Materials Needed
- Sweatpants and shirt or loose clothing for each group
- Lots of Balloons

Directions
Start this youth ministry game by telling each group (typically 3-5 in a group is good) that one person will need to put on the loose clothing over their clothes. When you say go, each group must blow up and put as many balloons in the clothes of the person in the group as they can until you say stop. Be sure put size minimums on the balloons, so that are big enough. When the time is up, tell them that the first person to pop all of their balloons wins. They have two rules. They can not use their hands or the help of anyone else in the room.

The trick to this game is acting like the most balloons in the sweats wins and then twisting the game at the end (That’s why we called it balloon SHOCK!)

Say go and sit back and watch the hilarious ways that they come up with to pop the balloons.

This youth ministry game is probably the one game that has never gotten old at our youth group.  It is a great easy quick game that can be thrown in just about anywhere to get kids moving.  It is one of the only games I have found where kids do not hesitate to hit people they don’t even know with a pool noodle.

Set-Up

Have everyone make a big circle with chairs.  In the middle of the circle have a garbage can or bucket.  One person starts in the middle with a pool noodle (or half of one if it is too big).

Game Play

The person in the middle will hit someone sitting with the pool noodle (no face shots).  Then they will run and put the noodle in the garbage can and try to get in to the seat of the person they hit before the person who was hit grabs the noodle from the garbage can and hits them (try saying that ten times fast).

If they person in the middle makes it to the chair before they are hit, they are safe and the new person hits someone else.  If they are hit before they make it back, they must go again.

If you have more than about 10 people, you can definitely get more than one noodle going at a time.

Other Rules To Mention

- No pushing or intentionally running in to another person.

- The noodle must land in the garbage can or the person starts over.

- You can not hit the person who just hit you.

Be sure to have some thumpin music in the background and this game can go on for awhile before they get tired of it.

Enjoy!

I recently discovered this site that will create PDF files that blow up pictures in to multiple page files.  It can take a regular pictures and make it in to to 16-100 page poster that you can simply tape together.  Of course, as a typical youth minister, I think ‘what possibilities!’  The site is called BlockPosters.

I am sure I will come up with several games from this but here is the first one I will use for our next big event.  I will be sure to let you know how it goes.

Make 5 or 6 of these files, all the same size, of different saints, volunteers, etc.  Cut them so they can be put together like a puzzle.  Mix them up and have a contest.  Each team will get a different stack of papers and must put together their puzzle first.  We plan on doing it like a relay where the kids will each get one piece of paper, they tape it to a grid in the wall.  Then they run back and the next person takes another piece of paper.  Once all of the pieces are up on the wall, they can now have each person run and switch two pieces and then run back.

We plan on doing saints, priests, etc and will give bonus points for who can tell us who their person is.

I set up a little teaser picture of one of our volunteers this past week.  It was kind of funny as one of the youth became pretty excited about taking a 5 foot picture of one of the volunteers home with them.  Actually sort of creepy.

I did a picture of the Divine Mercy for you to download and check it out.

You can create these files at www.blockposters.com.

Have fun!

We had this in our forum and just wanted to make sure everything still had access to the idea.   Last summer (2009) we started a new idea of making youth group trading cards.  Very simple concept.  We bought a cheap laminating machine (about $60) and lots of sheets.  We made our own photo which you just replace the picture of the person and change the words.  On the front we have their name, picture, a logo, and the web site.  On the back we include info on them like their favorite prayer, saint, their family members, and more.

Every time someone new comes to youth group we take their picture, have them fill out the info, and have their card thrown into the mix the next week.  Every week who ever is on time to youth group and stays until the end gets a random card.  If they have the card they can trade to others for one they do not have.

Every once in awhile we remind the kids that these can be used as prayer cards.  Bring them wherever you go, pray for their family members, through the favorite saints intercession, and say their favorite prayer for them.

The kids still love it and we have enough kids in the the group that no one has all of them yet.  Each week we add more to the mix.  Youth come back a second week just to see their card.  It is also good for the volunteers to be able to take them home and learn and remember names.

It does take some work, we are looking for ways to make the cards a bit easier to make, but it is well worth the investment.  There is always a volunteer to help with the crafty projects.

If anyone would like the editable file that we use, I can email it to you.  Please do two things:

1. Make sure you are our fan on Facebook.

2. Let me know you are in the comments of this post.

I will send you a .png file of a card along with some other things we have done to make the cards a bit fancier.  You will need software that can edit the file, but that is not too  hard to find.

God Bless!

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