the couple. The pair of runners arriving here kneel one on each side of the line. The Smartie must be pushed into the waiting spoon by the nose of the partner. Should the Smartie be dropped during the return both must kneel and pick it up in the same fashion.

BRITISH LIVE NOUGHTS and CROSSES (Americans will know it as "X's and O's" or "Tic Tac Toe.")


Here is the game, great for a New Year's Party. In the Hydes' own words: "Nine chairs should be arranged, in three rows of three - like the blank spaces in noughts and crosses. Boys take the place of noughts and girls of crosses.The players cluster round chairs and sit down one at a time as their turns come round. The play proceeds exactly as in the paper game except that the boys and girls sit down alternately instead of their appropriate marks being written. The winners are the side that gets three members in a line."

GOOD OLD FASHIONED SLIDE SHOW

Do you remember the good old nights when you sat as a teen with the rest of the family and munched popcorn while laughing over old slides of the bus trip, campout, lock-in and picnic? The room then quieted as you viewed slides of the mission trip, pausing the "forward" button so all of you kids could gaze at the scenery and faces of those to whom you witnessed. Slower than a VCR yet with a bigger screen than a TV - it's the "old school old tool" that should be brought out again: the slide projector!
For just a few dollars a month, you could be snapping away at Sunday Schools, visitation meetings, volleyball, and snow camp. Stow away the slides for viewing every two months. Mix and match - the teens won't grow tired of them. Looking for a great easy-to-do afterglow? Here it is! "Slide Night" works wonders as an entertainment tool as well as a wonderful reminder of great spiritual leaps in your group.
Recruit an adult leader to take the slides with this rule: Don't be shy! Accept no far off in-the-stands shots where faces can't be recognized. The average shot should contain no more than three faces. You may be surprised at the good reaction you get to this simple set-up.

PUMPKIN ART CHALLENGE
Pre-assign teens to groups of fours ( you have done the choosing, not them). Get couple of boxes of toothpicks and a couple of pounds of Play-Dough or other type of modeling clay. Have a box of odds 'n ends at each table, filled with bttons, stickers, crayons, etc. Purchase a pumpkin for each group of teens. Tape off areas on tables.

On the whistle the groups have four minutes to make the most creative pumpkin face they can. They must make it without cutting into the pumpkin, or carving into it, however, they can use toothpicks to punch holes for supporting the "ornaments." Your judges will come around at the end of four minutes and declare the winner. The teens may also use items they are carrying: earrrings, combs or brushes, scarves, etc. This is a fun seasonal icebreaker.
You will be delighted in seeing how fast teens can work together when they are given a time-limit task. Even the ones who could not win will get to know each other a little better as they try to get their heights achieved.
Notes: Give a worthwhile prize so the effort is properly rewarded. Also, do not make the groups bigger than four or you will have some teens sitting back when they realize they are merely getting in the way.

BASKETBALL WALLOP

If you meet in a gymnasium or have access to a full basketball court, try BASKETBALL WALLOP. Divide the group up into two teams. Pick five guys from each team to start the game (substitutions are allowed) on the court. They will be playing regular basketball. The only exception is, you have also allowed five girls from each team to get on the court as well. They will be the defensive players in the game - using pillows! Allow the girls to bring pillows that night. Be sure to check them for any hard packing, so as not to inflict serious damage to any of the guys! The girls must stay on their end of the court, but each time the guys come down to try a score, the girls can let 'em have it! This produces hilarious results, if not a low-scoring game. Let the game go on for about ten minutes.


INDOOR GAME: GOOFY GROUP THEATER

here is a fun gme that is a good team-builder. Assign teens to groups of no less than five but no more than ten. Announce that you will have prizes (cans of Coke) for the winning team who is able to perform the best. You will be announcing several machines, vehicles or objects and the teams will use their members to form that machine and imitate it, (sound, action) as judges decide which is the best for that round. Here are some items that your teen groups can imitate:

HELICOPTER
CD PLAYER
TOASTER
SCHOOL BUS
PERSONAL COMPUTER
BULLDOZER
OUTDOOR GARDEN FOUNTAIN
...think of other items the teens can imitate!

