Everyone sits in a circle and everyone works as a team to stack as many layers of chaos as they can and can handle before your brains are fried.

So what is a layer of chaos?

One person will be the leader for the group. They will begin and end each layer, keeping track of how the group is doing.

Starting the first layer.

To begin the first layer, the leader will decide on a topic (we will use foods as an example). They will say a topic and point to another person passing the baton to them with that topic. Then that person points at another person saying their food. It goes around until everyone has went once. The last person will go back to the leader.

This will be the standard order for round one. So for the food level you should remember who you receive from and who you pass to. Practice this a couple of times as a group and then you are ready to move on to round two.

For round two the leader should pick a different category and a different start person. Go through and practice round two. Ideally, everyone will receive from and pass to a different person than round one.

After you have practiced just round two you are ready for the chaos. The leader will begin both rounds so they start again with round one by saying their food to the person who they said it to in round one, once that person receives level one, the leader will pass the level two category to the appropriate person. The group will pass through both levels at the same time. Once the leader has received both levels the group moves on to adding a third level.

Typically you will do this until the leader has chosen every person in the circle to start with or until someone’s brain is fried and they just can not do it any longer.

Good luck. We have seen groups get up to 14-16 levels at one time. See if you can do more!

Size of Group – Could have anywhere from 5 to 50!

This is one my favorites to use with new groups or as an icebreaker for large groups.  It is easy to explain, allows for some creativity in the group, and allows kids to chat and bond as a group through it out.

Have everyone sit in a circle and have one or two people leave the room.  They will be the psychiatrists.  They must figure diagnose the problem(s) of the group by asking yes or no questions.  Some problems may have several parts and they must figure all of them out.

When the psychiatrists leave the room, you must come up with a problem for them to solve.  You, as the leader, can have one or two ready to make it easier or you can have the group decide.  It can be absolutely anything.  The one thing to be cautious of is whether or not it is too difficult for the psychiatrist to figure out.  Once everyone in the group understands what to do, you can have the psychiatrists come back in and try to diagnose the problem.

Here are a couple examples that have worked well in the past:

1. Every time the psychiatrist asks a question, everyone either crosses or uncrosses their legs.

2. Anyone who is sitting to the right of a female has a constant itch in their left arm.

We have also done chains of events.  Like when the psychiatrist looks at a specific person, that person stands up.  After that person stands up another person claps twice.  After the 2nd person claps twice, everyone shouts ‘WOOO!’

Hope you enjoy another great youth ministry game!  If you have other creative ideas, please share them in the comment section below!

Enjoy!

Here are the instructions:

Size of Group: You can play two people but I would recommend starting with at least four.  If you have more than 20 people, it may be good to split them in to small groups of ten.

Goal of the game: To hit/touch someone else’s hand with your hand.  This eliminates them from the game.

Directions: Have everyone stand in a circle, take a bow (like on the Karate Kid), and strike a pose like a Ninja.  One person will move at a time and you will go in clock-wise motion.  Basically the person whose turn it is will try to touch/hit the hand of another person with their hand with ONE motion.  The person they are trying to attack can make ONE motion to move out of the way.  Both people stay where the end of their motion ends and are frozen until it is either their turn again or they are attacked.

How to Win: You play until one person is left in the game and they are declared the winner.

Things to Know:

• You always go after the person who started to your right at the beginning of the game.  The circle will eventually collapse and people may get out of order.  Always remember who you go after.
• If someone goes out of turn, have them return to where they were.
• Can set a rule that your hands must visible (recommended)
• A role, jump, or spin is considered one motion.

Once your youth start to understand the strategy to this game it can become extremely competitive.  It is a great game that most enjoy (especially the volunteers!)

Enjoy!

Have all of the teams stand in a line. When the youth leader says go, the youth will pass the lifesaver to each other using only the toothpick in their mouth. If the lifesaver is dropped, the group must start over from the beginning of the line. The first team to pass it to all of their members without dropping it wins.

If teams have more people than another, have some people do it twice to balance it out.

Enjoy!

Give each group a 6 pack or 12 pack of coke and a pen. Have a pitcher or glass on one end of the room (or parking lot) and have the youth stand on the other end. The youth must shake the can, stab it with a pen, and squirt the coke in to the mouth of another youth. Using only their mouth, each youth must take as much coke over to the other end and spit it in to the pitcher. Only allow one youth to run at a time.

The winning team will be either the first to fill the glass or the one with the most coke in their pitchers after a set amount of time.

There is obviously a slight danger because of the stabbing with the pen, so watch the age and maturity of the youth you let handle the pen.

More coke relays to come!

This is a quick and easy youth ministry game that can be used as a relay or if you have a smaller group can be done with everyone against everyone. I actually got this idea from the big show ‘Minute to Win It’ and made it work for our youth group.

Give every person/team a stack of 15-20 cups of the same color with the one of a different color showing on the bottom of the stack. The goal is to be the first to take one cup from the top of stack and put it on the bottom and keep doing that until the odd colored cup end up at the bottom again.

If you do it relay style have the same number of youth on each team complete it and have the team sit down when they are done. If teams have a different number of people, some people can do it twice to make it fair.

Enjoy!

I have been involved in our Diocesan summer camp now for about 14 years.  As a youth, a volunteer, and now the coordinator of the camp, this is always the favorite.

