My hope with Jacob’s Well is to provide a variety of useful resources, ranging from input for your personal and spiritual formation, as well as practical ideas and suggestions for your ministry. This week, let’s return to some hands-on resources to animate your day: games! Apart from the intrinsic value of games as purveyors of fun and joy, games have always served a purpose in ministry to build and foster community. During this time, when the physicality of our usual frivolous endeavours is temporarily absent, there are plenty of variations being developed for the online spheres that can benefit the current delivery of our ministry.
In one of the earlier Jacob’s Well editions, the podcast, Youth Ministry Answers, was provided as a resource. I am increasingly impressed by the content that they are producing in this podcast, and their accompanying website. It is a bit of a gold mind for Christian youth ministry. Granted, it does have a focus on engaging teenagers in a North American setting, and they push their “Grow” Ministry Framework and Curriculum heavily. However, the ideas and discussions are on-point with current youth ministry programs and engagement. I was listening to a recent episode called, “10 Tips on How To Build A Weekly Strategy For Online Youth Ministry,” (which is worth a listen in these current times, although we are already doing some of these, and very well!). They spoke of examples of icebreaker and engagement fun for an online setting and that might be excellent resources for you. Some you will recognise, and others may serve as inspiration for a variation.
Check out some of their suggestions here: https://stuffyoucanuse.org/games/
Another great free website for games, with new resources for interaction, is Youth Group Games. This is a popular free site for group games, but its design content and quality remain high. Again, you will recognise several games that you would have used and/or played, but they do have good context-specific games for online and isolation environments.
Check them out at: https://youthgroupgames.com.au/
Finally, this next website is one of many subscription-based programs but offers some free games that might be useful. They are mostly for in-person use, but with our team, your creativity knows no bounds!
Check it out: https://www.playmeo.com/activities/?subscription=free