Game Ideas for a Small Teen Church Group

A game event for your church youth group can inspire more enthusiasm with some teens that a church service, Bible study or service project. If your teen ministry is a small group, you need to choose games that allow everyone to play and appeal to those who attend the event. If you play your card right, periodic game nights can help grow your youth group and enlarge your game choices in the future.

Outdoor Games

When the weather is nice, teens can get outside to engage in active games. Bible Olympics challenges the teens to have fun while competing in small teams. The teens can relay from one city where Paul established a church to another one, carrying the Bible and reading a different verse posted at each stop in the race. Teens can employ a slingshot to hurl marshmallows at a cardboard figure of Goliath. One teen can lead a blindfolded teen through an obstacle course to reach the pool of Bethesda to receive his sight. Teams can collect pairs of stuffed animals and see who can load the Ark the quickest and see who can build the highest Tower of Babel using cardboard boxes.

Indoor Active Games

Games for Christian Teens to Play Indoors

Learn More

If your church has a fellowship hall or gym, you can find this space suitable for active indoor games. Arm each small team of teens with at least one digital camera or camera phone and provide them a list of Bible verses and a Bible for clues on a scavenger hunt. For example, list 1 Corinthians 13:13’s greatest thing for love, which a team might choose a heart, teen members in a group hug or the word “love.” If you asked for three elements from I Samuel 17:40, the teams would look for a rock, stream, staff, bag or sling 12.

Matching Games

Guessing and trivia games can challenge teens to learn more about the Bible. Provide a list of Bible husbands and wives, parents and children or other paired list for teens to match. Paired couples could include Abraham and Sarah, David and Bathsheba and Mary and Joseph. Parents and children could include Hannah and Samuel, David and Bathsheba and Solomon, and Timothy and Eunice. For another option, you can collect a list of Bible characters and their deeds and have teams who supply what someone did and require the other team to guess the Bible character. Ideas for character and deeds include David defeating Goliath, Sampson destroying a pagan temple and Peter denying Christ.

More Games

Get to Know You Game for Teens

Learn More

You can create your own version of games with a little preparation. Type up and print out familiar Scriptures and cut the words apart so teams can compete to unscramble the verses and references. Bible word searches, crossword puzzles, scrambled words and fill-in-the-blanks work for individual competition are available in many Bible activity books or you can make your own.