Wanna Set Your Youth Group on Fire?

[Lehn]

…No, I really wouldn’t suggest it literally, so please, put away the Boy Scout water.

What I was wondering is if any of you guys had any special traditions in your Youth Group, like retreats, trips, games and so on.
Our assistant Youth Group leader is moving down to Florida to finish up college, and she’s asked me to help fill in the gaps there will be once she leaves. Namely, mixing things up and helping to get things like Youth Events organized and planned.
So, I thought, hey, why not ask you guys for some ideas? With such a diverse group from every corner of the world, there’s gotta be some awesome ideas that will help us all start our youth groups on fire!

Here's some of the things from my Youth Group:

Bike Trip: Quite a few churches in my area do this, all of them branching off the program my aunt and uncle started about, oh gosh, probably 15 years ago.
This is the megaly-super-sized Big Mac of all retreats when it comes to being physical. Ours is about 2 weeks long; and the distances range from 700 to a little over a 1,000 miles, averaging anywhere between 50 to 130 miles a day.
What do we ride for? To show people God’s glory. And trust me, from personal experience when you’re sunburned, exhausted to the point of just wanting to curl up in the corner and cry your eyes out and still have to climb up the side of a mountain, all you really have is your faith that God will get you through it.
We sleep basically anywhere where we can, from campgrounds to church parking lots. My rookie year we camped out in a cow pasture out in South Dakota because we where, quite literally, in the middle on nowhere.
When we’re not riding we’re doing programs and giving testimonies out in the communities that we’re in for a day or so. This isn’t something that you just decided to do though, a longer trip like we take obviously involves a ton of planning, plans and routes where already being formed for our trip this summer almost six months ago. But even a weekend trip; either mountain biking or road biking with spending the night at a state park is still a pretty awesome experience. PM me for more information about my youth group’s trip or any random questions about it in general, trust me, I’m used to it.

Capture the Flag: Okay, I’m a hick. No denying it. The claws and the camouflage break out whenever we do this, usually in either someone’s backyard if you’re in the country like I am, or at a state park. We usually play this all afternoon, sometimes, depending on the weather, with a little bit of canoeing mixed in. The entire group meets up in the evening, for a bonfire and a devotional with some worship songs. Nice way to spend a Saturday.

Lazar Tag: For all you city slickers. Depending on the place, you usually can a pretty good group rate. It’s a really safe place to bring new non-Christian people (particularly guys) to because it’s common ground and not your stereotypical Christian outing. And once they see how cool some of your group’s members are… BAM! They’ll so wanna start coming out to your youth group weekly.

30-Hour Famine: This is awesome outreach project that raises money for starving children in Third World countries, so check it out!

http://www.30hourfamine.org/Display.asp?Page=Home

House Painting: Corny sounding, I know, but when you get a group of 15 to 20 teenagers and a couple buckets of paint, trust me, it’s so much fun. Plus, it’s a great way to help out the elderly in your community.

Canoe Trip: What’s better then tipping your friends' canoes and tossing people into a river? My church has its own campgrounds, we usually spend the night there in tents, but you can probably spend the night at a camp ground. Large groups usually get a discount. At night, we all get together for a bonfire and worship. Usually a Friday-Saturday thing unless it’s in the summer.

[Locke]

im going to tell my leader about this ( mostly the lazer tag and capture the flag
the bike thing seems too far fetched for my chuch ( we are all city kids, we'd die in a day)


thanks lehn for the matches to set my youth group on fire!

[Lehn]

the bike thing seems too far fetched for my chuch ( we are all city kids, we'd die in a day)

^^;; I said the same thing when I hear about it.
I won't lie, sitting on a bike seat for about 5-7 hours at time isn't a pleasant thing, but it's really taught me so much about me. I'm a stronger person, both mentally and physically because of those trips. I know now that I can climb mountains, both real and emotional ones as long as I keep my faith in Jesus.

If you ever get a chance, don't hesitate to try out a trip like that. It's an awesome experience that will change your life.


So, how about everyone else? Got any sweet Youth Group trips or activities?

[cbwing0]

It sounds like your youth group does a lot of fun things. My church does an annual canoe trip, and just last year we did a short bike trip (although I got lost, and it ended up being a long trip for me ).

My church youth group (well, my home church youth group, since I have two now that I'm away at college) does a number of things throughout the year:

CreationFest-This is a huge event held every year on both the east and west coasts. You camp out for 3-4 days, and throughout the day you can go see bands and speakers. All of the biggest Christian bands play there, along with a lot of lesser-known ones. I go to to the East Coast one, which is held in Pennsylvania.

