Sara: Sometimes I wonder if my grown-up friends (I use that term lightly) think I'm nuts when I talk about all the crazy things we do at youth group. I tell them about hilarious games or gross games or some game we made up that involved wrapping paper and shaving cream. I think these games sound fun, but they usually shake their heads at me and say "welll, good thing that's your job and not mine."
But there are some games that we play that are just so darned fun that how can they NOT have fun playing them, like 6-Base or photo scavengur hunts? I mean c'mon, anyone with at least 1 ounce of fun in them would have a great time.
Well, the moment of truth happened over Labor Day weekend this year. I was at a giant camp-out with like 120 people. It was awesome. But, on Sunday, Kyle, my friend and fellow youth minister, invited a bunch of people to play volleyball at the sand volleyball court. We started playing but more and more people kept showing up to play...too many people for volleyball. So I looked at Kyle and he looked at me and we looked at Chelsea (another friend/youth minister) and we all said, "we need to teach them Speedball".
Let's take a step back for those of you who don't know what Speedball is. I don't actually know the genius who invented this game, but it was introduced to us by the ArchKCK seminarians on our Prayer and Action Mission Trip this summer. It involves a volleyball, a sand volleyball court and as many people as you want, divided evenly onto both sides of the court. The object of the game is to be the team with the last person standing. Basically, all you do is throw the volleyball from one side to the other and try to catch it. If you don't catch it, you are out. If it lands on the ground, the person it was closest to is out. You keep this up until one side runs out of players. Simple. Yet ridiculously fun! It's a great youth ministry game because you can involve everyone, no matter of athletic ability and no matter how big your group is.
Ok, back to our overwhelming amount of people wanting to play volleyball. Well, Kyle, Chelsea and I, being the youth ministers that we are, took charge of the situation, told everyone that we were going to teach them a new game and started playing. IT WAS AWESOME!! Everyone loved it. I think we played for like 2 hours.
I will say though, that playing with a group of 20 to 30-somethings...the game became a little more competitive and forceful than with teenagers. People were "throwing" (and by throwing I means slamming with all the force they could muster) a bit hard at the people on the front line. While a bit dangerous, it was hilarious! At one point my friend Tim said, "I think we shoud rename this game to 'Slaughterball'". Well said, Tim.
But, overall, I think Chelsea, Kyle and I were most excited that everyone loved the game and that everyone got to play. So now I have had my chance to play a silly youth group game with my friends...and guess what....they thought it was AWESOME!! Who think's my job is silly now?? Huh? Huh? Ok, I guess it still is, but now you're not rolling your eyes at me are you? Kinda wish you had my job now, don't you?
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