What You Need

This game only works with a larger group of people.  We have about 80-100 youth and about 30 counselors.  You could have less (or more), but would need to adjust a few things.  As I explain the game, keep in mind the numbers we had.

As far as supplies, your basic supplies would be:

• Bandanas – 10 of two different colors (we use red and blue)
• 10 Long Socks
• Flour
• Markers
• Different Colored Yarn

Those are the basic supplies, but you will also need supplies for several stations.

How The Game Is Played

There are several stations that each of the youth must try to complete.  They get a string tied to their wrist every time they complete a station.  We would have 12 stations.  One person at a time can try to complete each station.  Each station can also form a line of up to three people waiting to do the station.  If you have 100 youth this would mean that about 1/2 of the youth are at a station and the other half are trying to find one that is available.

While all of that is going on, there are Bonkers (wearing red bandanas) running around trying to hit the youth with a sock filled with flour.  The youth working at the station and the three in line are safe.  Everyone else can be bonked. If you are bonked, the bonker will mark your arm with a marker and you are frozen until a medic (wearing blue bandanas) comes and saves you.  They will turn your mark in to a cross and you will be free to run again.

The game is played over a large field, with plenty of room to run around and is played for a set amount of time.

You count up points by adding all of the strings up and subtracting the number of bonks.

Other Helpful Hints

• We had about 10 bonkers and about 8 medics each time we played.
• Bonkers are not allowed to throw the sock at youth while they are running to get them.
• Make the stations fun but not necessarily easy.
• If possible have one person running the station and another tieing string on the the wrists of the youth.
• Use a permanent marker so it is harder to wash off during the game.
• Youth are only allowed to complete each station once.

What Types of Stations To Use?

Be creative with your stations.  They should take anywhere from 30 seconds-1 minute to complete.  We are making our most up-to-date list avaiable to all of of our paid members.  You can also get a copy of this list sent to your email if you post a link to this post from your own website.  Once you have done so, let us know where we can find it in the comment section below.

Members Only List of Bonkers Stations

You need no materials and you can sit or stand. The game is simple.

There is one or two people in the middle (depending on the size of the group) and that person must try to get out of the middle. They go up to a person in the circle and say:

Honey, if you love me, will you please please smile?

The person in the circle will respond:

Yes Honey I love you, but I just can’t smile. Yes honey I love you but I just can’t smile.

If the person responding smiles at all they take the place of the person in the middle. If they are able to say the phrase without smiling then the person in the middle must move on to someone else.

There is one main rule and that is that the person in middle can not touch the person they are trying to get to smile. Other appropriate actions or accents are allowed.

Enjoy!

Materials Needed – Notecards

Have everyone site in a circle or in a line.  What you will do is you will have cards pre-made that have a category and one answer to that category on it.  Starting with one person they have to name something from that category in five seconds or less.  There are three ways they can get out:

1. Say something that someone else has said

2. Not be able to come up with something in five seconds or less

3. They say the answer on the card

You have one answer on the card because the kids think it’s crazy when the first person gets out.  Play until you are down to one player.

Example To Use

• States in the U.S.
• Church Staff Member Names
• Holidays
• Positions in Football (or any sport)
• Youth Group Family Member Names
• Letters in the Alphabet
• U.S. Presidents
• Priests in the Diocese or Past Parish Priests
• Gifts or Fruits of the Holy Spirit
• Past Youth Group Games

Bonus Twist

We did the same game one time except no one got out.   It just the leader had a glass of water in their hand.  Instead of the person getting out, they got soaked.  Just think of some form of ‘appropriate’ punishment and then no one has to get out.

Share your different category examples and ‘appropriate’ punishments in the comments section below.

Enjoy!

This has been one of my favorite youth group games to play.  It is a quiet game that draws great competition and requires team work.  The game is basically a mix of the three games mentioned in the title.

Directions – We use chairs that you can straddle while sitting on them.  For ease of explanation I will use 10 youth and 4 volunteers as the example.  You can adjust depending on your numbers.  For 10 youth, I would break the group in to two teams of five.  Have each team sit in a line in the chairs behind each other.  The game requires youth to write invisibly on each other’s back.

What will happen is the person in the back will be given a sheet with a number of pictures.  That will person will draw the pictures one at a time on the persons back in front of them.  That person will attempt to draw the same picture on the next person until it makes it’s way to the front.  The front person will have a pen and tons of scratch paper and will attempt to draw the original picture.  They will show each attempt to a volunteer in the front.  The volunteer will check off the pictures one at a time as they are done.

Each picture has a number and the volunteer in the front can communicate with the person in the back when each picture is completed.  Otherwise, there is no talking allowed.  The game is played until one team gets all of the pictures checked off.

Hint(s) – Be very strict with the no talking rule.  In my experience when teams start talking and anyone starts cheating in any way, it can ruin the game pretty quickly.  If the game takes too long (which is possible) then give them an amount of time they have left and the one with the most at the end of the time wins.

Lastly, be sure to have plenty of extra scratch paper and pens.  The game moves pretty quick once it gets started.

Materials

Of course we will not give you instructions to a game like this without providing you with great printable resources to help with it.  The printout includes the sheet with eight pictures for the person in the back and score sheets for the volunteer in the front.   It is sometimes helpful to have the sheet in the back cut up so they can throw away the pictures they have done.

Enjoy!

Pictionary Telephone Tag – Pictures and Score Sheet (.pdf)

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