Attending conferences in general can be fun and edifying. Since we live close to Washington, D.C., there are a lot of them available to us. I think my youth group does 4-5 each year. The overnight ones are especially fun, because it gives the people in the group a chance to get to know each other in a way that they probably wouldn't otherwise.

Game Nights-This is something that my college youth group does from time to time. Basically, you bring as many video, card, and board games as you can find, and have fun for a couple of hours. You can also include more physical games (3-legged races, wheelbarrow races, and crabwalking races are particularly fun). The strength of these is that they are so flexible: you can basically do whatever you want with the available resources.

Hiking-If you have a lot of mountains and/or forested areas within driving distance, chances are that you can find (or make, if you're brave ) a trail to hike. This is also flexible, as you can choose an easy or difficult trail according to the ability of your group.

[Gypsy]

Hi there, grrblah (fun name!). That's too bad about your church only wanting to do expensive things - however, you have the unique opportunity for you and your church friends to take the initative and put something together on your own. Perhaps you could do some of the things mentioned above with younger members of your church?

[Rashiir]

It's all about México, hermana... Our church goes down during spring break to help build a house for people in México who don't have one with Amor Ministries. It's a very life changing experience... It really puts things into perspective, and I think it can really set people on fire... It did for me, anyhow... If you leave reasonably near the border I highly recommend it... you can go pretty much anytime, as far as i know... we're planning to go again this summer

[Hitokiri]

Church Lock-In We spend the night at church where we set up bunch of games and mvoies and basically use the entire church. We have had many YG inside jokes spring up from it. We got very.....funny after watching Matrix at 3 o clock in the morning That's always a fun event to do.

Youth Fundraisers If you need to raise money, we do stuff like washing cars which is a blast, put on events, and we have a huge funraiser called the "Speghetti Dinner" in which the entire YG basically pitches in to put on a show. We've been doing this for 5 years now. We make speghetti and another food for them to eat and then the YG plays music and we always have a theme (this years theme is Lord of the Rings meets Monty Python ).

Summer/Winter Camping Sure Winter is over but you can still do summer. We do Winter Camping for the YG guys only so thats a blast (out in the cold for a week)

Paintball We still have yet to do this but I've always wanted the YG to...maybe later.

[Lehn]

Hey'a grrblah! Man, that's gotta bite, but you don't always need money to have fun. If I was you, I'd try out what Gypsy suggested and take the initiative yourself ‘cause the ball won't start rolling unless someone pushes it first!

Si, hermano Rashiir, I hear that México trips are awesome... I wasn't old enough to go on the trip last time the youth group went, but I still hear stories about having to put your toilet paper in a waste basket instead of flushing it

We spend the night at church where we set up bunch of games and mvoies and basically use the entire church.

^^;; We have a New Years Party that's kinda like that... We have a huge projector screen in the sanctuary and we watch Veggie Tales and other movies on it. Its awesome because there's surround sound in there because of the sound system they use for Sunday Morning Worship.

Summer/Winter Camping Sure Winter is over but you can still do summer. We do Winter Camping for the YG guys only so thats a blast (out in the cold for a week)

O_o Please tell that you don't sleep outside in tents?! Now that would be insane...!

[Hitokiri]

O_o Please tell that you don't sleep outside in tents?! Now that would be insane...!

Oh yeah!!! That was have the fun of it!! My small tent had bout 5 guys (3 person tent) all stuck in together trying to keep warm. I think it went somewhere negative 3-10 sometimes in the night so it wasn't quite that cold.

[FireStarter2003]

Hey y'all,

Here's my idea for getting your youth group on fire: piling them all into a van or bus, and going to an Acquire The Fire weekend youth convention. If what you're after is something that pizza parties and skate nights can't provide, but only an encounter with God, then I highly recommend a group trip to an ATF convention. The times I've gone with my youth group, there has definitely been a difference and an increased excitement in the youth for the things of God.

Other ideas include:
- missions trips: Take a team with your church, or through another ministry (i.e. Teen Mania, YWAM, Randy Clark/Global Awakening, etc.)
- retreats: Set aside a time when your youth group can come together for a few days, have some activities and fun stuff. However, emphasize as the main thing the pursuit of the presence and power of God.
- servant evangelism: demonstrate the love of Jesus to your community in practical, caring ways.

