4 Group Games

These are a group of games we are playing at camp this year. These are not original, but modifications of games we have played other places. Our students, especially our middle schoolers, really enjoy them.

Sheet Roll Up

Separate kids into teams, have a sheet for each team spread out in front of their team.
Instructions: Each team member will lay down and roll his or herself into the sheet and roll across the floor and back. When that team member returns the next team member rolls up in the sheet and repeats the action of the previous team member. This goes on until the last member returns. The first team with all of its team members to go and return wins. It’s a relay, so there can be different challenges added, like going twice or going around something.


Trash Can Bump

Kids circle up around a trash can and hold hands. They pull back and forth on each other and try to get the others to touch the trash can in the middle. If anyone touches the trash can, they are out. If two players hands cross over the trash can, both players are out. If two players disconnect, both players are out. When a person gets out, the game stops, the players reattach where the player got out and start game again. This proceeds until there is only one person left, that person wins. You can add a challenge by putting two trash cans in the middle at the beginning, making them stand backwards, etc. It is good to separate boys from girls in this game, due to the possibility of violence and the pushing and pulling.


Wall Golf

Separate into teams. Draw golf course on large, dark-colored paper, with certain sections having lower points than others. Hang paper on wall. Players take turns golfing at the wall. The golf ball can be made of anything, like a nerf ball dunked in flower, or paint, or whatever. The kids golf the ball at the wall and receive the points for where they hit on the wall. High point penalty for not hitting the sheet at all. The team with the lowest score wins.


9-legged race

This is much like a 3-legged race. In fact, it is the same, simply intensified.
Separate kids into teams. 2 kids tie their ankles together and make their way as fast as possible to the other end of the playing area and back. When they get back, one of them ties his or her ankle to the next person in line’s, thus having made a 3-legged race into a 5-legged race. That group goes and returns and adds another player, making a 7-legged race, and so on and so on. You can have as many kids added on to the race as you have need for. It gets interesting. If their ankles come untied, they have to start back at the start line, but they do not have to start back at 3-legged if they are on 7-legged, they just have to start back with that group. First team to have everyone on their team go and return wins.

Easy way to support your students - Fan Club

Hello.  My name is David Thompson and I am a United Methodist youth pastor at a church in Birmingham, AL.  I am excited about sharing some of my thoughts and ideas from my years in youth ministry with you.  Please feel free to ask questions and let me know what you think.  I don’t pretend to have this youth ministry thing figured out, but God has blessed us with a heart to serve students the best way we can.

The first idea that I want to share with you is probably the easiest.  I honestly don’t know if it is my idea or I got it from someone else.  Either way it is a pretty cool idea and very simple, we call it Fan Club.  Here is how it works:

If your students are like mine then they are involved in everything from sports to dance to choir.  And there are few things worse then having to go watch a middle school girl’s basketball game by yourself.  But it is important to watch those activities, get out in the community and support your students.  So we created a Fan Club.  Fan Club is a group of students who go with you to go watch and support other students’ activities. The first year our fan club had about 40 students to sign up and purchase a $5 t-shirt that says “Fan Club” on the front and the name of our church on the back.  We made the t-shirt very bright so we would be seen for sure.  During the school year we would try to have at least one fan club event a month (sometimes one a week).  We would make posters and signs for the student from our group that we were there to support.  We would take a bus to the game/activity or meet there.  Our fan club group would sit all together and cheer as loud and as crazy as we could for our student(s).  Important note: When going to a sporting event we made it a point not to cheer against or even for a certain team.  Instead we cheered for our students.  We were there to support students, get our name out there, meet parents and have fun. We didn’t want to make people mad or cheer against other students. Our hope is that they would want to be a part of our group. 

This ministry has been a huge hit.  It takes a little bit of planning ahead of time but our kids beg for the Fan Club to come to their event.  The Fan Club is also getting pretty popular around the city.

Here is what you do to get a Fan Club started at your church:

1) Get students and parents to send you schedules of upcoming events and programs that they would like you to come watch.

2) At your youth program announce the beginning of Fan Club.  Have students sign up, name, email, phone number and get $5 for a t-shirt. 

3) At first schedule just one fan club event a month.  Make sure you make posters, wear your t-shirts, and get loud, but behave.  You do not want to turn people off from your group.

4) Take some time to publicize your Fan Club event, take pictures and share it with your group the next Sunday.

GRAPHICS: On the t-shirts we used a ESPN style font. www.dafont.com

I loaded some promotional material in the downloads.

In Christ,

David

Why UM Youth Pastor?

One of the things I really like about the United Methodist Church is our focus on connection. What's amazing is that although we are spread out all over the world, we share a common bond, purpose and mission. After spending a lot of time as a youth pastor, I realized that there is a lot of talent across our denomination that is being used to create video, audio, graphics, and curriculum that is incredibly high quality and sitting on hard drives in offices getting no use.

I also know that the reality of youth ministry in most churches is underfunded and understaffed. It is often volunteer-led and made successful by adults who love students and want to spend their time discipling rather than writing and researching. I also know that $20 goes a long way towards starbucks, coke, and pizza, but not far with curriculum, video and graphic design.

Hopefully, here is where those two worlds meet. The goal is to leverage the resources of a few churches for the building up of the entire church. Though these resources and articles may be UMC focused, all are welcome to them, and they are all FREE. Please don't spend money on things that others are creating and willing to share. Use that money for a better purpose! Let us take care of the curriculum and you take care of the ministry.

So, here you will find articles on how do do youth ministry in our setting, and downloads that will take care of a message outlines, t-shirt designs, discussion ideas, games and more. Please feel free to share these with friends and use them however you need, but give credit where credit is due, and don't sell it! Check out the bottom of the site for the details of our Creative Commons License.

The Great Emergence

I've been reading this book, The Great Emergence, and have been totally blown away by it! The basic gist of it is that every five hundred years or so, the church has what she calls a "rummage sale" and through that ends up spreading and becoming more relevant. Go back five hundred and you find the Protestant Reformation, five hundred before the Reformation you are at the Great Schism, before that Gregory the Great and the plunge into the dark ages, and five hundred before that the Great Transformation (Jesus and the apostles).

Right now we are in the middle of another one of those "rummage sales." This one is being called the Great Emergence. It's happening as our culture enters the post-modern era, and, accoring to Tickle, as the Reformation's motto of sola scriptura, scriptura sola (only scripture, and scrpture only) has been found wanting as an answer to the question of authority. We are asking again: Where now should we place our authority?

That is a loaded question that neither I nor the emergent thinkers have resolved. It is the task of the next twenty to thirty years. There are those who are called to start something new, and those called to reform the old to be relevant in a new culture. I feel called in a strong way to the latter. I look forward to figuring Methodism in a postmodern context, and discovering how God can use our Wesleyan heritage to relate to a radically different world.