Youth Ministry Ideas » Youth Ministry Fun

Cookie Bake Off With Tweens?

Melissa — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:58:58 +0000

I am currently in charge of the 5th & 6th grade youth group at our church. Now this is an age group that often gets overlooked, because they are really too young to be included in the junior high group but are still too old for some of the elementary functions. So our youth group meets only once a month for a specialized event at the church, usually on Sunday afternoon when they are bored and looking for something fun to do!

One of our events was the “Cookie Bake Off”. We had selected several cookie recipes and purchased the ingredients for them prior to the event. Our goal was twofold, to have a great time baking cookies and to have cookies left over to place out after service on Sunday for the coffee hour (to teach the kids about about serving in the church). We also hoped that each youth could come away with a new recipe that they could replicate at home.

We divided the kids into teams or singles, depending on how many we had. I would suggest having one adult supervisor per two teams, since they do have a lot of questions and need a watchful eye! Their recipe they would be working on was already at their cooking station along with whatever items they needed (tools, ingredients, etc). Make sure to preheat those ovens so you are ready to go!

This entire baking session took up two hours, and yielded plenty of cookies to taste test, take home, and have 4 dozen left over for service the next day. For the older youth groups, you could include a panel of 3 judges who must vote on the cookies and hand out awards. These categories could be best cookie, most unusual cookie, melt in your mouth cookie, etc. Prizes could include the standard 1st, 2nd or 3rd place prize ribbons or something funky like spatulas or mixing spoons.

If your youth session was going to be longer than 2 hours, you could also include games that focus on food items, which I had originally planned for thinking I would have down time in between batches. To be quite honest, they loved the baking so much that we didn’t have time for anything else.
Then I had the kids create index cards to tent next to the platters of cookies for Sunday service. They had to come up with a fun name for their cookies (like Don’s Peanut Butter Delights) and then I also allowed them to take home a copy of any of the recipes that they wanted. They also had to plate the cookies and wrap them so they were ready for the table.

When working with youth, you sometimes wonder what kind of impression is made at some of these silly events we do. I was at a school event for my son and in his classroom there was a dessert table. I grabbed some samples of desserts which included some chocolate chip cookies. When my husband tasted them, he immediately recognized the recipe (they were that distinctive) and asked who made them. A youth from our church that was in my son’s class said he made them. His mom said he has really taken an interest in doing some more baking since that day! He had a great time at the event and wanted us to get him some more recipes. The connection we made with this youth in baking alongside and showing an interest in what he was doing had a lasting impression on him. Sometimes it is not always what we say, but just being there and showing God’s love that makes a difference.

Merry Christmas Youth Leaders 2011!

Steve — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:57:14 +0000

Merry Christmas Youth Leaders! I have been taking a bit of a sabbatical this month from blogging, but have some great plans for 2012 year! I will be teaming up with a variety of writers for youth ministry ideas and will be doing a monthly give-a-way starting in January.

May you and your families be blessed this Christmas season! You are loved and the work you do matters!

Thanksgiving Day Youth Ministry Ideas

Steve — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 16:08:51 +0000

Here are some thanksgiving youth ministry ideas and activities that you can begin preparing for around Thanksgiving day in your youth ministry.

Gourd Hockey – Yep just find some small sized gourds and yes hockey sticks would be best but can probably be replaced with some type of tough broom. You don’t hafta be on the ice for this and you just play like you would hockey. Make sure you enforce and reenforce safety while swinging.
Pumpkin Bowling – Empty 10 1 or 2 liter bottles. I suggest having a little water in the bottom for better sturdiness but not too much. Be careful on the size of the pumpkin on this one because pumpkins are pretty heavy and also have backup pumpkins because they definitely break on you.
Turkey Football Bash – Sounds messy doesn’t it. There is couple things you can do: dress up a football to look like a turkey or use a real (small) turkey. Have students pair up back to back and and link their arms. One person will be holding the football turkey while the other is not. Basically the game is to see who can survive the longest holding on and not fumbling their football turkey. If they unlink arms or drop their football turkey – they are out. last team left with their football turkey wins! Yes they can move around and bump into each other and the person with out the football in their hands will try to knock out other teams footballs – pretty funny to watch.
Pin The Football Between The Goal Posts – This is a very kiddish sort of game but with the right attitude I think any age will play it. Basically you are playing a football version of pin the tail on the donkey. Make the footballs, make the pinning wall or space, spin them around blind-folded and let them try to put it between the uprights.
Baking Night – Have a few adults that are into baking come up with a baking night and whoever wants to learn how to bake some of the yummy pies or cookies or other yummy stuff (maybe even a turkey!). This could be a really fun intimate time with some of your students. While waiting for the food to bake you can speak with them about thankfulness and what they are thankful for.