NO MAN'S LAND

Here's a fun indoor game, good for groups from 10 to 100. First of all, you'll have to get balloons of different colors. You will need two balloons to be red, two balloons to be white, and one balloon to be yellow. Keep extra balloons of this color in case the originals should burst. Divide the teens into two teams. Lay out a volleyball court, but in this game all the teens will be seated on the ground.
Give one side both of the red balloons and give the other side the two white balloons. Tell them that this game is called NO MAN'S LAND and the balloons that are on their side are really atomic bombs; they must get them out of their land! Each team is actually a country at war and starts with a power of 100 points. A mad scientist has decreed that he will detonate the bombs after two minutes, no matter which country has possession of the bombs. The object is to get them out of their area and in the other side by the end of two minutes. However, as they try to get rid of the bombs volleyball-style, they must beware of the danger of letting the balloons hit the ground or of letting the bombs stay on their side for more than ten seconds. To let a bomb land on your side is a loss of a point; having a bomb on your side for more than ten seconds is also a loss of a point. (You will want to have four referees - one for each balloon, keeping track of the points against each side. They should follow that particular balloon.)
During the course of play, if they get up off of their backside to hit the balloons, they lose a point for their team. Lay out the boundaries clearly and let the teens know that during the course of action, they may only advance the balloons by batting them with their hands - they may not grab and throw the balloons. A balloon may not be in their possession for more than two seconds. If a balloon hits the ground on their side, it is a point against them. But if time is called at the end of two minutes, the balloons on their side are minus ten points apiece. The points are subtracted from the 10 power points...so in effect, the game is working backwards down to zero. After you blow the whistle and get things rolling, introduce the "Neutron Bomb" (the yellow balloon) after one minute's time. Ending up with that balloon on your side is minus 15 points.
Run three rounds. The team with the most points (furthest away from zero!) is declared the winner.

stopagan.jpg

SOUTH POLE STICK GAME


You may have played "Dizzy Stick"; this game is a version of it that we might assume was invented below the equator! The object of the game is to complete a simple race course...but there is a dizzying catch to it. You will need a stick that is about 4 feet long. Divide your teens into teams for this relay, and let them know that this is simply spinning and jumping - nothing else to it!

On the word GO, each teen member of the group will take a turn with the stick. They will hold the stick straight up in the air, over their head. Keeping their eyes fixed on the lower end of the stick, they will start spinning around the stick - they must keep the stick in the same spot as they spin around 15 times. Referees will count the rotations out loud. After they have completed 15 rotations, they simply throw the stick on the ground, jump over it, and shake hands with the referee. When they complete this, the next teen may start. The first team to complete this wins. The key is to make sure the teens move around the stick that is being held aloft.


INDOOR GAME:
MASH TRANSIT

Divide your teens into four groups. Place them in the four corners of your meeting room or gymnasium. Announce that when you blow the whistle, each team is to try to be the first team to get to the opposite corner of the room. When the group hits the middle area, four teams are converging all at once! A great big joyous mess.
While this game is delightful mayhem, there is potential danger of collision, so start off with teens crawling crab-style. Second relay is hopping on one foot. Third is forward-rolling somersaults.
The collisions in the middle are great fun and it loosens everyone up for your next activity!

CHARLIE BROWN RACES

First of all, youll have to get a copy of the Charlie Brown theme song - the one they used in the TV specials. We think WalMart and Target make them available.
Now what you are going to do is use the Charlie Brown theme song as a "timer" for an edition of what used to be called "Beat the Clock." The different teen groups must compete as they race against the clock in some of the challenges you have set before them. Let's give you an example...
THE HUMAN CHRISTMAS TREE. Each team is given a small box of odds and ends in tree decorations (bulbs, garland, candy canes, popcorn strings, ornaments and pipe cleaners make a good selection). You tell each of the teams of teens that when the Charlie Brown music starts they are to select a member of their team and make that person look as much like a Christmas Tree as possible. When the song is over, they must stop. The judges will then inspect the results and declare a winner.
Some other races could be pie-eating, creating a house of cards or cookie "Towers of Babel". In the cookie competition, they will use Oreos and they are allowed to use the white center stuff as glue in order to hold together the growing tower of cookies. When the music stops, judge the highest tower.

