Ministry Coach: Youth Ministry Tips & Resources

NIGHT GAMES for Youth Ministry - 10 Fun OUTDOOR Youth Group Games

• Kristen Lascola • Episode 248

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*** FOR A PDF OF THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE 10 NIGHT GAMES FOR YOUTH MINISTRY discussed in this episode- EMAIL US AT MinistryCoachPodcast@gmail.com - and put in the subject or description "NIGHT GAMES" and we will send it over to you!***  In this episode, we've compiled 5 of our favorite after-dark youth group games that are super fun and easy to play.  Some of these can be played indoors but in the context of this episode, we detail them as outdoor youth group games.  These games will elevate your next youth event, summer camp, mid-week program night or retreat into something your students & leaders won't soon forget!

Want five more night games? Email us at ministrycoachpodcast@gmail.com with "night games" in the subject line or click here to download instructions for all 10: https://forms.gle/jns5Y2UTFWMFFtcx9

Are you ready to grow the size and health of your youth ministry? Check out
GrowYourYouthMinistry.com ***

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SHOPPING LIST:

Capture the Flag (Light Up Version):

* Light Up Set: https://amzn.to/4nK1aim

* Smaller Light Up Set: https://amzn.to/40Ctvgn

* Glow Necklaces/Bracelets: https://amzn.to/46n7u90

* Light Up Cones: https://amzn.to/4lDQG28


Ultimate Frisbee (Light Up Version):

* Light Up Frisbee: https://amzn.to/45RA3LD

* Light Up Cones: https://amzn.to/4lDQG28

* Glow Necklaces/Bracelets: https://amzn.to/46n7u90


Operation: Night Scramble:

Tons of Glow Sticks

Long Soccer Socks: https://amzn.to/3lfcS4N
Pool Noodles: https://amzn.to/3V26dhh (check the dollar store/Walmart for these)
Buckets: https://amzn.to/3izZdT1 (check the dollar store/Walmart for these)


Predator:

* Gator Skin Dodgeballs 6" - https://amzn.to/3Ac2IJf
* Rhino Skin Dodgeballs 6" - https://amzn.to/3w832p3

* Pool Noodles - https://amzn.to/3V26dhh

* Long Soccer Socks: https://amzn.to/3lfcS4N


You may also enjoy these episodes:

(#111) Plan a Year of Youth Group Games in Under 30 Minutes

(#044) Best Games for Summer Camp - 14 Fun Camp Game Ideas


*This episode is not sponsored. Some of the links are affiliate links which simply means, if you buy something, we will receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you) Thank you!*

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Speaker 1:

Today we're talking about super fun night games for you to play with your youth group.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Ministry Coach Podcast, where we give you weekly tips and tactics to help you fast track the growth and health of your youth ministry.

Speaker 1:

My name is Jeff Lascola and this is Kristen, kristen Laskola, and it's time for a game episode.

Speaker 2:

It's summertime the weather's warm Well, depending on what time of the year you're watching this. But it's summer right now as we're recording this, and so nighttime games make total sense. Yeah, they do Summer camp, you can have the nighttime games.

Speaker 1:

I love a midweek night summer camp game. So fun. We like to play a night winter camp game too. It's pretty fun, pretty cold, but it's a good time.

Speaker 2:

We got five of them for you today, but if you email us at ministrycoachpodcast at gmailcom and ask for night games, we have five more.

Speaker 1:

So you'll get 10 total, or you can just go in the description below.

Speaker 2:

Click on the link and it'll give you all the info on how to download it. Yes, and number one is not like some whoa I've never heard of capture the flag before.

Speaker 1:

Oops, I said it capture the flag, but it's a glow-in-the-dark version of capture the flag, which is super fun to play outside at summer camp at night, if you have a field.

Speaker 1:

I'm very jealous if you have a field, because we do not, but you could play in the parking lot. Wouldn't that be fun? That's what we have to do. Or if you're at the beach or, you know, at camp and they have some kind of facility, we're gonna link that below. I actually bought the glow in the dark, capture the flag set. One year I had extra money in my budget and I was like this looks fun, let's give it a try. So it's just kind of a twist on a game kids already know and it just adds that extra little, I feel like for junior hires, especially anything done at night or in the dark.

Speaker 1:

There's just a level of excitement or something there, and even for high schoolers too. But yes, glow in the dark, capture, capture the flag, and you know what I just thought of. They make these frisbees that blink as well, and that's super fun for ultimate frisbee, yeah, so, um, yeah, I, I mean we don't play in pitch black, by the way like we don't want people like we had a kid lose a tooth because he collided with another kid's forehead.

