Since I’m on a roll with the whole “technology in ministry thing” after this week’s post on how new technology develops into a ministry tool and how we used Google Wave at youth group, I figured I might as well continue the trend with a game we did at our jr. high youth meeting tonight using Google Voice.

It’s actually based on the game, Sound Effects, from TheSource4YM.com that calls for a blank tape and tape recorder for every team. You give them 15 minutes to record all the sound effects on a list and then come back together and have judges determine a winner for each effect category.

Since I don’t think I know anyone that still has a tape recorder, nor did I want to go out and buy recorders for each team, here’s what I did:

I split our jr. high large group into teams based on their existing small groups. They sat in a circle and placed one of their cell phones in the middle of the group. Then I had each team punch in my Google Voice phone number and call my voicemail, which was set with a pre-recorded message of me saying, “Hey guys, record your sound effect after the beep. Have fun!” (Set your Google Voice account to “Do Not Disturb” so all calls are sent straight to voicemail.) Teams then recorded their sound effects on my Google Voice voicemail, which allowed me to immediately and easily play back their recordings from my laptop (logged in to Google Voice) through our sound system almost as soon as they hung up. I simply identified teams by the phone number that left the voicemail and we played back each team’s effect for everyone to hear (and laugh at!).

Here’s a list of some of the sound effects I asked for:

• Herd of mooing cows
• Cat in a dog kennel
• TV Show theme song
• Lovesick Coyotes on a moonlit night
• Sing a Christmas carol
• Room full of babies
• Traffic

We had a high school student leader act as the judge who awarded points to the jr. high teams with the best sound effect for each category. The team with the most points won a bag of candy for their small group that night.

Two quick tips: Require that teams record sound effects that are shorter than 10 seconds but no longer than 15, especially if you have a lot of teams you have to listen to; and require that every person on the team must contribute to the sound effect.

Since Google Voice allows me to embed my voicemail messages into websites, here’s a couple of my favorite sound effects from tonight.

[ NOTE: If you're reading this in an RSS reader or email, you may have to visit the original post to hear the following recordings. ]

Simply Youth Ministry is giving away several Christmas PowerPoint games and Christmas backgrounds for free!

On their Freebie Games page, you can download three different PowerPoint Games: Christmas Trivia Game, Christmas Zoom-In Game, and Christmas Sing-along Game. There’s also directions there for a non-PowerPoint Christmas game called Christmas Wrap-Off.

They’re also giving away 10 free Christmas backgrounds to use with PowerPoint

In case that’s not enough, check out their free talk outline called, The Christmas Killers. It helps students see that Christmas is more than gifts.

And, of course, there’s the Christmas Carol PowerPoint game I gave away over 100 freebies ago, too.

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This Monday, December 7, Walt Mueller of CPYU will join us to answer questions related to youth culture, parenting and ministry. We’d love it if you could submit your questions ahead of time, though. Join us for the live conversation at 2:00 PM eastern time! See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

While feeding my little girl two weeks ago, I watched the Youth Specialties podcast with Jonathan McKee who gave an idea of a cell phone text messaging game. I took his idea and modified it a bit.

Rules
1. Split everyone up into teams of 3 to 5 students each. Make sure each team as at least one person with a picture messaging enabled cell phone.

2. Use a countdown timer to give teams exactly 2 minutes to run around the church and take a picture. The picture must include at least one person from their group. When they return, have teams message that picture to your email address.

3. Quickly take the pictures as they show up in your email Inbox and put them in a PowerPoint slide and assign each picture to a different team. Project it on the screen and let the teams race to be the first to take a picture that’s identical to the one assigned to them (in the same location) with one of their own team members.

4. The first team to send you a picture message replicating their assigned picture wins, but let the others keep playing for fun. Just set a time when the game is over and they all need to return to your youth room with or without a picture. If there are teams who can’t figure out where their assigned picture was taken, have the original team that took the picture announce the location at that time.

Here are the screenshots of when some of our sr. highers played it a couple weeks ago.

Original pictures labeled with their assigned teams

The teams who were able to successfully reproduce their assigned picture

Luke Trouten, Youth Pastor at Northwood Church in Maple Grove, MN, donated the instructions for the game Whip ‘n Strip for you all! It looks like it has the potential to become a pretty violent game, so it must be fun! The name alone makes you a bit curious about how to play. Fortunately, you can just download Luke’s PDF of the game’s instructions below.

Luke has this to say about the game:

This game works better outside, but can be played in a gym. A single game can take anywhere between 5 minutes and an hour depending on how strategic the students get. I’ve brought this to every camp/youth group I’ve worked at and it’s always been a hit. In the summer we get face paint and go Braveheart style, it’s pretty intense.

Download “Whip ‘n Strip” instructions

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Join us at 2:00 PM EST this afternoon in our LIVE YM Talk. Our featured guest is Joshua Griffin, high school pastor at Saddleback Church, and he’ll lead us in a discussion about working with high school students. See the LIVE YM Talk page for details on how to join the call and/or the live chat.