INDOOR GAME:

PUMP 'EM UP

For this game, you will need to collect a large sweatshirt or oversized T-shirt (XXXL) for about six teens in your group. Divide your group into six teams, giving each of them approximately 15 balloons for each team. Hand out the balloons deflated; the kids will be blowing them up. Give each a small teen guy, and have the selected guys put on an oversize sweat or tee shirt. You give the instruction that to win this contest your team must pump up a "muscle man." Each team must blow up, tie off and cram as many balloons into the oversized shirt of its teen guy. Each team will have three minutes to make their man as "muscular" as possible. Your adults can judge the winner.

TWO GAMES WITH A MESSAGE ON PURITY

The first game involves butcher paper, water pistols and duct tape.

Each teen gets a "wrap" of butcher paper about their torso, taped by duct tape (also use the tape to give them shoulder "suspenders" so the paper won't fall.)

The game is almost like laser tag. Each teen should bring his own water gun/blaster. Your time limit will be ten minutes and you should lay out the boundaries very clearly.

After the whistle is blown, call the teens in and see who was hit the least. Award prizes for the winners. You might want to play this as teams.

SECOND GAME:

Teens wins points by a purely random game. Choose four teens out of the audience and let them take a choice of one of four cupcakes - three are okay, but one has a trace of alum in it. (It'll make you pucker, big time) Let them choose by first answering a trivia question and getting the first choice, etc. They must all line up and take a BIG bite! You will know which teen got the alum - sprinkled cupcake!

After each of these games, talk about the desire to be the person who
1. doesn't get wet
2. doesn't get a strange cupcake

...in other words, we always want to get a pure result in the end. SO IT IS WITH OUR SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL LIVES.

Here are verse references:

Psalm 19:8; Psalm 18:26; Prov. 21:8; Mt. 5:8

FLOUR JENGA

For this game you will need a stack of 12 ounce cups, butter knives and a bag of flour. With each 12 oz cup, place a penny on the bottom, and pack the cup tight with flour. Using a piece of paper on top of the full cup of flour, flip the cup upside down on a table. Slowly remove the cup without disturbing the flour, so that the flour stays in the "cup form" when you pull the cup away. Now you have a small "statue" of flour with a penny on top. This game is like Jenga, and each person is given a butter knife and takes turns cutting away at the flour without disturbing the penny. You can have a number of these "flour towers" all over the room, with different teams competing. What happens to the loser? If a teen makes the penny fall, he has to pick up the penny with his lips!

AIR SOCCER

Here is a fun game that teenagers of any size or shape can play without fear of being overwhelmed or intimidated.

Divide your teens into two teams. In the playing area, place a large waste can (55 gallons) at opposite ends of the room. These are the "goals." Each team is given six balloons and told to break into three squads. Each squad is to take one balloon and race to the other end and drop the balloon in the "goal, race back and get a second balloon and do the same. The first team whose squads complete this wins the game.

Two important notes, though: the balloons cannot be carried, only batted in the air, and if they touch the ground, they are taken back and started again. Second, the teams cannot defend their goal nor stop the other team's advance in any way. This is a fast moving total offensive game. It's a good exercise in teamwork, as each little squad protects and delivers its balloon by batting it as fast as possible. Players may bat the ball a total of four times before having to pass it to another player. Players must share the passing!

ICE WARS

For this game, you will need to freeze water in half-gallon milk cartons. Just before the game, strip off the container so there are blocks of ice ready for the game. Divide your group into teams, with one team per frozen chunk. Assign each team a block of ice, but do not allow them to have access to handkerchiefs, cups of hot water or scrapers. When you blow the whistle to start,
the teams are in a race to shrink the blocks of ice as small as possible in six minutes. They may rub on it, breath on it, roll it across the grass, hug it...but they may not use any kind of a tool to chip at it. After six minutes, blow the whistle and see which team has done the best "meltdown."

CIRCUIT

This is a good exciting indoor game for smaller groups. Tell the teens that you are trying to complete an electric circuit and that you need their help to make sure that the line is working. Group the teens into a circle.

Every person in the group is to take off one of their shoes. Add two basketballs to the circle, so that everyone has one shoe and two people have a basketball AND a shoe. When you blow the whistle, everyone must pass all the items in his hands to the right, and the motion is to continue. The teens must continue passing the items! Even if a teen is dealing with a basketball and a shoe, or if the shoes start to bottleneck, keep the objects moving!