Speaker 1:

Yes, we did, and as far as I know, that tooth is still gone gone. Every time I saw him after that even when he was an adult, because this was a long time ago still no tooth.

Speaker 2:

So it's in the other kid's forehead, so it's just permanently there, so just do a quick rundown for those you don't know how to play. Capture the flag like how do you play that?

Speaker 1:

so everyone knows how to play. Capture the flag. If you, then you shouldn't be in youth ministry.

Speaker 2:

You can skip to number two. If you don't know how to play, fine, I'll do it really fast okay, two teams.

Speaker 1:

They're on opposite sides of the field. There is a line in the middle to divide one side from the other. Each side has a flag that is protected by a safety zone. The point is you have to cross the boundary to the other side's territory, capture their flag you're safe in the safety zone and run it back across the line back into your territory without getting tagged. If you get tagged, you go to jail. Someone from your team can go across and try to rescue you if they make it.

Speaker 2:

And they rescue you by tagging the person in the jail.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you get a free walk back with them, but they don't get a free walk to the jail, obviously, or the emcee of the game can call jailbreak and everyone in jail has a free walk back to their territory. The most points wins, the most successful flags retrieved and brought back to your territory wins. So very fun. It's classic PE type of game, camp game, youth group game. But just yeah, an extra fun thing to do A light-up version. I shouldn't call it glow-in-the-dark, it's actually like a light-up version which is pretty cool.

Speaker 1:

And I think here's why I like this game for at night, because obviously this isn't groundbreaking news. Capture the flag. But the reason it's better at night, especially if you're playing beyond elementary school age kids it's so hard to cross enemy lines like students just stand at the line and it's like I see you like and I'm going to tag you, and it can be a very low scoring game.

Speaker 1:

It's very hard to get that flag across, so when it's dark it's just adds an extra level of sneakiness and invisibility, which will make it a more exciting game, higher scoring game and easier to cross that boundary line because you're hidden a little bit more in plain sight kind of thing. But like we try to play a game similar to this in our auditorium, we turn the lights kind of down low, but it is based on our numbers too. The more kids you have, it's just hard to cross that boundary line.

Speaker 1:

So this makes it more fun. Number two is one of my believe it or not adult leaders favorite games. We play this at our leader retreat every single year and, yes, we're all adults and we love this game. It is sardines. So sardines is a really fun game to play and you can play it outside on a summer night. It is super, super fun.

Speaker 1:

So basically, I think, this would work best for a youth group kind of in that 20 to 40 range or below. If you have a youth group larger than 40, I would not recommend this game. Just save it for your leader retreat, you know, because we're a group of like 25. It works great for us. So basically you pick one person to go and hide and everyone else stays in a designated location and they close their eyes and they count and then they go and disperse and try to find that person who's hiding, and when you find them, you don't like announce it, you hide with them and so the last person like sometimes it's kind of scary because you're like why is it so?

Speaker 1:

quiet. Oh my gosh, where is everybody? And you realize, shoot, shoot, they're all hiding, right, and so if you're the last person to hide with the group, then you are out, or like you lose, and if you want, you can be the one to hide next time. Sometimes I think with students that doesn't totally work, because if they want to be the person hiding, then they won't be motivated to find anyone. Because they want to be the person hiding, then they won't be motivated to find anyone because they want to be the last person.

Speaker 1:

So for students, I wouldn't really recommend doing it that way. It's like I've been around the block a few times, I know how you people work, so you could just, you know, designate. Like you could just pick a person Okay, who's going next, and it has nothing to do with who found them last and then you could say at the end of the game, like if you were never the last person to find the group, you get a piece of candy and like that would be a motivator. So you could do something like, oh, if they're the last person, you mark their hand and you know, if they come out and they don't have any marks, I don't know, be creative, but it's a super fun game. You can play it inside too.

Speaker 1:

We play it in like this, like pretty large cabin up in the mountains and it's very dark and quiet up there. So it's very scary and, hey, I'll be vulnerable and my leaders know this. They make fun of me. I am afraid of the dark there. I said said it, I'm a grown person and I am. When we play in the cabin it is so dark. I just like stand in one spot or I like sit on the floor and they're, like chris said get out of the way, because I'm like I am not walking up that staircase in pitch black and if you don't know the location super, super well, like your own house, you'd be able to find your way through it.

Speaker 2:

But if there's kind of like a I don't really know this place, it makes it that much more you know difficult to navigate through there and one time I was it and I hid behind this chair and like nobody could find me.

