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Top 20 Youth Group Games

Top 20 Youth Group Games

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I learned something recently: in youth ministry, youth group games are important. I mean really important.

My church had vacation bible school two weeks ago and I was teaching the middle school class. That first night I went straight into the lesson and I got crickets and glazed eyes. One thing was apparent: my approach wasn’t working.

I had planned a lesson along with some small activities but my quiet group ended up zooming through the lesson and I still had an hour to fill! We grabbed our snack from the kitchen and headed outside to eat it since it was a beautiful evening. We ended up playing different versions of tag, and this group of students who were shy and quiet at first, were suddenly laughing and talking.

The games ended up being a major team building exercise. It helped them find things in common and get past the initial awkwardness that can come with meeting new people. They needed the games to break the ice so they could feel comfortable participating in discussions about the lesson.

Now I realize games are vital to building community in youth group. So after doing some research, our team has compiled a list of the top 20 youth group games with you. I have a feeling many of these games will help you and your students this week!

Want more games for youth ministry? Download your free 100 Youth Group Games!

We keep these games updated based on feedback we get from youth leaders like you. So, you can always check back to look for new games.

Ok! Now, here are some of the best and simple youth group games you can play this week:

Grog

You take apart a flashlight and hide the parts throughout the play area. One kid is the Grog, which is a monster that can freeze you in place by tagging you. Everyone has to work together to find the parts, assemble the flashlight, and shine it on the Grog to defeat “it.” Our group of students LOVED this game. It was a favorite by far.

Here’s how wenatcheenazyouth plays Grog:

 

Sardines or Christians in the Catacombs

This is the game of sardines, but explain it with the story of how the early Christians met in the catacombs, but they still increased in number. One person hides in a dark place, and then as people find them, they join in hiding, until one person remains. It’s hide and seek, backwards.

Watch how That YouTub3 Family plays Sardines:

 

Scatterball

Dodgeball with a twist. To start, everyone must have a hand on a nerf ball. Throw the ball up in the air and everyone scatters. Somebody grabs the ball in the air or off the ground. Whoever has the ball can only take two steps. After two steps, the player must throw the ball — dodgeball style — at another player. If the ball hits a player, that player sits down right where they are. BUT, they can still play, they just can’t move from their seated spot.
 If a player is hit by the ball and catches it, then the throwing player sits down. At any time sitting players can snag the ball if it rolls by, and they can throw it at standing players trying to get them out.

The game ends when only one player is standing. Hint: it’s a good game for larger groups but its lacking in action if you have less than 10 people.

This is how Allan Affleck‘s middle school class plays Scatterball:

 

Lifesize Clue

The youth group gathers in the evening when the church is dark. They congregate in one lit room and one person goes to hide a large doll (any stuffed animal will work). That person also hides a “murder” weapon (hint: use goofy items to keep it light such as a spatula or telephone), then comes back and releases people out of the room one at a time.

One random person will be given a flashlight and they are the “killer.” Players walk around and have to find the weapon and victim (doll). Players also need to know who the “killer” is without getting caught. Players are caught when the “killer” flashes the light at you. If the “killer” catches a player, they are out and have to go sit in the main room.

Here’s how Branson Tannerites plays Life-size Clue with his family:

 

Spaghetti And Marshmallow Tower

The Spaghetti And Marshmallow Tower is a classic game that you may well have played yourself. To make it happen, split your group into as many teams as you have supplies (keeping around 3-4 members in a group).

Provide each group with one pack of spaghetti and one pack of large marshmal- lows. Teams are charged to use their supplies to build the tallest freestanding tower they can (meaning that holding the tower up for measuring is against the rules). Give the groups a certain time limit during which they can construct their tower – anywhere from 5-15 minutes generally works well – and give them a one-minute warning before their time up.

The winning team is the one with the tallest freestanding tower, as measured by the game leader. Break any ties by having the teams move their tower across the room and measuring again, not allowing them to fix any breakages.

Note: Some teams will get creative and incorporate the spaghetti box and marshmallow bag into their structure. There is no rule against this.

How the kids in MrKaiser208‘s middle school class build a Spaghetti and Marshmallow Tower:

 

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Trackers Seedbed Kids Childrens Church Curriculum

Or keep scrolling for more fun youth group games!

Photo Scavenger Hunt

Assign points for odd items that students can find to take a picture with around the Church property or within a designated area. Get creative with your lists. Plan to do this at a time like VBS when much of the church staff is present so you can include silly ones like “do the air guitar with the worship pastor” or “do the disco with the children’s pastor.” Give them a time limit and deduct points for every minute they are late returning.

