So, seeing as I’m not going to enforce ‘no dating in high school‘ as a rule (because it’s not), and because I want to look after my young people and preserve our group unity, my plan is to sit down with any of my teens that are dating and make sure they know how to break-up well. Certainly I hope they won’t have to break up and experience that, but in the event that they do, I want them to know how to handle themselves in a godly way.

So far I have a couple of things I want to say, but what I’d really love to do is pool the experience and wisdom from other youth ministers or people who have received good advice about how to break-up well. Please note: this is not advice about how to date well but how to break-up well, though I recognise how a couple dates will affect how a couple breaks-up so there will be some cross over…

Here’s what I have so far:

1. When you break up, do it in person. Not by text, not by Facebook, not by email, not over the phone, in PERSON.
2. Make sure you are honest about why you are breaking up. Avoid accusations.
3. Make sure both parties are aware that you have broken up.
4. While you’re going out, don’t do anything that will inhibit a continuing friendship after your break up.
5. In fact, while you’re going out, don’t do anything that will inhibit the community of friendships you have after your break up.

This is all I have so far and it needs to be fleshed out.

I would love it if you would leave your feedback and suggestions as a comment below. Their maybe helpful ideas to add or unhelpful ones above to remove.

Eventually I’ll repost all the collective wisdom as a resource article.

Thanks!

This game is designed to help young people to be discerning in regards to what they might hear in bible talks or what they overhear about the bible. It will encourage young people to really learn the Bible for themselves, as well as teaching them some stories from the bible. This game requires you to go through and change or add to a Bible story before hand.

For example:

DAVID & GOLIATH (Edited Version!) 1 Samuel 16 & 17

David was the youngest of twelve son’s and was by far the most popular. (False! 1 Samuel 16:10-11) He worked as a shepherd, and often had to kill Lions and Bears. He was also glowing with health and had a fine appearance. Because of his health and fine appearance he was appointed King. (False! 1 Samuel 16:7) Now, the Babylonians were invading Judah (False! 1 Samuel 17:1) They had a champion by the name of Goliath, who was about 9 ½ feet tall! He Defied the people of Israel, and challenged them to send him a person to fight. Lots of men volunteered, but David was chosen because of his practice fighting wild animals.(False! 1 Samuel 17:11) David was a little nervous, but took courage when the King lent him his personal set of armour. (False! 1 Samuel 17:38) He went down to the water and picked out five smooth stones, and with his sling in hand approached Goliath. Goliath taunted him, so david started shooting his stones at him, Goliath charged and with his last stone David knocked out Goliath. (False! 1 Samuel 17:49) David then chopped Goliath’s head off. When the enemy saw what had happened they dropped there weapons and bowed down in reverence and respect of the Lord, becoming Israelites. (False! 1 Samuel 17:51-53) From that point on, David became very popular and went to live with the King and his Son.

Instructions: This game is played in teams and will require a sheet of paper and a pen for each team. Put the edited story on big screen (if you are able) and read the edited story out loud telling them to look out for ‘bible blunders’ which are places where the story has been changed or added to. Afterwards, give the teams 2 minutes or so to list all the mistakes by writing them on a sheet of paper.

Once the time is completed, ask the teams to mark their list as you read out the list of the mistakes (honesty system!). A correct guess gets you one point, but an incorrect guess means you lose two points. After each mistake is announced, say how it really happened, so everyone knows how the story should actually go. At the end, ask people how many mistakes they got (Did they miss some? Did they think there was extra?) then tally up the scores. The team with the most points wins.

Some examples of topics are: Bible or Poetry? Bible or Pop Song? Bible or Philosophy? Bible or Buddhism? Bible or Islam? Bible or Shakespeare? Etc. (Poetry & Philosophy obviously refer to non-biblical examples of those topics).

Choose some texts for your topics that are hard to distinguish between and others that are obvious. Here are 2 example questions for Bible or Shakespeare just so you get the idea:

1. “Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast”

Answer: Shakespeare! (Romeo & Juliet).

2. “He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly: and a man of wicked devices is hated.”

Answer: Bible! (Proverbs 14:17 – KJV)

And 2 example questions from Bible or Pop Song:

1.     “Throw your soul through every open door, count your blessings to find what you look for, turn my sorrow into treasured gold, you pay me back in kind and reap just what you sow.”

Answer: Pop Song! (Adele – Rolling in the deep)

2.     “For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.”

Answer: Bible! (Psalm 57:10 – TNIV)

Instructions: You can play this game in 3 rounds where you choose 3 topics and have a multiple questions in each; or you can play the game with multiple topics that have one question for each, it’s up to you but the latter will be more work.

Once you have chosen your topics and worked out your questions, form the group into teams to play. Give each team a game card that says “Bible” written on one side and “Other” written on the reverse side. After displaying and reading out the text, each team is given a minute to decide their answer before showing if they think the text is from the Bible or from the other topic you have chosen. Tally points as you go and declare the winner when you’ve completed the rounds. More importantly use the game as an opportunity to help people understand what is in the bible and what isn’t.

Download the pre-prepared presentation slides:

• Bible or what? 1 (keynote file 5.7MB) or (powerpoint file 3.5MB)

35+ Note: For groups 35+, make A5 size answer cards that are folded into 4 quarters with one letter (A,B,C,D) written respectively in each quarter. People then lock in their answer for the question by holding the letter above their head. Make sure you ask the Guru to lock in his answer secretly before the group answers, otherwise the Guru gets an unfair advantage.

