CLM Hen House

Annette · Joined: 09 Jun 2025 Posts: 14 Location: North Carolina

Hi ladies. You all have such wonderful ideas, I know you will be able to help me. My husband and I are on youth council at our church. We are a very small church with a small youth budget. We try to have one mission project and one fun activity each month. Lately we have been really slack. We are just out of ideas. Do any of you have suggestions for activities or events that will work for small groups?

God Bless,
Annette

Doreen · Joined: 30 Mar 2026 Posts: 96 Location: maryland

There are plenty of low budjet things to do with youth. Specially in missions. This summer you could have them help out some of the people in your church. Like husbands that are deployed or just away on buisness you could have them help with yard work. Help out the older people in your church .single moms etc. Also a great one is a game night. Pizza party. Hope this helps some
God bless
Doreen

RockyMountainGirl · Joined: 28 May 2025 Posts: 23 Location: Idaho

We too worked for many years with a very small youth budget but we always managed to have a blast with little or no funds. Here are a few ideas that the kids have loved and have worked out great for us.

Sing for Your Supper - Make copies of the church directory with directions to each house if needed. Depending on number of kids, divide kids in groups of four to five kids, sending each group with an adult to designated church members houses. At each house let kids explain that they are singing for their supper and let kids sing a couple of songs and say a Bible verse. When they are done ask the householder if they have anything they could donate for a salad bar or dessert. The adults love to see the youth out and feel apart of this activity and kids have fun going house to house and when everyone meets back at the church they have a great time with the food donated and have a wonderful supper.
Photo Hunt - Again divide kids into groups with an adult driving, making sure each group have a camera and plenty of tracts for your church. Give kids a list of 20 to 30 people around town such as gas station cashier, fast food worker, airplane pilot, firefighter, mortician and so on with each person assigned a point value(Gas station attendant - 1(because of easiness), mortician - 3). Give groups a set time to be back at the church(an hour to two hours). Each group goes to these places of employment to find these people and get their groups pictures taken with as many people on the list as possible. Don't forget to give everyone you meet a tract, this gives your church some great exposure! Meet back at the church at the apponited time and award the team with the most points a prize. Polaroids are the best cameras, but you can also do one hour photo or simple have the pictures develpoed for the next meeting. The pictures are great to make a bulletin board for the youth!

We've always liked to feed the kids each time we do something and have had the church members volunteer to feed the kids when we do something at the church. Again this involves the church members and helps cut down on cost to the youth group.

Bethany · Joined: 12 Mar 2026 Posts: 110

My husband was a youth pastor for a number of years and has a lot of ideas. Some of our favorite things to do with the teens is ministry events, such as free car washes (totally free, no donations; you just pass out gospel tracts), roadside evangelism (set up table of coffee, punch and cookies at a nearby rest area; again totally free, hand out tracts. You do need permission to do this); Battery Blitz (generally done during fire prevention month, go door to door handing out batteries for people's smoke detectors, give them a tract and invitation to church);reverse trick or treating (you give THEM a bag of candy with a gospel tract. People are amazed!)
For fun events, you can do a JalopyRaid, where the kids go to all their friends' houses and invite them back to the church. There you can watch an approved video or play a game of Capture the Flag, etc. and have pizza or nachos for everyone. You also give a Gospel presentation.
Scavenger hunts are a lot of fun, and there's many different ways you can do them. Bowling and rollerskating are always fun and inexpensive, and sometimes the local places will have a night where they'll play Christian music. We've done all-nighters at the church, where you start about 10 at night and go to 6 in the morning. You have games, sports, a midnight rally with music and preaching, of course food, skits, etc. You can use a theme and make it a lot of fun. For instance, once we did a mystery theater, once did "Run for the Border" where it was all a Mexican theme.
You can also ask people to sign up to once a month host a teen activity. They would be responsible for something fun and food to eat. That would give you a break occasionally and let others get involved in this ministry without a lot of pressure.
There's tons more ideas out there, so if you need more just ask! Mr. Green

Annette · Joined: 09 Jun 2025 Posts: 14 Location: North Carolina

Thanks Ladies. You have given me some great ideas. Some of them we have done, but you gave them a new twist. I will pass these along to everyone else on youth council. Please keep the ideas coming.

god_bless

Annette

Jesslynn · Joined: 12 Jun 2025 Posts: 20

I had a long reply posted and I lost it.

