Team Survivor: Youth Group Edition

Golf Ball Challenge

It is always tempting to share the best at the beginning. But let's save some of the best games for last.

This is going to be series of games, some specific to playing "Team Survivor" and all of them could just be a fun game on it's own. So to set this up. you got to play it up. Make it a challenge, make it a 6 weeks or more, and it's teams, so if you don't show up, your team might get knocked out. Now what to do with all the out teams? Interference or opposition to help eliminate another team. It's got to be a little competitive. The other part of this is probably once a month you have a bye week. Nobody gets knocked out. Some weeks you can earn immunity to not get knocked out that week. 

Golf Ball Challenge:

I typically do this starting in January, but anytime is good. I always wait until fresh snow, and then I hide an appropriate number of golf balls in the snow inside a perimeter, it helps if there is fresh snow after hiding them. Usually I lob them in, so no foot prints. There is one usually yellow golf ball which is the immunity pill. So your team must find 3 to 5 balls to stay in(depends on number of players), or the yellow one for immunity. They have 2 minutes for 100 ft x 100 ft area. They were all warned to bring hat and gloves and warm clothes. 

Note: Know exactly how many and if they are not all found, retrieve them before the grass starts growing. 

Names of God: Elohim

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

This name conveys His creative power and authority and sovereignty

Understanding the Name

Elohim (e-lo-HEEM) is the plural of El. It is plural to represent His majesty and hints at the Trinity. It is used 32 times in Genesis 1

God Reveals His Name

Genesis 1:1-28a              Video: https://youtu.be/I5lj2ZA-EhY

God made creation and called it good. 

God made man in His image. 

God made beauty everywhere, his fingerprints are all over creation. 

God made the world for our enjoyment and our care and stewardship. 

God wants to bless us. There are different blessings, they could be spiritual, physical, financial or abilities.

We often think of blessings as financial only. Certainly money does make the world go round according to man, but who spun it into place? Elohim. 

Psalm 102:25-27

25 

Long ago You established the earth,

and the heavens are the work of Your hands.

26 

They will perish, but You will endure;

all of them will wear out like clothing.

You will change them like a garment,

and they will pass away.

27 

But You are the same,

and Your years will never end.

God is unchanging. God is eternal. The universe will pass away and God will still be. He was before the universe and before time and he is outside of time and the universe and when what we know ceases to exist, God will still be. 

Take It To The Bank

God's promises will always stand. 

Children make promises and break them, when they can't fulfill them. Salespeople will promise the moon to get the sale and then not deliver. God makes a promise and then delivers, He has all the infinite resources of heaven and the universe to fulfill the promises. 

God made us and loves us

God made beauty, because He is beauty

Small Group Questions:

What can we learn from Genesis 1 about God?

Order

Logic

life

love

work

stewardship

We are created in the image of God?

We are a model of God, 3 parts, logical, creative, valued

God said creation is good, how does that relate to me, with messy hair, bad at math, freckles, etc?

God loves me, God made me, I am the way God made me "good", I have purpose

What are some of the promises we can rest on?

Isaiah 40:28-29

Isaiah 41:10

Genesis 28:15

Drag Race Life Size Board Game

 What could be more exciting than a drag racing?

• Name of the Game: Drag Racing Life Size Board Game

• Minimum Players: 2       Maximum: 10

• Minimum Age: 5

Set up a course of 2 parallel tracks. I use 12x12 inch plywood squares. I have about 100 of these in the 4 AWANA colors. You need 13 spaces on each track. You'll need 4 sided die. You'll also need a few labels on some of those squares.

• Blow the Engine, Loose a Turn
• Loose a Wheel, Loose a Turn
• False Start

Flip the die and play like a typical board game, the player is the marker. They roll the 4 sided die and move from 1 - 4 spaces at a time. If it's going too fast, they have to roll the exact number to finish the board. 

Equalizer:

Here's what happens to equalize the athletic from the inept: it's pretty much a 3 sided pyramidal die, it acts funny. 

Over the top tips: 

Get some drag racing sound clips.

Get a play by play commentator.

Get a Christmas Tree from a strip to start the game. This can be a great addition to a pine wood derby race night as well. Red, Yellow, Green, Go!

Game Equipment

 You can never have enough game equipment. I love bargains, I bought plenty of things at the dollar store. Here's a list of things that come in handy.

• 12 inch x 12 inch squares - A very helpful retired church member cut these out of plywood and painted them red, blue, yellow, and green. I think he used 4 sheets. He also made a wheeled dolly to move them around. 
• plungers
• dodge balls
• nerf balls
• tennis balls - got dozens from a tennis club for free.
• ladder ball - built out of PVC before you could buy the game
• corn hole
• bean bags in 4 colors
• cones
• nerf soccer balls, footballs
• frisbees
• giant foam dice
• 4 color spinner
• putters
• hula hoops
• parachute
• beachballs

This is by no means an exhaustive list. This is a good start to having the resources to play the games with. I really try to make sure I can use something for more than just one game. Chalk it up to Yankee Frugality.

Names of God: The Beginning

We started at Christmas, but there is more than enough material to cover a year. You could finish with Christmas, you could put Christmas in the middle and start in September. That being said, let me give you a little perspective on where we were as a group and my philosophy as youth leader. If you just want the lesson, skip down to "Lesson: The Names of Jesus".

Why would you post this at this time of year? I'm a big proponent of starting at the beginning. This is the beginning. It could also be the ending, but it's a familiar group of names of Jesus to your students. 

