To play this youth ministry game you don’t need a four square and you do not need to be outside.  Grab some painters tape and map out a larger four square area on the floor.  Try to make it about 2-3 times as big as a regular four square and you can make it a rectangle shape (like a gym) if you need to.  Doing so will actually make the game a little more interesting.

The game is played just like 4-square except with teams.  Each area should have room to allow about 3-4 people to comfortably move around.  Number the four squares in order and make teams.  You need at least four teams.  If you have more than four teams have the extras line up outside of square number four.

Square number one will serve the ball by bouncing it on their side and slapping it to another square.  Whatever square it lands in has to hit it into another square before it bounces a second time.  When someone misses or hit the ball out of bounds, they go to square four and everyone else moves up towards square one.  (square three moves to two, two moves to three, etc.)

You can make up your own rules as things comes up such as can teams hit it twice, can you play off the wall, etc.

Ask any questions in the comments section below!

Enjoy!

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!

This is a game we played when I was in Junior High and I loved it. Seems to work best with groups of about 20 or more. It is sort of like the Frogger, which we will put up soon. A great game for youth group.

Have everyone sit in a circle, with chairs or on the floor. Everyone will close their eyes and the leader will pick someone to be the winker. Then you say go and everyone put their head’s up and tries to figure out who the winker is. The winker attempts to knock people out of the game by winking at them. Once you are winked at, wait 5 seconds, raise your hand, and say ‘I’m out.’ Usually works best to have those who are out do something like put their finger on their nose or put their head down.

If someone thinks they know who the winker is, they can raise their hand and say ‘I think I know who it is.’ They must have a second person to back them up. So then a second person raises their hand and says ‘I second.’ The first person guesses, if they guess right, they win. If they guess wrong, both of the people are out. The people accusing should be careful because if they get winked at in the process they are out and can not guess.

The game is played until the winker is caught or everyone is out.

One more little thing we like to say is that if you can not wink to raise your hand while the leader is picking someone so that you are not picked. It is also important to stress people that they can not talk when their head’s are down and when they are knocked out of the game.

I actually made it this whole article without saying killed or death. You should try that!