We have planned stuff for our tween group to do. We tried to plan them on Tuesdays so we have dubbed our activities "Tween Tuesdays"

Yesterday we went indoor rock climbing. Next week we are meeting a chef. We are also having a lock in and meeting some members of the church. I don't recall what else we are doing right now.

Jesslynn · Joined: 12 Jun 2025 Posts: 20

We a a good turn out for our indoor rock climbing activity with our "Tween" group. This group is fairly small but with parents and kids we had 20 people in attendence.

CreativeLady · Site Admin Joined: 04 Mar 2026 Posts: 103

Hi Jesslynn

CApastorswife · Joined: 15 Apr 2026 Posts: 30 Location: Southern California

Ministry ideas: Visiting nursing homes or retirement centers is always free and easy, and they love to hear the kids sing, visit, play instruments, etc. We even went caroling at a couple of hospitals during Christmas one year (with permission)...you could also do a Christmas in July and carol this summer!! Soup kitchens and shelters like that are great to take kids to as well, and you could even get the teens involved in collecting old clothes from church members to donate to the center. I remember a Christian homeless shelter let us be a part of one of their services, with music, someone preaching, singing, etc.

Fun ideas: Super easy, but have you heard of a bigger and better night? You start out with at least two teams and give them all, say, a toothpick or an egg. Then they have to go around (in cars or on foot, however you want) and knock on doors to get something bigger or better than what they have, and they trade their item for the bigger/better item. At the end of the time allotted, which ever team returns with the biggest or best item wins! One time we had a team bring back a refrigerator (broken), and another had a car with no wheels. It's fun, and you can limit it to church people's houses if needed.

Progressive dinners are fun with teens too, where you plan to go to different houses for appetizer, salad, main meal, dessert, etc., and people may be more likely to volunteer if they only have part of a meal to provide.

We used to have Youth Olympics, where we went around to different stations with arm wrestling, darts, penny toss, whatever was found in the supply room, and competed against each other. It doesn't have to be complicated, just CREATIVE.

We are having a "Midsummer Night's BBQ" next week, and cooking hot dogs and hamburgers at church with some crazy games. Our teens recently got permission from the local high school to have a gym night, and there was a great response of visitors. We have several game nights at Pastor's house each year, and the teens look forward to those (if you have a willing pastor). They think it's so neat to be in our homes!

One more fun one we did this year was called Fugitive Night. We took them to the mall and had about eight "undercover" adults, some dressed up, some dressed down, some looking really shabby, etc. We have a Christian college nearby so we asked for volunteers, or you could use people from your church and disguise them. We gave the teams pictures of these people in their normal clothes, and they had to find them in the mall and get their signatures. The team who found the most signatures won.

I'll let you know if I think of anything else - I guarantee that the teens just enjoy getting together though! Even just having board games like Cranium, Guesstures, etc., is a blast when they're all together. You're doing a great thing!

Liz

Jesslynn · Joined: 12 Jun 2025 Posts: 20

Julia---Thanks. Maybe I will get the time to retype everything I had in that long post.

Annette · Joined: 09 Jun 2025 Posts: 14 Location: North Carolina

Sorry for the delay in posting a reply. Our Bible School starts next Sunday and I am directing. There are soooo many last minute things to do. Please pray for me, our church and all the kids who will attend. I really appreciate all of the ideas. There are so many that we have not thought of. I know that youth council will have a hard time choosing what to do first!! I know you are right Liz. They do enjoy just getting together. Every third Sunday night after the evening service, we have Afterglow. The kids get together and have a devotion and refreshments. We ask people in the church to serve as host. If no one volunteers, we have it at the church. Since we have them all together, we try to plan activities. They do enjoy each others company, but I guess as adults, we feel like we need to entertain them. Please keep the ideas coming. I know the youth will enjoy your suggestions and the more we have, the better.

