Silent Football

Last night at youth group we played one of my favorite youth group games: silent football. paired with this amazing game was a good discussion about judging others, guilt, and conscious.

To begin the evening, following dinner, we played a great ice breaker called Traffic. In this game all the students partnered up and blindfolded one partner. The blindfolded person then became a car, extending their two hands to act as headlights (and safety bumpers). The second person stood behind their partner and placed two hands on their shoulders. With simple commands, and gentle nudging of the shoulders, the person who could see became the driver of the car, navigating around the room and keeping their car from hitting others. Of course the game is tag. I selected two cars to be it and the chaos ensued. Instructed to only tag other cars, drivers couldn't be tagged, there was plenty of craziness and laughter as people drove their friends around the room trying to avoid being tagged. After a few tags, I would stop the group and instruct drivers to find new cars or car and driver to trade places. We played this ice breaker for 15 minutes, but easily could have spent 30 minutes playing and having fun with different styles of cars. Students loved it, and no one was injured.

Next we broke the kids into two groups and due to the exceedingly good weather, we headed outside to the grass to play games. For the evening I had planned to play Silent Football, but with 30 students, we need to break down into groups and switch games after 20 minutes or so. 15 was the right number to play silent football, but 20 minutes was far too short. Though there was lots of laughter and silliness, the game is quite stressful and quickly becomes overwhelming for some students who are racking up points. Silent football rules are well documented at the wikipedia page on silent football, but the basic premise of the game is to pass an imaginary football around a circle by performing a series of silly moves. The game gets sillier because there are some difficult rules to follow (not doing the same move three times in a row, no pointing, and no using personal pronouns during the game). Points are bad, and they are assigned when players see others doing something wrong and then tattling to the game moderator. At the same time as Silent Football, we invited the other group to play wiffle ball, led by another leader. (and it was probably almost as fun as silent football).

Following our game time we headed inside the church again for a large group and small group discussion. I began the conversation by inviting students to wonder if they could go a day without sinning, or multiple days without sinning. Then I used Romans 2:1-8 (message translation) to dive into conversation about judging others, and the reality that we sometimes judge others as a way to make our own actions feel less bad.

In that same room, we broke into small groups. This has rapidly become my favorite way to do small groups. instead of sending students all over the church to find small group gathering space, we simply circle up, right where we are, and discuss. The accommodations aren't as good, students are seated on the floor, and there is little privacy, but saving time, and staying on the same theme has been helpful for group leaders. It's also easier to transition into the next activity because groups finish closer to the same time.

The small group time was excellent this week. I also sat in on one of the small groups, and had a great conversation about whether or not your conscious was the voice of God. It was fascinating to hear students talk about how they do or don't perceive God as part of their daily lives.