Archives by: Kelly Turner

Everything has to have a lesson with Youth stuff. We made sandwiches for lunch at one of our “game days” and had this lesson to go with it…
Each kid was “assigned” one of the ingredients for the lunch. The different meats, condiments, chips, veggies, etc. Except for the bread and cheese… one of the youth leaders was assigned that. Under each ingredient was a piece of paper with a strange/funny instruction on it. I had the kids go one at a time… they had to walk up to the person with the ingredient they wanted, and ask for it. “Please let me have some ham.” The kid with the ham said “Well, OK, but you have to do a disco dance for me” or whatever else was on their instruction sheet. When the kids asked for bread (the cheese was hidden off to the side), the youth leader answered with a hug, and “Of course you can have some bread!! I love you!! Have some cheese too!!” and provided both to the kids.
Of course, the lesson was “God gives us what we need and a whole lot more! Most PEOPLE want you to EARN their love, God gives it freely.” The kids had a great lunch, and got a good lesson while we ate.
Some of the silly instructions I used were…
disco dance
sing “Mary had a little lamb”
do 5 jumping jacks
count down from 10 and yell “BLASTOFF!”
spell your name backwards
etc…

I LOVE the glow-stick idea. We did something similar at a lock-in we had with our kids. All the kids were asked to bring a flashlight to the lock-in.
We were singing some songs, getting ready for the “lesson-time” and during “This little light of mine,” some of the leaders turned off all the lights. The leader doing the devotion turned their flashlight on. “Look how just one flashlight helps us better in the dark. Jesus is called the light of the world, and we should share that light. When I flash my light at you, turn yours on.” With each new light, the leader says “look how much X number of lights lighten this room!” Continue till all the flashlights are on. Talk about sharing the light, how the light dispells darkness, etc. The kids really liked it.
Then, we played light tag, of course!