Download the powerpoint template here with 15 ready made questions.

Download the keynote  template file here (this is the original file & exported as a .ppt)

The Balderdash game is a classic bluffing game. Players make up definitions for a chosen word. They earn points for bluffing the other players with their made-up definition. They also earn points for guessing the correct definition.

The game is played in groups, with 8 groups being the maximum otherwise there will be too many definitions to read out and remember.

The Dasher introduces a word to all the groups playing the game (display it on a projector screen if you have one). Each group then has 3 minutes to discuss what they think the correct definition of the word is, and then create a definition for the word that sounds believable and could be mistaken as the correct definition by the other groups.

They write the definition on their answer sheet (with group name on top) and hand it to the “Dasher” up the front.

Once the answer sheets are collected, the “Dasher” reads all the definitions aloud including the correct definition of the word.

Each group then votes for the definition which they believe is the correct definition. The Dasher takes note of which definition each group chooses. After all the groups have guessed, the “Dasher” reads the correct definition (display on projector screen if you have one).

Scores are awarded:

• A group is awarded 1 point for each vote their made-up definition received.
• Each group who chose the correct definition is awarded 2 points.
• Those groups that didn’t receive any votes or choose the correct definition are awarded no points.

Play more rounds as time allows.

So how do you pick a movie they haven’t all seen, is PG or appropriate, and will be enjoyable to watch?

Solution: Go back to the 80′s & 90′s!

Most young people haven’t seen anything that’s more than 10-12 years old and there are plenty of classic (and a bit cheesy) films which are fun to watch and at the very least funny to laugh at! So even if the movie isn’t brilliant the young people have a good laugh at early attempts at special effects, and you as a leader get to reminisce about your own adolescence!

So here’s some ideas for youth group movie nights. Of course, there’s been a couple of times I shown movies that I remember as being fun and innocent as a kid and when I’ve watched as an adult I’ve realised there’s a few awkward scenes or a bit a swearing… so be cautious with the movies below! I’ll put a note next to it if I remember anything special to consider.

I’d really love it if you could let me know about other movies you’ve watched with your youth group or ideas for movies not mentioned here. Just put it in a comment.

Here goes:

• Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
• Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey
• The Goonies (has some awkward kissy scenes and they say sh*t a lot)
• The Princess Bride (this has been shown at every youth group since time began…)
• The Super Mario Brothers movie
• Original Star Wars trilogy
• Young Einstein
• Reckless Kelly
• Wayne’s World 1 (a bit of sexual innuendo)
• Wayne’s World 2 (a bit of sexual innuendo)

Split into teams (you will need a complete set of cards for each team, so only have as many teams as you have sets of cards), the smaller the teams the better. Each team starts the game with a set of 50 Bible character cards (download cards here) that they arrange face up in front of them. The game starts with the game organiser selecting a card of their choice from a separate complete pile of cards. The object of the game is to be the first to determine which card the game organiser has selected. Teams take turns asking a yes or no question to eliminate candidates, such as “Is this person in the OT?”. Well-crafted questions allow players to eliminate one or more possible cards. Teams should just turn over the cards which are eliminated. Questions need to be asked to the game organiser without the other groups hearing their question (otherwise they would gain an unfair advantage). Each team is only allowed one guess, which is an incentive to play the game the game through without just making random guesses each round…

When the character has been guessed, give a short description of who this person was, what they did, and how they are significant in the salvation story of the bible. Here is a good website to get factual biblical information: http://www.teachit.co.uk/armoore/bible/biblepeople.htm

Type the memory verse into an online translator and translate the verse from English into another language (Chinese works best). Then take the foreign language translation and translate it back again into English. You will notice that it doesn’t come back out the way it went in! You might want to repeat the process a few times if you really want to mess it up, however, it does need to be vaguely recognisable…

Show this mistranslation to the group and then give them a limited amount of time to work out what the memory verse actually is.

Example:

John 3:16 [English TNIV] “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Translate into Chinese (Han): “對於上帝如此被愛世界他產生他僅有的兒子，誰相信他的那不會消滅，然而有來世。”

Translated back into English: “So is liked the world he producing his only son regarding God, who believes that his will not eliminate, however has next life.”

If you repeat the process one more time you get: “Therefore is liked producing only then his about God’s his son, believes world he will not eliminate, has the life.”

Give a whirl! http://www.teachit.co.uk/armoore/bible/biblepeople.htm

Ask the group to suggest one specific point to pray for (eg. war in Iraq, etc…). Write the prayer point at the top of a white board and then ask the question “What do we actually want to pray for (eg. the war in Iraq)?”. Then begin to write on the board the sub-points that people suggest we should pray for (ie. we want peace) and link the sub-point to the heading by drawing a line. Further still, ask a question about the sub-point (eg. “What do we want peace to look like?”) and then write those sub-points under the previous sub-point.

In the end you should have a kind of diagram that looks something like a tree with many specific sub-points to pray about the original prayer point.

This activity should help people really think about what they want to ask God for. It’s all very well to say “dear God I pray for the war in Iraq.” But are you praying for the war in Iraq to get worse, get better, or what? This prayer segment will help us to pray even more thoughtful prayers.