Youth group games: 25 games with rules, supplies and setup

Most youth nights have room for one game before the Bible lesson. Pick it by the room you have, the number of students, and whether a new student is coming who knows nobody. Most of these games run ten to fifteen minutes, and the outdoor games run longer. Read the safety rules near the end before you play any of them.

Games for any room

Four Corners

Number the corners of the room one to four. One student stands in the middle with eyes closed and counts slowly to ten while everyone else walks to a corner. The counter calls a number, and everyone standing in that corner sits down. If the corner is empty, the counter calls another number. Play until one student is left, or until the last few are all caught in one corner, and let one of them count the next round.

Ninja

Students stand in a circle and strike a pose. Going around the circle, each student gets one quick motion to tap the hand of a neighbor, and the student being tapped may make one motion to dodge. Everyone then freezes where they are until their turn. A student tapped on one hand puts it behind their back, a student tapped on both hands is out, and the last student left wins. Taps are light, and a hard slap puts the slapper out.

Silent Line-Up

Tell the group to line up in order of birthday, January 1 at one end and December 31 at the other, without saying a word, though they may point and hold up fingers. When they finish, walk the line and have each student say their name and birthday. Run it a second time by height, or by the first letter of their middle names.

Two Truths and a Lie

Each student says three things about themselves, two true and one false, and the group guesses the lie. Have a leader go first so the students hear an example.

Would You Rather

Read a question with two answers, such as “Would you rather give up your phone or dessert for a month?” Students move to the left side of the room for one answer and the right side for the other. Ask one student on each side to explain, then read the next question. Keep the questions light, and drop any question that asks a student to choose between two people in the room.

Human Knot

Eight to twelve students stand in a tight circle. Each one reaches across and takes two hands belonging to two different people, never the person standing beside them. Without letting go, the group untangles itself. Some knots come out as one circle and some as two linked circles, and both count as a finish. Give any student who would rather not hold hands a job as the timer or the coach.

Sardines

One student hides and everyone else searches. Each student who finds the hider joins them in the hiding place, quietly, until the last searcher finds the whole group. Allow hiding only in open spaces an adult can see into, such as behind a row of chairs or under a table, and never in a closet or a room with the door shut. Before you start, turn the lights on, tape off every area that is out of bounds, and station two adults in each area in play.

Games with paper, cards or a whiteboard

Pictionary Relay

Write a list of ten words before the night starts. Split into teams, each lined up facing its own sheet of paper or section of whiteboard. The first player from each team comes to the leader for a word, runs back and draws it until the team guesses it. The next player then comes up for the next word, and the first team through all ten words wins.

Telephone Pictionary

Every student writes a sentence at the top of a sheet and passes it left. Whoever receives it draws the sentence, folds the paper to hide the words and passes it on. The student after that writes what the drawing shows, folds the paper over the drawing, and passes it again. When the sheets come back around, read each one out loud from the start.

Spoons

Seat four to eight players at a table. Put spoons in the middle, one fewer than the number of players, and deal four cards to each player. The dealer draws from the deck one card at a time, keeps it or passes it to the left, and each player does the same with the cards that reach them, always holding four. The first player to hold four cards of the same rank, such as four sevens, quietly takes a spoon, and then everyone grabs for one. The player left without a spoon is out, so remove one spoon and deal again. When the deck runs out, shuffle the passed cards and keep going. Tell players to grab only the spoons, so nobody’s hand gets scratched.

Celebrity

Each student writes the names of three well-known people on slips of paper and drops them in a bowl. Split into two teams. One player from the first team has sixty seconds to get teammates to guess as many names as they can, and then the other team takes a turn. A round lasts until the bowl is empty, and the team that guessed more names wins it. During round one the player describes each name without saying it. Round two allows one word only. For round three the player acts the name out silently while the team calls out guesses. All of the slips go back in the bowl before each new round.

Bible games

Sword Drill

Students hold closed Bibles at their sides. The leader calls a reference, such as John 3:16, and the students repeat it out loud. On “Draw swords,” students lift their Bibles, and on “Charge” they race to find the verse. The first to find it stands and reads it aloud. Run separate rounds for younger students and for students who are new to the Bible, so the quickest finders do not win every time.

Bible Charades

Write Bible stories or people on slips of paper, taken from the book your group is studying. A player draws a slip and has one minute to act it out without words while their team guesses. After each one, ask a student to tell the story in a sentence or two.

Scripture Scramble

Pick the verse your group is memorizing. Write it on index cards, one word to a card, and make a set for each team. Teams race to lay the cards out in order. When every team finishes, the whole group says the verse together three times.

Who Said It?

Read a line spoken by someone in the Bible and let teams guess who said it. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is Cain, in Genesis 4:9, answering God after he had killed his brother Abel. Take the lines from the book your group has been studying, and ask what was happening when each one was said.

Gym and big-room games

Gaga Ball

Gaga ball needs a gaga pit, a ring of low walls about waist high that many camps and churches build from lumber, so choose another game if you have no pit. The leader tosses a soft ball into the middle, and players hit it with an open hand. A player touched by the ball at or below the knee is out, a player may not hit the ball twice in a row, and the last player in the ring wins.