Here's the fun: when a person drops an item, he must leave the game, but the item stays in the game! Dealing with two different size objects such as a basketball and a shoe will make it difficult. As the "circuit" starts to jam, more players will drop out of the game, but the same number of items still move around the circle. It will make it harder and harder to keep from dropping! The winners are the last four teens remaining. (Note: after handling all those shoes, make sure they wash their hands before you hand out refreshments!)

INDOOR GAME FOR TONIGHT:

THE MUMMY'S REVENGE

Divide the teens into three or four groups of equal number. You will need rolls of toilet paper, one for each team. Mark a starting line and about twelve feet away, put a table with one Hershey bar and a small carton of chocolate milk for each team. Have the teams each line up behind the designated line with the roll of toilet paper in front of them.

Tell the teens that each team must make mummies of themeslves - all of them are to be wrapped in toilet paper as a group. When you yell "REVENGE!," each team must designate ONE player who will wrap the rest of the team ten times with the toilet paper. (An adult should count how many times the teen has wrapped the group.) The whole team is one giant mummy. Then the wrapped players must walk together to the table without breaking the toilet paper wrap - if they do so, they must stop and re-wrap. When they arrive at the table one member - while still wrapped - must feed another member the whole Hershey bar. That player then feeds the chocolate milk to another player. The whole group then returns without breaking the toilet paper.

Here are some effective indoor games:

POOL BOWL
Get permission from a local bowling alley for you to keep the "Bumper Pads" up in the gutters. Play Pool Bowl. The bowling ball must make one bounce off the pads before it touches any of the pins. You will be delighted at how this adds a little spice to the game!
Go even further: Add a "Masked Marauder" Challenge Team that will take on all comers through the night. We gathered four pretty decent players and gave them masks for the night. Teams lined up to try to take them down, They made the night undefeated but twice they won by only a handful of pins.


"RACK-O"
Run out and get a copy of the game Rack-O and play it with your staff a couple of times to get the idea on how to play this game. What you will then do is make a version of the cards big enough for the entire family to play as teams. It will take up a whole room and will be a lot of fun. This game could actually take up anywhere from ten minutes to a whole evening!
This will take a little prep time on your part, but if you have a smaller group, this could be a great game. Because of space, I cannot get into details about the game rules; you'll have to spend about $7 and get a copy of the game anyway. (Toys-R- Us sells them).
The difference between the actual game and the game your family will play is that the you will need to make bigger cards for the teens so that everyone can see what is going on. I suggest the cards be at least 8 and a half by 11 inches...the same size as a regular sheet of paper.

Your "rack" will be a regular table with a shield or guard on it so the other teams cannot see what each others' cards are. If you have four teams, spread them out on four tables.
This is a great rainy day game and will help develop teamwork among your teens.

WHAT KIND OF COMPETITIONS CAN I HAVE?

If you want to have a lot of fun over the course of one month (with a theme), divide into teams, run some competitions and give out prizes each week for the space of the month! Here are some ways that you can give the teens points for competition.

1. POSTER CONTEST: Divide the room up into four parts. Let the team choose their own name, and then give 1000 points for each poster they add to their part of the room. You announce the contest on Sunday and the posters are to be done on Wednesday. The immediacy of the contest adds to the excitement.

2. DOUBLE POINT VERSE NIGHT: Announce at the beginning of a Wednesday night service that the following verses will earn DOUBLE the point value if they can be memorized in the next fifteen minutes:

Gal. 2:20
Rev. 3:20
1 John 1:9
Psalm 26:7
Proverbs 3:5,6
Psalm 199:9-11

One of your leaders should have a stopwatch.

3. IMPROMPTU SKIT NIGHT: Write out some scenarios and give the teens ten minutes to come up with a skit that is NO MORE THAN 2 minutes long. 5,000 for the best skit.

Here are some scenes:

a. Sunday School hour, and the kids have just returned from a field trip that morning at 2 a.m.
b. A commerical for the need to use Dial Soap after a teen mud activity
c. Comparison between Hershey bars and Nestle bars.
d. A sleepover where the kitchen church pantry is locked and the teens have run out of food.
e. A group is tired of Santa's sleigh coming over town every year. They try to figure a way to bring it down.

