I believe in cutting my Sunday Children’s Church Service into segments of no more than 10-15 minutes each. One of the ways I do that is by sticking one or two games in to the mix. My games are not just distractions… I use them as an excuse to reiterate the main point of the service. In other words, my games are quick, simple, and themed.
Quick
No matter what our game is we only play it for 60 seconds. My game person chooses the children in advance during the service (watching to see who is being good and choosing at random from that group) and let’s them know when to come up and how to play. When she gets on stage, she calls up the kids she’s already chosen, briefly explains what’s about to happen to the crowd (the gamers already know) and then it’s Mark, Set, GO! Sixty seconds later the game is over, a point is made and prizes and points are given. Then it’s on to the next segment.
Simple
Almost every single one of our stage games follows this formula: “How many (or much) ___________ can you ___________ in 60 seconds?”
This formula helps us keep games simple and quick. Here are some examples of games we’ve done this way:
- How many cotton balls can you collect…
- How many Frisbee’s can you toss through a hoop…
- How much soda can you drink…
- How many puzzle pieces can you put together…
- How many Lego’s can you stack…
Even when we don’t stick to the formula, we still keep it simple and quick.
Themed
There is no reason games should be ‘burn time’ where the kids aren’t learning. It’s simple enough to theme the games after something in the lesson or Bible story. For instance, the cotton ball game above could be used when talking about Manna. Frisbee tosses are for talking about sin and missing the target. Putting puzzles together are good for illustrating how God heals broken hearts. We’ve stacked Lego’s when we’ve talked about God being a strong tower.
The game’s theme isn’t going to be obvious unless your game leader points it out. We typically do this before and after the game. It goes something like this, “Since we’re talking about Manna today, we’re going to practice picking up a bit of Manna ourselves!” Then after the game, “You guys and girls did great picking up that Manna! This game reminds me that God will always provide what we need the same way God provided for His people in the wilderness.”
What stage game tips do you have? Leave them in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I love stage games too, and use them weekly during our children's services! I love games that are quick and high energy, because they keep the kids' attention and help reinforce the lesson! I think you summed it up great with quick, simple and themed. The biggest mistakes I think people make when doing them is #1 The instructions are so complicated that it takes longer to explain the game than it does to actually play it, and #2 Not explaining the instructions to the audience, so they feel left out and it's not entertaining to them if they can't tell what's supposed to be happening. So those are my two tips about stage games.
We do lots of messy ones: aka: pick a partner and blindfold one person while feeding the other person a hot dog or s'more or something; the classic crack an egg and stand above someone lying on the floor with a cup on their head to drop it in, etc. The best ones are ones I've learned or adapted from youth pastors! (children's ministry just doesn't have the same creativity as youth ministry when it comes to awesome stage games). One that I stole from a youth group was ridiculous- we got Home Depot to loan us two toilets (they were old display toilets, they ended up letting us keep them…) and we filled them with Mountain Dew and mini Snickers and had the kids go "bobbing"- it was hilarious and gross! You can do lots of fun games with food, and balloons too!
Does anyone know of any good books or websites with stage game ideas? Sometimes it's hard to think of some good ones. I love the ideas you shared about picking up cotton (manna) and throwing frisbees, etc.
Thanks for the new ideas….my middle kids loved the new games. They all wanted to do them over each time I did one.