[alf4office]

It's not really a tradition, or some wicked awesome event, like paint balling, but my Youth group has an awesome hour and a half worship concert every Sunday night to prepare us for the next week of school. It wasn't anything fashy, just a 1 1/2 hours of straight worship. When we first started only a few people came, but as the weeks passed more and more people came, and I found that it really put us all in the right mind set for the next week of school. I found that dedicating that chunk of time really helped create an atmosphere in our Youth group, and is one of the reasons we have such a fire for God

[GzusRcks]

Those are some awesome ideas! Our youth group tries to do alot of outreach stuff, but we kick in some fun stuff as well:

Annual Ski/Snowboardin Trip: This is where we all pile into 5-6 SUVs and drive up to Snowshoe to hang out for a weekend, (Superbowl weekend to be exact). It's full of 2-day skiing n snowboarding as well as a worship service thing on Sunday right before we come home. That's a really really awesome trip to do.

Annual Whitewater Rafting Trip: This is same as above, everyone piling into 5-6 SUVs and heading back to West VA to whitewater raft for a weekend, (Labor Day weekend).

Trip during Summer Vaca: We usually hit a theme park, like 2 yrs ago we hit Daytona Beach and went to Youth Quest, which was soo awesome. It was a life changing experience. We went to nationals in our drama and singing group, and hit Disney World before we left. Then last year we went to Atlanta to 6 Flags to hit AtlantaFest and see all the greatest bands in concert. Toby Mac, Audio A, Relient K, Pillar ...it was greatness.

Mission Trip: This summer we're doing our 1st mission trip, and we're going to England. Sometime in July they're going, a bunch of us aren't going cuz of protective parentals and whatnot but it's an awesome experience in the least. They're doing sidewalk ministry and such.

Laser Tag: Yesh, laser tag is the greatest! We do this sometimes during the summer and spend the whole day there then usually end up at the mall, its a great thing to invite loads of people to.

Video Scavenger Hunt: These are w/out a doubt the greatest! So many inside jokes come from these it's ridiculous! Basically you're in a group of about 5 (including someone who can drive), and you run all over town for 3 hrs doing the random things on the list and videotaping them to show proof of doing them. You get points for each thing you do, then a couple days later you pile at your youth pastor's house and watch them all. They are soo hilarious! For instance, one of ours said "Milk a cow" and seeing as how we're all in the middle of nowhere we we're like 'ok, this'll be easy'. So instead, we opted to go to Walmart in the height of Halloween time and con one of our friends into dressing up in a cow costume! We then took a bucket and a gallon of milk and pretended to milk him! It was so funny! Oh, and we also had to do a music video, so we busted into our youth pastor's house and did a video to New Kids on the Block!! At a gasstation someone from our group had to propose to some random guy (it was Bunny, if any of you people know her, ^.^ *gets hit in the head by Bryt*), and it was soo funny. The guy was like "but...I dont even know you..." Finally he said yes and we got bonus points. XD Then we had to try on fireman gear and say the pledge of allegiance to the flag outfront the firestation! You'd be surprised at how random people help out and gladly let you use their stuff and whatnot. As you can see, the possibilites are endless with this one.

Small Groups: This is a really good outreach one to do. You basically make the groups with just girls or just guys, and put together whoever in your youth group goes to the same highschool. We've got 5 girls in our group and since we've put this together I've learned a whole lot more about my fellow girls that go to my highschool. It strengthens friendships. We have a leader and usually meet at her house (an adult so we don't get too outta hand), and meet twice a month. We do outreach stuff, like visiting nursing homes and doing plants and baskets for Easter, as well as fun stuff, hanging at someones house n eating pizza n watching movies, and going bowling, shopping, etc.

Lock-Ins: Yup, it consists of watching bunches of movies on our screen-thing as well as playing random games and hanging out. We also do worship and have a devotion.

I'll add more as I think of them, but this is just a portion of what our youth group does. We started with about 15-20 and now have up to 70 on a wednesday night. Our youth group is called "Wednesday Night Live" and we have a blast! ^.^

[Hitokiri]

[quote="GzusRcks"]
Video Scavenger Hunt: These are w/out a doubt the greatest! So many inside jokes come from these it's ridiculous! Basically you're in a group of about 5 (including someone who can drive), and you run all over town for 3 hrs doing the random things on the list and videotaping them to show proof of doing them. You get points for each thing you do, then a couple days later you pile at your youth pastor's house and watch them all. They are soo hilarious! For instance, one of ours said "Milk a cow" and seeing as how we're all in the middle of nowhere we we're like 'ok, this'll be easy'. So instead, we opted to go to Walmart in the height of Halloween time and con one of our friends into dressing up in a cow costume! We then took a bucket and a gallon of milk and pretended to milk him! It was so funny! Oh, and we also had to do a music video, so we busted into our youth pastor's house and did a video to New Kids on the Block!! At a gasstation someone from our group had to propose to some random guy, and it was soo funny. The guy was like "but...I dont even know you..." Then we had to try on fireman gear and say the pledge of allegiance to the flag outfront the firestation! You'd be surprised at how random people help out and gladly let you use their stuff and whatnot. As you can see, the possibilites are endless with this one.
QUOTE]

Oh my gosh!! We do the same thing (we do it all in one day (the taping, the craziness, and then the watching)

One easy thing to do is do service projects around your community. Im trying to get our YG to do more outreach programs instead of doing stuff thats fun for us.