Adam Wormann, an old friend who graduated from the youth ministry program at Philadelphia Biblical University with me, sent me today’s Freebie Friday to share with you.

Based on a segment from Jay Leno, the eBay game is where you show a picture of a random item for sale on Ebay. The PowerPoint linked below contains various obscure pictures of items that were sold and the Word document contains information about that auction, including the number of bids and final sale price. You can have players:

• Guess the final sale price (within certain percent)
• Guess the number of bids (within a certain number)
• Give a price/number of bids and play “higher or lower”
• Give points to whoever gets closest
• Be creative and come up with something else!

All of these items were actually on eBay and really sold as indicated.

Download eBay game details

Download eBay PowerPoint game

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There is NO LIVE YM Talk this afternoon. We’re scheduled for next week, though, March 6, 2009, for 2:00 PM as usual. Talk with you all then!

Indoor Game; All Ages; 30 or more kids

This game was submitted by Ish Engle, youth pastor at First Christian Church of Cushing, Oklahoma.

There are seven boxes in the field of play, home plate and a “do not cross” line (about 10 feet from home plate). The boxes range in point value from 1-7 and are randomly placed in the outfield, usually with the higher numbers farther from home.

Only the pitcher of the non-batting team is allowed past the “do not cross” line. They stand about 6-8 feet from the plate.

The ball should be a Nerf-style basketball/soccer ball that won’t fly to far even if Babe Ruth hits it. For a bat, a wiffle ball bat is perfect, although a broom stick with a pool noodle over it works well, too.

The pitcher pitches, the batter bats. After a successful hit (there are no strikes or balls, and its only foul if it goes behind home plate), the batter runs to any point box they choose. They may run to as many as they like in any order that they like, but they only get points for the boxes they touch. To receive points, they must touch the box AND return home safely.

The fielding team tries to get the batter out by fielding the ball and pegging the runner. The runner may dodge, dip, duck, dive and dodge to avoid being hit.

The entire side bats, outs are not tracked. Once one side has batted, teams switch places. When they have batted the inning is over. The game is usually played to 3 innings.

Its a lot of fun, and the soft ball/bat combo serves to make the sluggers and the “not-athletically gifted” more equal. You will find that those kids who hit and run to the 1 or 2 point box and back will be your lead scorers in the end. Slow and steady wins the game!

SUBMIT YOUR GAME: If you have a favorite youth group game, tell me about it. If I publish it, you’ll receive full credit, a link, lots of gratitude and a warm feeling inside that comes from sharing with others.

Indoor Game; All Ages; 30 or more kids

Troy Young, student pastor at Immanuel Baptist Church in Danville, KY, sent me this game idea. I haven’t tried it yet, but can’t wait to do so!

Buy 3 or 4, 20″ bicycle inner-tubes. Split the youth up into groups and see how many students they can fit inside of the inner tube. You will be blown away! Our students were like, “There is no way we are getting in there.” We got over 30 students into each inner-tube. It sounds simple but they loved it, and they loved the competition against the different groups.

SUBMIT YOUR GAME: If you have a favorite youth group game, tell me about it. If I publish it, you’ll receive full credit, a link, lots of gratitude and a warm feeling inside that comes from sharing with others.

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Been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer? Life In Student Ministry has an outstanding team of youth ministry veterans waiting to mentor you one-on-one! [Mentorship made free for you thanks to YouthBytes video curriculum.]

Indoor Game; All Ages; 10 or more kids

This post has been sitting as a draft for almost a year. Sorry! Better late than never, I guess.

Justin Ross has a great youth group game idea of combining Musical Chairs with Dodge Ball. When the music stops, one team runs across the room to sit in a row of chairs while the other team tries to peg them with dodge balls. Whoever is hit with a ball is out, as well as the last person to sit down. Then teams switch roles.

Read more details on his site about how to play this high-energy game.

SUBMIT YOUR GAME: If you have a favorite youth group game, tell me about it. If I publish it, you’ll receive full credit, a link, lots of gratitude and a warm feeling inside that comes from sharing with others.

Indoor Game; All Ages; 10 or more kids

This game idea is submitted by Russell Martin, a worship leader in Texarkana, Texas.

Gather many rolls of toilet paper and put them in the middle of the room. Divide the group into two teams and put them on either side of the room. Play normal dodge ball rules. If you hit someone, they are out. If they catch the “ball,” you throw you are out, etc. After round one then play again. This time, however, an adult leader gets to play god. The leader tells the youth that at any time they can tell someone they are out, or put someone back in no matter what. Whatever the leader says goes!

After the game the youth will probably complain about it not being fair, about you not being fair. Use this time to talk about God being fair and just.

SUBMIT YOUR GAME: If you have a favorite youth group game, tell me about it. If I publish it, you’ll receive full credit, a link, lots of gratitude and a warm feeling inside that comes from sharing with others.