Speaker 1:

It was like this big rocking chair, but like not wooden it was like a lazy boy, kind of rocking chair, and I was back there there forever and I heard everyone like that. You hear them talking about you, but they don't know. I'm right here.

Speaker 2:

What were they saying?

Speaker 1:

They were like Kristen's the goat at this game. They did. Asher said that I still remember. So, yeah, you could play inside the church this again.

Speaker 2:

This game is best suited for a smaller youth group so that's the one and only time I've ever gotten poison oak was playing this game really yeah, it was really bad too oh well, be careful playing it at camp. You don't know where you're walking.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, true true, true, we used to play it in college too. I think it's a really fun young adult type game. Yeah, junior hires, I think, would like it. Don't know if I totally trust them. You know hiding around in the dark, but you know your kids better than I do. All right, number four, three, three, thank you. I'm glad you're here. You really have a lot.

Speaker 2:

I can count Number three.

Speaker 1:

We just compliment each other's weaknesses. Okay, this one is definitely. You could play it with a big group or a small group, doesn't matter. So so, so fun. It's called Operation Night Scramble, I didn't name it, so if you don't like, the name, change it.

Speaker 2:

But the other ones you have to stick with the names, but this one you can change.

Speaker 1:

You have my permission. So basically, you need a lot of glow sticks, like a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, hundreds and hundreds of glow sticks. Whenever you think you have enough glow sticks, add another hundred, because you need more, always for this game to be fun. So obviously you're going to break them and shake them, and so what I usually do is I keep all the students in the auditorium while I'm explaining it and all the leaders go out and they start hiding the glow sticks. So you send the leaders out to hide your hundreds of glow sticks and like you can do it outside obviously, and I say, don't bury them, like you're not sending them on a treasure hunt.

Speaker 1:

You scatter them. Maybe you put a few in a tree or a few up on a table, like you can put them around, but they should be in plain sight, because it's already dark and, trust me, you don't want competitive students digging through stuff.

Speaker 2:

They will destroy everything.

Speaker 1:

So you put out a ton of glow sticks, then the leaders spread out and they are armed and dangerous. Okay, they are armed very similarly to our game predator, which I'm going to talk about in a second. So our favorite weapons of choice classic dodgeball. Um, please use soft dodgeballs if you're throwing them at people, Because when kids get hit in the face, especially at the velocity that a leader is throwing them like I've had kids who wear glasses and it hits their face and could break their glasses or hits your nose really hard and it hurts. So just I would recommend the softer gator skin, rhino skin type of balls. It's worth investing in a set of those side note. Okay, so the leaders either have a dodge ball, a foam pool noodle or the sock weapon. The sock weapon, Again, it's one long like tube sock with another sock balled up at the foot of it, at the toe part, and then you tie off the top and you swing it like a medieval weapon and get it all nice and stretched out and then you like whip soccer socks make great.

Speaker 1:

You know socks for that yeah, and so it's like you can hit them like with a sock weapon no matter how hard you hit someone, it's not going to hurt. Pull noodles.

Speaker 2:

Challenge accepted.

Speaker 1:

Really don't hurt. So those are all good options, especially sometimes when you throw balls at kids and you miss is to try to get as many glow but they need labels on them so they see their bucket says sixth grade girls or just sixth grade.

Speaker 1:

They put the glow sticks in there. If they're holding glow sticks and they get whacked by a leader, they have to surrender all the glow sticks. And then you can decide here whether you want them to be out and they like go to like a jail situation, or they're out for the round or all they have to do is surrender their glow sticks and then they can keep going. It depends how, what type of version you like to play. I feel like different youth pastors like different outs for different reasons. If you do send them to just a jail kind of situation, then I think it's really fun to have a jail keeper and it's a fun leader who lets them out of jail if they complete some fun challenges.

Speaker 1:

Like if I were the jail keeper, I would say for instance, for example, I would say do the Macarena four times, or say the alphabet in reverse, or do the chicken dance jumping on one leg, do 10 push-ups, like I don't know. You can make them do funny things, make them write you a poem, like whatever you want to do, and then, once they do that, you can say, okay, you can go back out now. So it just kind of puts them in a timeout. So then you call like when the time is up. You know, I would say like a four minute round, three to four minutes. Again, that depends on how many students you have. If you have a lot of students, you could play a longer round, a little bit of students, you might want to do a two minute round.