My Philosophy:

After 30 years of ministry, and more than 20 as a parent, I may have learned a few things. Our youth want to belong, our youth want to commit to something, they know the good Sunday School answers, but do they really know what they believe? Overall they did not. As youth leader, you need two dual tracks, the evangelistic track to bring them in from outside the church, and the discipleship track to ground them in the faith. When they launch into college, will they be like the wise man who built on the rock, or the foolish man who built on the sand? 

My main focus was to build them up in the faith and disciple them. When they go off to college and they are on their own in the world, what are the important things to them? 

Resources:

We started in January with the names of God in the Old Testament with this book: "Praying the Names of God" by Ann Spangler. 

Lesson Prep:

That's my notes from the lesson and yes we ran a solid 20 minutes. I am a story teller and very comfortable speaking. I have taught professionally and could teach a very technical trade class a week long without notes. 

I'm going to add in some notes and illustrations in a blue color. Feel free to "steal" mine or add your own. Make it your own, if you're not making it your own, it's not as real. The students know it. 

This is not a just add youth to make a lesson outline. I have used them, they never really worked for me. There's plenty of visual stuff here if you want to make a power point. Some of these lessons we actually had on Zoom during COVID lockdowns. 

Lesson: The Names of Jesus

This is a 2 part question:

What are some of your favorite Christmas Carols?

What are some of the names of Jesus in the carols?

Some of my Favorite Christmas Carols:

Get your hymnal, bookmark the pages. Read the lyrics, let it sink in.

- "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" - Emmanuel, Dayspring, Desire of Nations, Son of God

- "Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne" - Lord Jesus

- "Angels, from the Realms of Glory" - Christ, the newborn King

- "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" - Christ, newborn King, Prince of Peace, Sun of Righteousness, Jesus, Emmanuel

- "The First Noel" - King of Israel

Who knows what their name means?

What does the Bible say about a name?

- Prov. 22:1 "A good name is to be chosen over great wealth"

- Joy Lozier - The Loziers were a well known upstanding family in our community. Burt was a Boy Scout leader and man's man, could fix anything like MacGuyver (I'm dating myself). Burt was an engineer by trade, he retired medically early and became a missionary. He and one of his sons organized and built the highest hydroelectric dam in Ecuador to power HCJB radio, he built stuff for missions, for churches all over the US. They went to Ecuador many times. He and Roz raised 4 sons and a daughter. Joy had gone through some things, met a guy who had a sordid past, but was putting it behind him as a new believer in Christ. They were getting married and Burt took some time to counsel his future son-in-law. He decided he was going to marry Joy and take her last name. Why would he do that? He was a new creature in Christ. A new creation that needed a new name and a new reputation.

- Exodus 20:7 "Do not misuse the name of the Lord"

- Psalm 34:3 "let us exalt His name together" - Praise

- Psalm 103:1 "All that is within me bless His holy name" - Acknowledge God with every part of my being

- Prov 18:10 "The name of the Lord is a strong tower" - What do you do with a strong tower?

- Matthew 1:21 Jesus is the Greek form of Joshua, "The Lord saves" or "Yahweh saves"

- Matthew 1:23 Immanuel - God is with us - This one blows my mind, the infinite God, greater than the universe is with us!

- Did you ever get somewhere really dark and look up into the night sky and see the stars, the milky way, the faint smudges of distant galaxies, or maybe you got to look through a telescope at Saturn or Mars or the moon. God who spoke the universe into existence is right here with us and available for us 

This Christmas let's think about the names of Jesus and what they mean. 

This is a sermon from S. M. Lockridge that DC talk used in one of their songs. If I remember which song it is, I'll add the title here. Depending on your group, the time you have, you may want to start with that song. You could even play this video of the sermon at the beginning and at the end to open up a discussion. 

https://youtu.be/HksRbeKHnF8

Frisbee Baseball!

 Baseball is upon us!

• Name of the Game: Frisbee Baseball

• Minimum Players: 4

• Minimum Age: 7

Set up a baseball diamond. You can use paper or frisbees or regular bases, cones, whatever you've got. Now with painter's tape, divide the field up. This game will scale to just about any large room, gym, outdoor area you may have. So divide up the field and have paper labels, for all the plays in baseball:

• Home Run!
• Triple
• Double
• Single
• Foul
• Strike
• Pop Fly Out
• Double Play
• Triple Play

These labels go into strategic locations. There should be a single for the least athletic kid to hit right in front of home plate, and the home run is right before the back wall, the wall being out, and the zone in front of the home run being a pop fly out. I always make ceilings and walls out. Save the building. 

Play is like a standard baseball, but you throw a frisbee. Where it lands you get that play. Single? Take first base. Double? Take second. If the frisbee lands on a line, it's the lesser score or the worst out. 

Scoring is same as regular game, 3 outs per team, switch sides, there are no fielders, just someone to return the frisbee to home plate for the next batter. Depending on the size of the teams, you should be able to go a couple innings in 20 minutes or so. If you have 4 players let them all be on the same team and just play pick up or against you. 

Equalizer:

Here's what happens to equalize the athletic from the inept: the throwers will go for the triples and home runs and usually get outs. The non confidents will put that frisbee on the safe single right in front of home plate. Sometimes a team will figure out to just go for all singles and rack up a score. In that case you may have to call a game. 

Over the top tips: 

Get some baseball sound clips.

Get a play by play commentator.

Seventh inning stretch.

 

It's Been A Long Time

Looking back at some of the older posts, it has been a very long time. Life has turned a few more corners. We were busy raising girls, we were busy with ministry, I changed jobs more times than I cared too. With so much of my industry depending state funding, we had to follow the money from job to job. 

My goal is to post at least one game a week on the blog. I'm also hoping to take the lessons we used in youth group during the pandemic and share them here in hopes that they are useful for you.