Ideas Anyone?

 

Early on in youth ministry, the thing I needed most from other youth workers who had gone before me was...ideas.  Being inexperienced, I needed ideas for speaking topics, games, volunteer leader support, etc., etc.  However, I loved to create.  When I sat back and created a lesson or a game that was customized for my ministry we usually had some of the best times.  Of course, there was the occasional flop.  In fact, in my first youth ministry, the students called my games "[insert sarcasm here] Chad's really really fun games."

One of those games came out of the fact that we had no designated space for playing games inside the building at the time.  We met in an old bank building that was converted into our church.  The space we played games with about eight to ten teenagers was about ten feet wide by fifteen feet long with eight foot ceilings.  In this particular game, we set up one plastic bowling pin on both sides of the room.  The group was divided into two teams.  One person from each team was to protect the pin from being knocked down.  Because of the size of the room, the person with the ball couldn't move.  The pin could only be knocked down by rolling the ball.  It is similar to some other games, but we worked with what we had.  The students at the time had so much fun playing that game.

One game I stopped playing was steal the bacon.  You know, the old game where there are two teams competing to get the "bacon" back across their line?  You number every student on each team so that there are the same numbers on both teams.  The game leader calls out a number and the two students from opposite sides of the room run into the middle and grab whatever is being used for "bacon" (Hmmm.  Bacon - usually a towel or something that can be grabbed easy).  One particular night a friend who was our guest for the first time was playing.  It was time for his number to be called, he ran into the middle and his tooth rammed into a girl's head.  Surprisingly, the girl's head was just fine.  His tooth, however didn't fare so well.  It only chipped, but needless to say he never returned.  I was young in ministry and I never made a phone call to his parent.

I've learned a lot since those days.  I also don't require as many ideas.  I love to give ideas of what to do and what not to do now.  What are some ideas that you need?  I'd love to help if I can.  Keep creating for Jesus!