ONE-MINUTE TESTIMONIES

Here's a way to get teens talking about their Lord...and it's fun!

Place a six-foot table in the front of the teen room. Cover with objects like:

flashlight
mirror
pen pencil
Hershey bar
notebook paper
hammer
nail

and other odds and ends.

When the teens arrive, announce that you will have a ONE MINUTE RUN whereby you weill call a teen up front and he or she is to pick up an object and use it as an illustration for a Bible truth ("I have this flashlight, and it reminds me that Jesus is the Light of the world...")

After one minute, blow the whistle. When you call a name at the very beginning, give the teen about 30 seconds to look over the tabvle while you give a couple of announcements. That will give him time to get the juices flowing. Other teens will be scanning the table in case they get called.

PRAISE RELAY
In order to equip your teens with a regular habit of praising and thanking the Lord for what He has done, have a "thankful relay" on occasion. Have the adult staff participate as well. When the first person gets to the podium, they have fifteen seconds to list as many things that they are thankful for. When the timekeeper calls out "TIME!" the person then calls on another person in the group to then come up. That person has ten seconds to run up to the front and start their praise list. Keep this going for about four minutes. It presents an active opener with a heart ready to give thanks to the Lord.




PREDICTIONS
Pass out 3 x 5 cards and have the teens try their hands at predictions...the family kind, of course. Teens are to give their opinions as to the following people or items ten years from now...

1. Strongest country in the world
2. What the people on either side of me will be doing
3. What I will be doing
4. What the best TV show will be about
5. What percentage of the U.S. will be Christians
6. What kind of clothing and hair styles will be the rage
7. What prices will be like for bread, Pepsi, gas by the gallon, and a breakfast at Denny's
GATHER THEM UP AND READ THEM OUT LOUD. SOME ANSWERS WILL BE A REAL LAUGH, BUT SOME MAY EVEN INSPIRE SERIOUS CONVERSATION. NO DOUBT ONE OR TWO WILL SIMPLY STATE THE BELIEF THAT JESUS CHRIST WILL HAVE RETURNED BEFORE THEN. THIS WOULD BE A GOOD STARTER FOR A BIBLE STUDY ON THE RAPTURE.




PUZZLE RUN
Before the meeting, take four 100 piece puzzles and put each puzzle on a separate card table. On the table, leave about 25 pieces assembled for a head start. Then take the remaining 75 pieces in the puzzle and divide them up into baggies of 15-20 pieces in each baggie. Do this with each of the four puzzles.
As the teens arrive, give them a baggie with pieces in it. On the word GO they are to find out which table their pieces belong to, and to start in on finishing the puzzle. For the best results, try to get puzzles which have different color themes so a teen doesn't get too confused. The running around, matching-up time is a lot of fun and you may be surprised at how fast the puzzles are completed. The teens will learn how to work together very quickly. Perhaps you could give a nice group prize such as candy bars for the winners.




QUIK TRIVIA
Few things get the teens going as fast as some good old trivia. For this particular challenge, I'd suggest pitting the high school freshman and juniors against the sophomores and seniors. Bring a pair of teens (teams of two from either side) up to the front and center to answer. The closest to the correct answer gets 100 points. Each team answers two questions, then they must change with another team. Everyone goes before the first team gets to go up again. Remember, very few teens will get the answers right. The team that comes the closest will win.
(Answers are in PARENTHESES)


1. How often do we blink - how many times a minute? (12 times a minute)

2. On the molars, how much force does a human bit generate - in pounds per square inch?
(On the molars, jaw muscles close 200 pounds to the square inch)

3. How much food can the average stomach hold? (A quart)

4. How many hairs does the average person have on their head? (100,000 hairs)

5. Approximately how long does it take a spider to weave a web? (45 minutes)

6. How much water is in an inch of snow?
(10 inches of snow = 1 inch of water)

7. What is the most common non-contagious disease in the world? (Periodontal disease - gingivitis, or inflammation of the gums)

8. What color car do auto experts say is the safest? (Your choice - either blue or yellow)

9. What color car do auto experts say is the worst? (Gray)

All of the above facts were taken from the Handy Science Answer Book, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.