Speaker 1:

Then you count up the glow sticks. Whichever team has the most glow sticks in their bucket obviously wins. We play multiple rounds. So then we send the leaders out and they re-hide the glow sticks and we do it all over again. That one is super duper fun, and there's something so cool about just seeing, like when the lights are off or when it's dark, and you just see like a sea of neon glow sticks all over the floor, the street, the parking lot, the bushes, whatever it's. It's pretty fun, it's like a cool experience when they bring them back, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

they can only. Each student can only bring one back at a time. I think that's a rule you might, might be right. So if they did get like stopped. They had to surrender just one.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah so.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I guess you could play. Sorry to interrupt, but I guess you could play where they can get multiple ones. But I feel like if you do it one at a time, the game lasts a little bit longer.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So that's up to you. You could say you can only retrieve one glow stick at a time and or you could say, all right, do your best, see how many you can get. If you get hit, you surrender them all. It's up to you. If you need, you know to buy more time instead of just like one kid, grabbing like 20 and putting them in the basket. You know, it's up to you. I feel like some of those like smaller nuances of a game.

Speaker 2:

It's like when you're a youth, what fits best for you? I was going to say when you're a youth, what fits best for you?

Speaker 1:

yeah, I was gonna say when you're a youth pastor listening to this, you can sift through like uh yes, but I would do this, or oh no, that wouldn't work because of this and that depends on your building, your space, your students, your size. There's a lot of things side note.

Speaker 2:

That's all the more reason we talk about this a lot of times. But to keep a game log, because there's always those little things that happen. You're're like this was fun, but yeah. And then, if you don't write it down, you won't remember it, and the next time you play you're like oh, that's right. I know I should have done this and so make sure you keep track every time you play a game. Maybe it's just like this game was horrible. We'll never play again.

Speaker 2:

Oh, yeah Again, or it's like this we let the kids take multiple glow sticks or whatever.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you can adjust per round. I do that sometimes, right in the middle of the game, I'll like look at my leaders. I'll be like, hey, this isn't working, like we played a game last Tuesday that we learned the hard way. Students can't come back in front of bases one and three. They have to stay behind one and three, or else they catch the buns way too quick. You know like we adjust on the fly, like that and it's and because students will also quickly find the loopholes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, any game they do and you can't foresee all of these things, and so sometimes, yeah, on the fly, you have to say hold on from now on. You can't Exactly.

Speaker 1:

Whatever, or I'll act like it was always a part of the plan.

Speaker 2:

I'll be like all right, Are you ready for this round? Yes, I'm like all right Round two.

Speaker 1:

Here's what we're going to do. You thought that was hard.

Speaker 2:

Now listen to this.

Speaker 1:

You are going to be blindfolded. Yeah, um, yeah. So game number four I love this one, and so do the students. It's probably one of our favorite nighttime camp games is leader hunt, and there's so many different ways you can do it. I'm going to give you the basic skeleton of how to play it, and then you can add all the toppings on top and make it as fun as you want.

Speaker 1:

So, like we have done themed leader hunts where, like, say, we did a candy themed winter camp and leader hunt, all the leaders that went and hid were different Candyland characters. I was Grandma Nut, the peanut brittle lady, ok, and I had a Grandma Nut costume and I was out in the freezing cold hiding from kids and they had like a game card and they were almost like Candyland. Like they were looking for grandma nut, they were looking for the lollipop girl, they were looking for a licorice guy, they were looking for do those have names?

Speaker 2:

grandma, that's the only one I know that has a name.

Speaker 1:

I doesn't matter, whatever princess frostine she's the ice cream girl up at the top anyways and we all dressed up in costumes and hid around. And then the team started to like search for us and then bring us their game card and we would either stamp it or sign it or put like a special sticker on it. And when they collected all the game pieces from the leaders that were hiding. Then they brought it back to King Candy, who was in the room, and they won you know, and so that was really fun.

Speaker 1:

Again, they love scurrying around at night. We have done ones before where kids have to bring leaders back like literally like a dead animal. To bring leaders back like literally like a dead animal, like carry them like by their arms and legs and bring them back, and they get a point for every leader they bring back. That was pretty fun. Um, you know you could. If you didn't have time to theme it, you could just have leaders hide out there and then do one very special leader, like we did this before, there was like a where's Waldo kind of leader. So there was all these leaders hidden in places and you know you could have students take a selfie with them. You could have students sign the, have them sign the thing. But then if they find Waldo and Waldo costumes are super simple and cheap.