The added bonus of this game is you automatically have some great photos of your students that you can put in the youth group room. You can even feature some of them as photos of the week.

Top 20 of the Best Crazy Fun Youth Group Games - Photo Scavenger Hunt

Baby Bird

Two teams of two students compete. On each team, one student acts as the mother bird and the other acts as the baby bird. The “mama bird” grabs (gummi) worms from a pile of “dirt” (smashed up Oreos) using chopsticks and then “spits” (drops) them into the mouth of the “baby bird”, who then spits them into nearby plastic eggshells (you can place them inside empty egg cartons to keep them upright). The team with the most worms in their eggshell at the end of 20 seconds wins. Ties are broken via bird- calling contest.

Draw It

There’s two teams, each with a white board. Give them an word and the team has to guess the word they drew. This would be a good ice breaker activity before a lesson if you tie in themes from the lesson into the drawings.

Four on the Couch

The goal is to get 4 of your team onto the same couch. There must be one less seat than people in the room (must have a couch; you can play three on a couch if necessary).

Divide into at least two teams and have everyone put their name in hat. Everyone draws a name and that becomes his/her new name for the game. But everyone should keep their names a secret. Now the person to the left of the empty seat in the room calls out a name. The person, who drew that name, now moves to the empty seat, and switches names with the person who called out the name. Now the person to the left of the new empty seat calls a name. You repeat the process.

So you have to try to get to the empty the couch and call the right names to get folks on the couch. This takes some thinking but is fun and competitive in a non-athletic way.

Guess the Person (or Name Game, or
Fishbowl)

This game works best with smaller groups – around 8-12 people, so if you have a big group, it’s best to split up and play multiple games.
Each person should write down the names of 10 people – either famous people or people everyone in the group knows. Get people to cut their pieces of paper up so there’s one name per piece of paper. Go around and collect them in a basket or hat. You should have quite a few names in the basket.
Split into 2 or 3 teams (each team having around three or four members). 29

Round One.
Pick a team to start – one member of that team gets the basket of names, picks out a name, and has to try and describe that person to the other members of his team. Once they guess correctly, pull out another name from the hat and so on. The team has one minute to go through as many names as they can. If they get stuck on a name, they can pass and move onto the next name. Names that are guessed successfully are put in a separate pile, and those that are ‘passed’ are put back in the basket. When the minute is up, add up the total number of names guessed, and add that to the team’s score. Move onto the next team who do the same as above. This continues until all the names have been used up or ‘guessed’.

Round Two.
Similar to Round 1 but you can only use one word to describe the person to your group. The group will be aware of all the names in the basket (from round 1) so it is easier than it sounds. Score a point per name guessed as above.

Round Three.
Same as previous rounds but this time, you have to ‘act’ out the person without speaking. Add up the scores at the end to see who wins!

Slip ‘N Slide Kickball

If you have a group of athletic, competitive students this one is for you. Basically it’s kickball but you add a slip ‘n slide between the bases. Keep some band aids on hand for this one just in case.

Capture the Flag

This one needs no explanation, but feel free to add twists. Include more than one flag, take turns having the teams play offense and defense, play with three or four teams going against each other, etc.

Tug of War

This is another classic, but is always a hit with youth groups. Make it extra fun by doing it once a year and utilizing interesting competitions: students vs. leaders, boys vs. girls, senior high vs. junior high. The key to a good match-up is to put a small number of the strongest against a large number of the weakest. For example, take a handful senior high boys and place them against 30 middle schoolers.

Ultimate Duck-Duck-Goose

When there are more than 50 students, this game is a lot of fun. Play duck-duck-goose as you normally would, however when a few people get tagged and they go to the middle, then they begin another game of duck-duck-goose. I’ve played this game with 100 students before and they began a game within a game within a game within a game. Two other twists you can initiate are using a sponge while the person is going around and ducking to hold over people’s heads or having more than one person go around at a time.

 

Tap It Out Telephone

This ones great because you don’t need any supplies. It’s like telephone but instead of whispering something, you use your finger and draw the word on the person’s back. Everyone is in a straight line, with multiple teams doing this. First team that gets to the last person and has the correct word wins.

Name That Tune!

Divide students into teams and have one student face off against another student from the other team. Play five seconds of a popular song from iTunes and have them guess. If both students don’t know, let anyone call it out.

Seated Basketball

This one is a favorite because it requires strategy and teamwork. The game is divided up between two teams. The goal is to get a ball into a basket. This can be a basketball hoop, but I have found it just as fun playing it with laundry baskets placed on a table.

