Taking Notice

Last night at youth group we themed our night around taking notice. Both games that we played were themed, the small group, and a contemplative moment during our closing worship was also themed to encourage students to pay attention to their relationships, their attitudes, and their actions.

The first game was a basic ice breaker called osmosis. Kids paired up with a friend and sat facing them in a straight line. Then I asked half of the line to move 4 people to the right, so that the kids were no longer sitting near their partner but were meeting someone new. Using a list of questions on a dry erase board, I encouraged the kids to get to know each other for 3-4 minutes.  After our time limit, I asked the kids to sit back to back (so they couldn't see each other's answers) and had them answer four questions about themselves (silly things like, where would you want to live, what is your favorite part of the circus, what would you rescue from your house in a natural disaster...). And finally everyone made a circle and one at a time students tried to guess what their partner wrote down as an answer for our questions. The game worked well, took much longer than expected, even though I only asked one question per person.

The next game was called Pavlovian charades. After being split into teams, one person from the group receives a clue and is in charge of a bowl of m&m's. the team begins trying to act out different actions and when they get closer to the action, they receive M&M's as a reward. eventually, team members are able to guess that tehy are supposed to be standing on one foot flapping their arms like a chicken (for example). The game worked, but it was shorter than I thought. The actions that the kids came up with were strange, and not as specific as they could have been. because of our numbers I had also split kids into 4 teams instead of 2, and I think that moved the game faster because they saw other teams and copied each other. It was silly though, lots of laughter and fun!Both games were completely inclusive, even our more difficult students could play.

We concluded games with some good conversation based on Romans 12:1-2 and becoming more aware of our actions. Then during worship I invited kids to think about what they need to be paying closer attention to: their relationships, their actions, or their attitudes. During our closing songs, students came forward to light a candle which represented their attention to one of these areas. The cool effect was the amount of light in our room that grew as students lit candles. So I mentioned it in closing that when we focus our attention, paying closer attention to our relationships, actions and attitudes, we shine God's light more brightly and light up the world. It was a good moment for our group.