Speaker 1:

You know you could figure out what is the prize for that, like, is that an automatic win or is that worth three liters? Or they get like a golden ticket and then they get to turn it in for free ice cream later. You know there's so many like fun ways you can round it out, but leader hunts at night are super fun. I remember when you and I went to Forest Home, that camp, we would like dress up. I remember being like You're French or something yeah, French. And like just running around messing with kids.

Speaker 2:

I don't remember what my character was.

Speaker 1:

And they would try to find us. Or like you can have some leaders detour them Like oh no, I know where Waldo is and he's over there.

Speaker 2:

I think that's what my role was I could stop them and make them do random tasks or whatever.

Speaker 1:

That's the room where I was doing it yes, and so if you capture him, it's like's like okay, you have to like kind of like the jailer we were talking about the other game, like you can't go on until you do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, make a pyramid, right. Well, how did? We both think of because it's like one of the most classic. No, this is crazy.

Speaker 1:

Um, yeah, and then they can go on their way or whatever like that, and then you could have some leaders. Like if you just had a lot of leaders, some, yeah, you send them out to sabotage or like, give false information or something like. Oh, are you looking for waldo? I swear, I just saw him. He he's in the cafe and he's drinking a cappuccino.

Speaker 1:

Hurt, you're going to miss him. So you could just play it up and at camp. I feel like that's kind of the fun time to pull out the theme, pull out the costume, like pull out the characters. Some of my best characters have been played at camps and events and kids get so into it and they love like I mean, you could just hide in your normal clothes, but it would be way more fun to be a character, why not?

Speaker 1:

Why not, hey friend. I just wanted to interrupt this episode for a second to let you know about an awesome opportunity for you and your youth ministry. So last year we launched our course and coaching program called Youth Ministry Growth Accelerator and the response has been amazing. So we've helped tons of youth pastors grow the size and health of their youth ministry and we want to invite you to be a part of that as well, because maybe you're just sort of feeling stuck in a rut. Maybe you don't know what to do next. Maybe you just have a vague plan in your mind of what you're doing and you want some real help to get you from where you are to where you want to go. So if that sounds like something you've been looking for, go to growyouryouthministrycom and check it out for more details. All right, let's get back to the episode. And lastly, our favorite predator when you edit that, can you put some sound effects there?

Speaker 2:

sure why not.

Speaker 1:

Thanks, it'll be uh it'll be a surprise predator, okay. So this is really only fun, played in the dark at night, sometimes, like I stall to wait for the sun to go down so we can get started on Predator. So Predator, I don't know. Guys, I've been doing youth ministry for 21 years. Never goes out of style. They love it. It's not like oh well, back in the day, when kids were simpler, you know they liked Predator. No, it's their favorite. So basically, two teams you get a card we just print out. I just copy paste some google image and put it on a piece of paper and copy it and cut it. So like I think I've given the example we did uh, crocs versus stocks birkenstocks, yeah, clever stanley's versus awal, you know, whatever they're into kind of makes it fun.

Speaker 1:

You put those on the card. Half the kids get Stanley's, half the kids get all wallows. And then you give them a head start. They go outside and hide and then again leaders get the weapons, the balls, the socks, the, the noodles and then they go out and hunt for the kids and if they hit them like and I always tell the kids this isn't like dodgeball rules, like if you catch it it doesn't matter- you're still out if it touches you in any way, you're out.

Speaker 1:

So then they, the students, surrender their predator card to the leader who got them and then they're out. They have to go back to the room and then this is the least amount of hits wins. So the leaders when the round is over, all the leaders come in and put their cards down on the stage in two piles awala's, stanley's we count them up and the lowest score wins, because that's the least amount of hits and it's super duper fun. The kids, I think, a they love the hiding aspect, b, they love to try to outsmart the leaders and they love to. I think they just love to be chased, right, they don't like doing the chasing all the time, they like to be chased. So this game lets them do that and it never gets old. They love, love it. So that is five night games, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And if you want the other five for 10 total, just like I said, email us at ministrycoachpodcast at gmailcom and just put night games in the subject or description or just click on the link in the description below and it'll show you how to download that. Okay, let's do a community comment of the day. Okay, this comes from Salem's Life, who says I'm very appreciative of your videos. I'm sure they will continue to help me on my journey where it leads me.

Speaker 1:

Oh, thank you, you're welcome.

Speaker 2:

Salem's Life. Yes, thank you guys for watching and listening and we'll see you next time.

Speaker 1:

Today we are talking about night games Super fun night games. Today we super fun night games. Today we are talking about super fun night games that you can play with your youth group in the dark. We are talking about five outdoor in the dark games that your students are gonna love in youth.