RAPTURE SKIT
We had a segment of our meeting where teens could do a skit on the Rapture. We gave them ten minutes' preparation time. They were given various scenes in which they could add drama: a news TV station discussing the occurring events, a radio station who lost a minister during a morning drive-time interview due to the Rapture, a debate among politicians about what has been going on, "live" street interviews, etc.
The skits provided some thoughtful insight as to people's probable reactions and gave a deeper seriousness to the following study.

Grey Marble Growing Cinder Block

T-SHIRT NIGHT


Bring a camera for this one! Gather and borrow as many large T-shirts as you can possibly round up for this night. Have your staff go and get boxes of T-shirts. When the teens come in for the activity, start off with this competition: divide them up into teams and give them ten minutes to them to put on as many T-shirts as they possibly could! This may not sound like an ingenious icebreaker, but can this every get hilarious! The contestants end up looking like a platoon of Pillsbury Doughboys. One Wisconsin home school parent told me that one of his boys wore 60 T-shirts and fell down - and couldn't get up!

HERE'S A NEW IDEA FOR WEDNESDAY NIGHT:

Open up tonight's meeting with this icebreaker...
POCKET/WALLET SCAVENGER HUNT

Divide your groups into teams. Have everyone take out their wallet/purse. You will be calling out items as in a scavenger hunt. At each call, the team members will scour their wallets, pockets, or purses to see if they have what you are calling for. They must retrieve it and run it up to one of the judges sitting at a table. The first one with the item called for gets ten points. The first team to collect 100 points is the winner. Here are some items you can call:

1. a $10 bill 2. a receipt from a grocery store 3. a coupon 4. a picture of someone who is less than 6 years old. 5. a black and white photo 6. a driver's license with the number "3" in the registration number. 7. a nickel that is dated earlier than 1990. 8. a key chain with the color red on it. 9. cologne or perfume 10. a voter's registration card 11. a gift certificate of any kind 12. a school ID card 13. a business card 14. a paper clip 15. a check: canceled, blank or written. 16. a dollar bill with a "2" in the serial number 17. a video registration card

Keep this game moving fast!


REVENGE TRIVIA CHALLENGE

This is a trivia game with an interesting twist to get across your teaching about greed..
Announce to the teens that tonight you will pit the girls against the guys and see who is better at knowledge about the United States. Pick questions from the Rand-McNally Almanac - questions such as state's capitals or nicknames. Both teams will start the game with 1000 points. Each question right is worth 100 points, but getting the question right means you can either get the 100 points or take away 100 points from the other team. If your team gets two questions right in a row you automatically get to take 10 extra points from the other team. Ask ten questions total, with the last question being worth 250 points.
let the teens go at it. You will see how emotions run high.

After you announce the winner, ask the teens these questions: Did you like the idea of taking away points as well as getting them? Wasn't there a measure of revenge in your motives? Did it get you angry? Did the other team seem greedy?
Start the study on selfishness in these passages: Psalm 119:36, Eccles. 1:8, Eccles. 5:10, 2 Tim. 3:2. See what God's directives are in 1 Peter 5:2.

INDY 500
Have four sleeping bags available. This relay race must be played in a gym or a place with a slick floor. Lay out a "figure 8" course on the floor. Have the teams line up at the designated starting line. Each team should have three "engines" (guys) and a "driver" (girl) for a total of four. Open up the sleeping bag and have the guys grab the front. They will pull the sleeping bag while the girl holds on. The "car" must do a complete race around the figure 8 and hand off to the next foursome and so on.

For added fun, go into a second version: the Drag racing part of the night. Have a straight course laid out and add another guy as a fourth engine. It's a straight course run, just like in drag racing. You can have all four teams race at once. This is not a relay, just a flat-out, onetime sprint.

PERSUASION
The most persuasive team

Divide your teens up into groups of four to six. Give them a little-known product, or at least one they may not be familiar with. Some examples could be a Brillo pad, a copy of popular Mechanics, a tea strainer, or a shoe horn.
The contest is to see which team can put on the best commercial and be most persuasive in their delivery. The "commercials" should be no longer than 90 seconds in length but should use all the teens, even if some of them are background characters.
Give each team about five minutes preparation time. For added fun, have the real prices and uses of the items on a page and read it after the commercial. Competing teens will be delighted to know that the previous commercial tried to sell a Brillo pad at $14...quite an inflated price!
There could be a good follow-up to this: truth versus persuasion. Talk about the TV and radio ads which entice and tease but do not necessarily tell the truth. Contrast this to the sometimes unpleasant but necessary task of telling the truth of the Gospel. People may not like what they hear at first, but they may come to realize that truth is the most important part of your witnessing.