Annette

KellyR · Joined: 15 May 2025 Posts: 10

Missions-

-Most churches have missionaries they support. Have them pick one or several and write to them asking for their prayer and physical need requests. Then set up a box in the church to send them a care package. Kids can also draw pictures, send a recent newspaper, magazines, pictures of the youth group, etc.
-Sept/Oct. Collect for Samaritans Purse Shoebox ministry....... I oragnize this through the school and the classroom that brings in the most shoeboxes get an icecream party. I do it at the church too.
-Talk to the Pastors and ask them who has a need. There might be some ideas there.
-Have them collect all their gently used toys prior to Christmas and find a charity to give to. Many times in a moms group we would have toy, book and/or clothing exchanges. Many moms took great toys and wrapped to put under their tree if they were on limited budgets.
-minister at a parade or local event with outreach and facepainting or some other type of draw.
-Plan a project for one month for home missions....something they can clean,paint etc at the church. Then plan something for a missionary next month. Then the community. Something for a neighor.....etc. Each month could have a small mission them. How about a random act of kindness month where the kids are inventive themselves but you help them plan the specifics. Have them each report back on how their project went at your next meeting!

Fun-
Baseball Trivia- Two teams, they "go up to bat" and get a Bible trivia question. If they get it right they advance to first base. Next "batter" goes up and can advance runners to score points. They can stand or you can use chairs for bases. You can always make other rules. Have some really hard questions for "homeruns" or medium for two bases. Once they get three questions wrong they are out. You can also decide if they face the question by themsleves or the team can help. Very fun twist.

-Use a huge flat bedsheet to make a giant sized trivia board. Use the regular kids bible trivia questions from the game but use large fuzzy dice to throw and stuffed animals as playing pieces.

-Find gifted people to come speak or teach within church. Everybody can usually do something. One summer we did this for Wed. night kids stuff. My husband came and did some martial arts, one cooked, one was talented at a craft, etc. Always take advantage of skills within the church.

-We have always played games like Win. lose or Draw and use a big board so the whole big group can play/see.

-Road rally. I've even seen some posted on web that are already done.

-Photo scavenger Hunt....list of items or things they have to do and digital camera( or one of thse old kind that spit the picture out right away) List can have crazy things on it like a Pastor giving high five, a church leader doing a cartwheel, group picture on the slide, .........

-Play volleyball with a beachball it is less threatening and easy. Also with beach balls......Split into teams....the team who can keep ball in the air counting through the ABC's the fastest wins. No person can hit twice in a row, ball can't touch ground or they start over at A, and everytime it is hit is a letter you advance to.

I know a ton of games that are not necessarily Christian but fun and clean. I worked in recreation for 8 years at a childrens hospital. I don't know where to start if you wanted some of them. For me the easiest was always to find a theme and go from there. Pick things that are interesting for today kids.....American Idol, Survivor, type of Fear Factor....I've seen all of these themes used in Christian settings with a moral fun twist to them. I also would take regular games and adapt.......human checkers using leap frog and colored shirts or pinnies to divide teams......Family Feud with bells to hit.......

Good thing to keep in mind .....don't ever let kids pick teams through a team Capt.. That always show some favoritism and someone is always last which is heartbreaking. Mix games/activites up, creative, social, games that get them to open up/disclose, physical games, etc. Don't have more than one of each kind. It's good to have a little of each or pick a diiferent kind each time. Gives it more balance.

Kelly

Jesslynn · Joined: 12 Jun 2025 Posts: 20

Ok ladies. I was so impressed with my first outing of the Tween group I have been put in charge of. We had 20 parents and kids show up for an indoor rock climbing adventure. Today was a different story... we had 4 kids show up for lunch with a chef. He was going to teach the children about presentation of food and we were going to talk about table manners. We had to cancel because the chef was doing this on his day off and we didn't want him to come in just for 4 kids. So we took the 4 kids to the movies to see "Cars"

siscosmom · Joined: 21 Mar 2026 Posts: 206 Location: West Virginia

Rock climbing is a great youth activity! It's something most kids don't do on a regular basis and they will clear their schedules for it. As for the chef thing, that was a good idea too. Don't get discouraged, people are funny. Sometimes the weather, time of day, vacations, or what's on TV affects church attendence. Even more so with youth activities. I wouldn't take it personal. Sounds like you're doing a good job.

Rebekah

Jesslynn · Joined: 12 Jun 2025 Posts: 20

Thanks for the encouragement. I am hoping things get better. I just don't know what to do in order to get the kids motivated.