Church Commando Lesson

I used the Church Commando game as an intro to a lesson about joy. Ahead of time, find a number of bible passages that pertain to joy (I had about 10). Write each of them on separate sheets of paper, and role the papers into scrolls. You will use these in lieu of the candies. (If you want to add a little competition, use different colors of paper, and assign point values to them.) Tell the kids that they are prisoners in a P.O.W. camp. The local resistance movement has dropped the scrolls, which contain helpful information for the prisoners near by, and that they need to retrieve them without being spotted. Play a few rounds, and after the last round, have the people who retrieved the scrolls keep them for the lesson.
Go back to the youth room, and have each person read their scroll, taking time to talk about each passage. (I numbered them ahead of time and had the kids read them in order, to make the lesson flow better). I didn’t think of this until I had already planned the activity, but this is also a great introduction to Philippians, in which Paul preaches joy from prison.