NINETEEN FORTIES RADIO

Equipment needed: Chairs,megaphone

Set up one chair per person into a circle so all the chairs are facing inward. Select two teens and remove their chairs. They will be "it" in the middle of the circle. They will try to get a seat whenever possible.

Get a battery-run megaphone - it gives the 1940's radio "crackle." Announce that you are trying to get the radio started again, so you must ask everybody seated to hold hands in order to connect the circuit.

After everyone holds hands, you tell them that you will count down from five and then name a phrase. If that phrase fits the person, he or she must change chairs. They'll have to move fast - the two in the middle want to get a chair and sit!
Everybody can count down with you. 5-4-3-2-1.. then you say: "You are wearing white socks." Everyone with white socks must change seats. Your phrase might be "You didn't shower this morning" or "You kissed your mom today"... anything that would qualify them puts them in action. The two remaining after the running is over must stand in the middle and be "it", waiting for the next call.

CHARLIE BROWN RACES

We've used this game again and again and the teens loved it. It can be an icebreaker or a regular game for the night - you can draw this one out longer, due to the different challenges you'll present.
First of all, you'll need to get a copy of the Charlie Brown theme song - the one they used in the TV specials.

Now, what you are going to do is use the Charlie Brown theme song as a "timer" for an edition of what used to be called "Beat the Clock." Divide the group into small teams. The different teen teams must compete as they race against the clock in some of the challenges you have set before them. Let's give you an example:

THE HUMAN CHRISTMAS TREE. Each team is given a small box of odds and ends in tree decorations (bulbs, garland, candy canes, popcorn strings, ornaments and pipe cleaners make a good selection). You tell each of the teams of teens that when the Charlie Brown music starts they are to select a member of their team and make that person look as much like a Christmas Tree as possible. When the song is over, they must stop. The judges will then inspect the results and declare a winner.

Some other races could be pie-eating, creating a house of cards or cookie Towers of Babel. In the cookie competition, they will use Oreos and they are allowed to use the white center stuff as glue in order to hold together the growing tower of cookies. When the music stops, judge the highest tower.

Come up with some simple games. The teens will get used to the pattern of the music and figure out when it will stop. it's a great game that is always refreshing because of the new challenges you add.

A bicycle; Actual size=300 pixels wide

BALLOON RELAY

RUN DOWN TO THE CHAIR AND GRAB A BALLOON FROM THE GARBAGE BAG ON YOUR SIDE. PUT IT ON YOUR SEAT AND SIT ON IT! YOU MAY NOT RUN BACK TO THE NEXT GROUP UNTIL YOU HAVE POPPED YOUR BALLOON BY SITTING ON IT.
YOU WILL BE SURPRISED AT HOW MANY TEENS WILL SEND THAT BALLOON SHOOTING OUT ACROSS THE AREA OR BOUNCE UP AND DOWN TWENTY TIMES BEFORE THAT BALLOON POPS! LOTS OF FAST FUN WITH MINIMAL CLEANUP.

BLACK HOLE

Here's a game to give a chance for teens to blow off steam!

The playing time is 10 minutes long. The only equipment you need is a Hula Hoop.

Space Needed: Approx. 40' x 40' .This game is recommended for either indoor or outdoor...guys and girls play separate.
Here's how to play: Players will join hands and form a ring around the Hula Hoop. They must grasp hands tightly! When the referee blows the whistle, the players may push, pull, or try in any way to move or maneuver other players to the Hula Hoop circle so that the other player touches the Hoop and thus is "disintegrated by the Black Hole". At all times while the maneuvering is going on, the players must not unclasp their hands. The player whose foot enters the Black Hole (Hula Hoop) area is out of the play. If a player unclasps his hands from the circle, he is also out of the play. Strategy becomes a powerful force here. Some players may "gang up" or one or two others in order to get them out of play. The last player left is the winner.