There are more Youth Ministry Thanksgiving Ideas Here.

Tanks

Steve — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 14:12:18 +0000

Tanks is an outside game played if you have a larger group. May be even worth it to make it a special invite friend water night or something.

How it works:

Gather the students in groups of 10. The groups are going to huddle facing each other but then select 1 person from the group to become the driver of the tank. This person is now in the middle of the team huddling. They also are responsible for shooting water balloons at the other tanks.

When a person on huddled gets hit then he or she is out and now there is a gap in the tank. Once all get hit the tank is destroyed. If however, the driver of the tank is hit, then the whole tank is destroyed immediately.

The last tank remaining wins.

Prep of course is water balloons and buckets, but the rest is students and creativity and imagination and getting them to actually participate in it, but it’s a fun activity to do during the summer.

Top Chef

joshrobinson83 — Wed, 18 May 2011 20:55:13 +0000

Here’s an idea that went really well with our teens this year. Inspired by a plethora of cooking shows on TV, we had our own Top Chef showdown. We divided our students into teams (3-5 per team, 6 teams) and had each team create a three course meal for our judges. We provided the main ingredient for each course, as well as 50-60 extra ingredients. Many of them were standard pantry items (peanut butter, ketchup, chocolate syrup, spices, cheeses, cereals etc.), while the rest were specialty items (lunch meats, berries, candy etc.) We also provided a variety of plating options. They had cups, bowls, plates, napkins, toothpicks and more to choose from. This helped them be creative with the presentation.

The first course was a cracker dish (we offered several types of crackers and received everything from a chicken cordon bleu cracker (sliced chicken lunch meat, bacon and swiss cheese) to a s’more cracker (graham cracker, lucky charm marshmallows and chocolate syrup). The second course was a hot dog topped with anything you could find (we got chili jalapeno dogs, pepperoni pizza dogs and more), and the third course was the ‘perfect’ ice cream sundae (we got all sorts of great sundaes.)

Once you’re set up, all you need is a panel of judges and a scoring system. We had three judges who decided on a score for each team. Scores were 5 points for taste, 5 points for creativity and 5 points for presentation. This meant each dish was worth 15 points. The emphasis on creativity and presentation allowed our kids to think even more outside the box. One group decided to turn their hot dogs into sail boats in an effort to score higher.

Our students had a great time making their dishes, but it was also a great setup for our lesson time. We talked about the difference between a gourmet chef (like those on Top Chef) and the rest of us. The gourmet chefs I know (I have a friend who has worked with Michael Simon) don’t run through the McDonald’s drive-thru or make Kraft Mac’n’Cheese for dinner. They’ve developed a taste for the good stuff, and they aren’t going settle for cheap imitations anymore. They like truffles, duck and other foods that most of us have never tasted. That’s what Jesus wants for our life. He wants us to develop a taste for His love, His peace, and His security so that we are no longer satisfied by the cheap imitations the world offers. You can use a variety of passages including Galatians 5:19-26 where Paul contrasts the worldly life with the life of the spirit. It’s akin to a chef forsaking McDonalds cheeseburgers because he’s acquired a taste for filet.

When we did our spring evaluations, this event was among our highest rated, and several of our students have asked to do it again next year. I hope it works as well for you as it did for us.

Josh Robinson
Student Minister
Lakeview Christian Church