[Bunny]

Those are some awesome ideas! Our youth group tries to do alot of outreach stuff, but we kick in some fun stuff as well:

Annual Ski/Snowboardin Trip: This is where we all pile into 5-6 SUVs and drive up to Snowshoe to hang out for a weekend, (Superbowl weekend to be exact). It's full of 2-day skiing n snowboarding as well as a worship service thing on Sunday right before we come home. That's a really really awesome trip to do.

Annual Whitewater Rafting Trip: This is same as above, everyone piling into 5-6 SUVs and heading back to West VA to whitewater raft for a weekend, (Labor Day weekend).

Trip during Summer Vaca: We usually hit a theme park, like 2 yrs ago we hit Daytona Beach and went to Youth Quest, which was soo awesome. It was a life changing experience. We went to nationals in our drama and singing group, and hit Disney World before we left. Then last year we went to Atlanta to 6 Flags to hit AtlantaFest and see all the greatest bands in concert. Toby Mac, Audio A, Relient K, Pillar ...it was greatness.

Mission Trip: This summer we're doing our 1st mission trip, and we're going to England. Sometime in July they're going, a bunch of us aren't going cuz of protective parentals and whatnot but it's an awesome experience in the least. They're doing sidewalk ministry and such.

Laser Tag: Yesh, laser tag is the greatest! We do this sometimes during the summer and spend the whole day there then usually end up at the mall, its a great thing to invite loads of people to.

Video Scavenger Hunt: These are w/out a doubt the greatest! So many inside jokes come from these it's ridiculous! Basically you're in a group of about 5 (including someone who can drive), and you run all over town for 3 hrs doing the random things on the list and videotaping them to show proof of doing them. You get points for each thing you do, then a couple days later you pile at your youth pastor's house and watch them all. They are soo hilarious! For instance, one of ours said "Milk a cow" and seeing as how we're all in the middle of nowhere we we're like 'ok, this'll be easy'. So instead, we opted to go to Walmart in the height of Halloween time and con one of our friends into dressing up in a cow costume! We then took a bucket and a gallon of milk and pretended to milk him! It was so funny! Oh, and we also had to do a music video, so we busted into our youth pastor's house and did a video to New Kids on the Block!! At a gasstation someone from our group had to propose to some random guy (it was Bunny, if any of you people know her, ^.^ *gets hit in the head by Bryt*), and it was soo funny. The guy was like "but...I dont even know you..." Finally he said yes and we got bonus points. XD Then we had to try on fireman gear and say the pledge of allegiance to the flag outfront the firestation! You'd be surprised at how random people help out and gladly let you use their stuff and whatnot. As you can see, the possibilites are endless with this one.

Small Groups: This is a really good outreach one to do. You basically make the groups with just girls or just guys, and put together whoever in your youth group goes to the same highschool. We've got 5 girls in our group and since we've put this together I've learned a whole lot more about my fellow girls that go to my highschool. It strengthens friendships. We have a leader and usually meet at her house (an adult so we don't get too outta hand), and meet twice a month. We do outreach stuff, like visiting nursing homes and doing plants and baskets for Easter, as well as fun stuff, hanging at someones house n eating pizza n watching movies, and going bowling, shopping, etc.

Lock-Ins: Yup, it consists of watching bunches of movies on our screen-thing as well as playing random games and hanging out. We also do worship and have a devotion.

I'll add more as I think of them, but this is just a portion of what our youth group does. We started with about 15-20 and now have up to 70 on a wednesday night. Our youth group is called "Wednesday Night Live" and we have a blast! ^.^

*throws a shoe at Hann* You did not have to go there with the proposal! The dude had food in his mouth and whenever he spoke little flecks of it would fly in all directions. I was scared. How did you guys talk me into that again?

Annual Halloween Costume Party: Just what it sounds like. We get together and party in some costumes. Usually we have a competition for the best costumes. Gzusrcks and I were mad scientists this year. Figures, huh?

Annual New Year's lock-in: This year was our first but I'm pretty sure our youth pastor wants to make it a yearly thing. It's awesome! We play games, worship, and rock out to our band 'til the dawn's early light. Fall asleep at your own risk.

[Lehn]

The Video Scavenger Hunt thing sounds like my kind of crazy.