RUBBERBAND-HEAD RELAY

Take a large newspaper-style rubber band and have a TWO-HEADED MONSTER RACE. The teens will be divided up into two groups and those groups will be broken down into two-man teams. The pairs will stand behind the starting line, back-to-back, with a rubber band across their foreheads...understand, one rubber band connects both heads, holding them together.
The connected pair must then run to a designated point and turn back, heading to the finish line for the next pair. Teens may walk sideways or with one teen in front - it's their choice. Get the camera out for this one. Every once in awhile a rubber band will shoot off to who knows where. This game will get a lot of laughs.

WHO ARE THESE CHURCH MEMBERS?

You will need to do a little secret homework. Ask some of the parents and other adults in the church to list some of their greatest achievements and favorite hobbies. Then, quiz-style, make a column of the folks' names on the left hand side of a paper and the facts on the right. Have the teens try to guess which adult did what within a two minute span. A lot of interesting items will come out and the teens will get to know a little more about the folks who sit next to them at church.

Spirol, Spinning Horizontal Line

INDY 500

Have four sleeping bags available. This relay race must be played in a gym or a place with a slick floor. Lay out a "figure 8" course on the floor. Have the teams line up at the designated starting line. Each team should have three "engines" (guys) and a "driver" (girl) for a total of four. Open up the sleeping bag and have the guys grab the front. They will pull the sleeping bag while the girl holds on. The "car" must do a complete race around the figure 8 and hand off to the next foursome and so on.

For added fun, go into a second version: the Drag racing part of the night. Have a straight course laid out and add another guy as a fourth engine. It's a straight course run, just like in drag racing. You can have all four teams race at once. This is not a relay, just a flat-out, onetime sprint.

MASH TRANSIT

Divide your teens into four groups. Place them in the four corners of your meeting room or gymnasium. Announce that when you blow the whistle, each team is to try to be the first team to get to the opposite corner of the room. When the group hits the middle area, four teams are converging all at once! A great big joyous mess.
While this game is delightful mayhem, there is potential danger of collision, so start off with teens crawling crab-style. Second relay is hopping on one foot. Third is forward-rolling somersaults.
The collisions in the middle are great fun and it loosens everyone up for your next activity!

BALLOON CRASH

This is a game from way back, but if you haven't tried it out, you're missing a lot of fun. Have balloons already blown up and tied. Put a nine-inch string on each balloon and then have it tied to the shoe of each teen. Each teen will have only one balloon on them. As the whistle is blown, the teens will try to stomp other people's balloons without getting his balloon stomped! You can start this out as a team effort, but then at the end when you are down to one team, have them turn on each other and see who is the last person out of that team.
A fun variation of this is to tie the balloon to each person's belt and give each teen a magazine or newspaper. The teen must try to whack the balloon and break it. This game gets pretty wild. Just make sure nobody is hitting anyone else in the head.

BASKETBALL WALLOP

If you meet in a gymnasium or have access to a full basketball court, try BASKETBALL WALLOP. Divide the group up into two teams. Pick five guys from each team to start the game (substitutions are allowed) on the court. They will be playing regular basketball. The only exception is, you have also allowed five girls from each team to get on the court as well. They will be the defensive players in the game - using pillows! Allow the girls to bring pillows that night. Be sure to check them for any hard packing, so as not to inflict serious damage to any of the guys! The girls must stay on their end of the court, but each time the guys come down to try a score, the girls can let 'em have it! This produces hilarious results, if not a low-scoring game. Let the game go on for about ten minutes.

MAN OF STEEL

Here's a fun game that is sure to delight spectators. Announce that you need a couple of teen boys to try out for the Man Of Steel contest. Give the competing teen boy a garbage can lid to use as a shield. The teen boy will stand on a folding chair and try to keep from being knocked off - by three girls with pillows!
The girls are not allowed to shove with the pillows, only take their best shots. Itll be sort of like a bull-riding contest, for the boy has to stay on for 30 seconds. He cannot grab the pillows or the girls and he may not hang onto the chair with his hands. He may only try to fend off blows with the shield. If the girls have any smarts, they'll try to move around and circle him with shots from different angles. The results are hilarious. Get a camera out for this game.