Doctor Dodgeball

Split the gym in half with a line that no player may cross, and give each team foam balls. A player hit by a thrown ball below the shoulders is out, and a thrower whose ball is caught in the air is out. Each team secretly chooses a doctor, who can tag a teammate who is out and bring that teammate back in. Once the other team hits the doctor, nobody on that team comes back. The team with players left wins. Ban throws at the head, and put out any player who makes one.

Pin Guard

Each team sets up bowling pins or plastic bottles along its back wall and stays on its own half of the gym. Players throw foam balls to knock down the other team’s pins and block the shots aimed at their own. The first team to knock down all of the other team’s pins wins.

Steal the Bacon

Two teams line up facing each other across the gym, and each player on a team gets a number. Put a towel or a rubber chicken in the middle. The leader calls a number, and the two players with that number race to grab the bacon and carry it back across their own line without being tagged. A light tag with one hand is enough, and diving and tackling are not allowed.

Ships and Sailors

Name the walls: bow at the front, stern at the back, port to the left and starboard to the right. The leader calls a wall and students jog to it and stop a step short. Add commands as the game goes on, such as “hit the deck” (lie flat), “captain’s coming” (stand and salute) and “lifeboat” (sit down in rows of three), and the last student to obey each command sits out.

Sharks and Minnows

One or two sharks stand in the middle of the gym and everyone else lines up along one wall as minnows. When the sharks call “Fishy, fishy, cross my ocean,” the minnows run to a line of cones set a few steps short of the far wall. A minnow tagged with a light touch becomes a shark, and the last minnow left wins.

Crab Soccer

Set a goal at each end of the gym with cones. Players move on hands and feet with their bellies facing up, nobody may stand, and the game is soccer with a large, light ball. It is tiring, so play two halves of five minutes with a break between them.

Outdoor games

Capture the Flag

Mark a field with cones and split it into two halves, one for each team, with a flag at the back of each half. Players cross into the other team’s half to grab its flag and carry it home. A player tagged in the other team’s half goes to that team’s jail, a coned square, until a teammate runs in and tags them free. The first team to carry the other flag across the middle line wins. Put two adults on each half as referees, and count the students before and after the game.

Ultimate Frisbee

Mark a field with an end zone, a strip about ten steps deep, at each end. Two teams pass a flying disc toward the end zone they are attacking. A player holding the disc cannot run with it, and a dropped or intercepted pass goes to the other team. A catch in the end zone scores a point, nobody may touch another player, and the first team to five points wins.

Flashlight Tag

Play at dusk in a fenced yard or a field you have walked in daylight. One student is the catcher and carries a flashlight. A student caught in the beam is tagged, takes a flashlight and joins the catcher, and the last student untagged wins. Tell students where the boundaries are and that one long whistle means everyone comes back. Post adults at the edges, send students out in pairs, and count heads before and after.

Where the game fits in the night

Start the game once most students have arrived, and end it on time. Then sing, read and teach one passage, and pray in small groups. If a game leaves the room too wound up to listen to the Bible, choose a calmer one next week.

A night on one page looks like this, and the game is ten minutes of it.

Wednesday youth night

• 6:30 Students arrive, snack
• 6:45 Game: Four Corners, 10 minutes
• 7:00 Songs, three of them
• 7:15 Bible: Mark 4:35-41, read twice, three questions
• 7:40 Prayer in groups of three
• 7:55 Announcements and pickup

Some students cannot run, do not like to be touched, or are new and nervous. Give them a real job in every game, such as referee, scorekeeper or timer.

Safety rules to set before the first game

Skip any game that has students stuff food into their mouths. In 2005 an Illinois school district settled for $2 million with the family of Catherine Fish, a 12-year-old who had choked to death during a game of “chubby bunny,” the Associated Press reported. Players in that game see how many marshmallows they can hold in their mouths.

Collect allergies when students register, and ask parents of a student with a severe allergy for the emergency care plan their doctor signed. Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE), a nonprofit, reports from a 2015 to 2016 survey that 5.6 million children in the United States, nearly 8 percent, have a food allergy. A severe allergic reaction is called anaphylaxis, and epinephrine is the medicine that treats it. FARE’s instruction for severe symptoms is to give epinephrine immediately and then call 911. Know which adults are trained to give it and where it is kept, and keep the allergy list with the leaders.

Every adult who works with students should pass a background check before serving, and two adults stay in every room or area where students are. Drop any game where a student’s embarrassment is the joke. Ask families before you post a photo of their child.

Parent texts

A changed pickup time or a moved room goes to parents as a text, and the parent’s yes to texting belongs on the registration form beside the allergy line. Type one below and see how it reads on a parent’s phone. The consent rules are in church texting rules.

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Who gets it Youth parentsYouth groupEveryoneNursery volunteersChoir

Your message Grace Baptist youth: tonight's pickup is at 8:00 at the gym doors, not the front. Reply STOP to stop. 0 of 160 characters

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Grace Baptist youth: tonight's pickup is at 8:00 at the gym doors, not the front. Reply STOP to stop.

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