Each player has their own chair and is played in rounds. At the beginning of a round, the players have a short amount of time to place their chairs in a position. Once placed, they are not allowed to move from their spot. They then must pass the ball to each other, without it getting intercepted by the opposing team.

After each round the players become more strategic and shift from focusing on offense and defense. Whereas one round may consist of one team placing all their chairs around the opposing goal, they’ll quickly realize that they are unable to shoot from their location. Likewise, a team that has no one in the middle of the field is unable to make an adequate pass to their teammates.

An interesting side effect of this game is the loner and unpopular student will often become the most passed to player. They are the ones that are open, because the opposing team neglects to place a chair next to them to guard.

Real World Bible Drills

Bible drills can be fun but with a twist on an old classic game, students can translate it into real life skills. Instead of saying a specific Bible verse like John 3:16, have them find narrative stories like David and Goliath. After doing a few of these narrative type stories, branch out even further. Have them lookup a passage of the Bible that someone can use if they feel deep sadness, struggle with addiction, feel lonely, etc. This really challenges the students to use critical thinking and provides them with skills they can use later in life.

Penny Chinny

Give everyone a penny. On ‘go’ they must balance the penny on their chin while trying to knock everyone else’s penny off. This means the penny will lay flat on the chin and the students will be looking up into the air. Last one standing with the penny balanced wins. It is quick and easy and the perfect game if you are waiting for doors to open before a youth conference or for your favorite Christian artists before a concert like Winter Jam, Creationfest, Soulfest or Ichthus (retro reference).

Top 20 of the Best Crazy Fun Youth Group Games Of All Time

Battle of the Instant Dance Crews

Prior to the start of the program (while students are mingling) assemble two dance crews and have them each choreograph a dance routine in the several minutes before icebreaker time. If your group is small enough, the entire group can be split into two teams and choreograph the dance as part of the actual activity, rather than in advance. Winners are determined based on audience applause for the former or by leaders for the latter.

 

For more helpful Youth Group Resources:

For 5X more games Download your free book: 100 Youth Group Games!

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What high school and middle school games do you play with your youth group? Leave a comment below to share your fun game ideas!

This article was originally published on June 21, 2012. We hope you like the updates!

Comments

32 Responses

  1. or with the duck duck goose-we can it drip drip drop, using a cup of water that each person gets sprinkled with and then the “goose” is the one dumped on. After a while, if a leader get’s “dumped” on, they can wind down the game by using the cup but then grabbing a pitcher/bucket from another leader by surprise to some unknowing student. It’s a hit with our group!

    1. We played a MEGA version of Duck Duck Goose with about 150 people at a combined Youth groups night.

      Because we like to make games more … interesting … picked out 10 people to be up and had 5 of them go clockwise around the circle, while the other 5 went anti-clockwise.

      It was beautiful action packed chaos as people tried to dodge each other with up to 20 people running full speed at any given moment.

      A quick games is a good game.

  2. These are great!!! Thank you for such a comprehensive list with both games for day and night, with and without supplies! 🙂

  3. “Four on a Couch” needs to be rewritten for clarity, especially the last sentence in parentheses which is confusing.
    By the way, to start the game, you need one more chair than the number of people of playing.
    Thanks for listing the game.

    1. I would suggest simplifying it by not changing names a second time. For example, everyone gets a “new” name, but once the name is chosen, don’t switch again later. It really is a fun game once you get the hang of it. I remember playing it in youth group 25 years ago *sniff*. Usually, it was boys against girls. Oh — I would say it works best with about 20-25 people. Not too few or too many.

  4. Thanks so much. I’ve been organizing group games as a unit for my PE class, the sitting basketball was simple and sounds like great fun.

  5. How does duck duck goose inception work actually? How do people end up inside? Didn’t quite understand the whole concept?

  6. great games but the explanations are kinda poor.. It has lots of assumptions.

    for example some people have never heard or played Jeopardy or even captured the flag.
    so reading this wont help.
    so I suggest the games be explained properly irrespective of other popular games or shows that they represent.

  7. I made up a game , so I really don’t know what it’s called. Let’s call it, phone photo hunt.
    Anywho, teams of two ( at least one of them must have a phone with photos, the more the better ), search through their photos of whatever object the youth leader writes on a white erase board.
    SUPER easy, no supplies, and you can use scripture references instead of objects if you prefer !!

  8. How does someone get eliminated in Duck, duck goose? I thought it normally works that when someone gets tagged then they become it and the chaser sits down.

  9. Thanks for sharing this great youth ministry collection of games! This is an excellent resource for church members and I can use it to improve my Sunday School lessons in the future. This serves as great inspiration.

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