Bible study is the perfect time to open the word of God and create memories with family and friends. When you have a care group you also have a family, and families that play together grow together. Games are not just great ice breakers, but they’re also great for identifying hidden talents in others, breaking in the newbies to how “awesome” your group is, or just learning how to be more comfortable around each other. Here are five games that can help make any Bible study more fun.
1. Heads Up
For any one with a smart phone Heads Up is a game you can download on your phone that works exactly like charades except that you work in teams and one player has to guess the words by watching his teammates act out the word in front of them. The game comes with a lot of categories some free and some which you can buy for $0.99. You have to keep an eye on the clock with this one because next thing you know you’ll be rushing your lesson with 5 minutes left for you to run the study. You can downlod the app here.
2. Camera Hot Potato
Play hot potato with a camera. This camera game is a huge hit at parties. You set the camera’s self-timer, and pass it around the room (or table).Whoever has the camera must do a quick ‘selfie’ pose while holding the camera before passing it on to the next person. The result: lots of exciting and candid photos from one fun night. Great for Facebook Albums.
3. Honey I Love You
Honey I Love You, is another icebreaker that’s fun to play. Your group should be sitting in a circle again with one person in the middle. The person in the middle can go to anyone in the circle and say “Honey I love you, won’t you give me a smile?” The person who was asked the question has to answer back “Honey I love you, but I just can’t smile” (without smiling.) The person in the middle can do anything to the other person to make them smile except touch them. You have to be the judge as to what you call smiling.
4. Wink’Um
Have your group sit in a circle. With a deck of cards, have each player take a card until everyone has one. If there are seven players, take seven cards from the deck then pass those around. Make sure one of the cards is an ace of spades. The person who receives that secretly winks at the other players. If you are winked at, you say, “I’m dead” and throw your card in the middle. The object is to guess who has the ace of spades. If you think you know, state that you want to guess. If you’re wrong, you forfeit and die – if you are right, you win.
5. Fizz Bang!
This is one of my favorite games from primary school. Fizz Bang! is a counting game, in which players start at one and aim for 100. Instead of 3, or multiples of 3, say ‘fizz’; for 5 or multiples thereof, say ‘bang’. For multiples of 3 and 5, it’s ‘fizz bang’. So: I, 2, fizz, 4, bang, fizz, 7, 8, fizz, bang, 10, 11, fizz, 13, 14, fizz bang, etc. Make sure you split the teams evenly and play a few rounds before determining whether 100 is an achievable goal.
W ll there you have it; 5 games to make any Bible study more fun. Try not to play them all at once but do rather at your own pace. Have fun and God Bless!
Is Religion a Crutch? Is Jesus a figment of our co-dependency? Where does this criticism come from, and how can we know whether God is real?
Download the Discussion Questions here.
In the story of the blind man of Bethsaida in Mark 8:22-26, it took Jesus two times to heal him. Why? What can we take away from this man’s story?
Download the Discussion Questions here.
Have you ever heard the phrase “Jesus is the Light of the World”? What does it mean? And what does it have to do with the woman caught in adultery in John 8?
Download the Discussion Questions here.
The sixth in a six part series by Roy Kim on the Problem of Evil
The fifth in a six part series by Paster Anthony MacPherson on the Problem of Evil
The fourth in a six part series by Paster Anthony MacPherson on the Problem of Evil.
I have always loved Les Misérables – after all, I did study French literature. But I first read it in English long before I could sing “Alouette.” It was one of my mom’s favourite books so I read it partly out of curiosity, partly out of an ambitious desire to conquer the tome (the unabridged version is 1488 pages long – 202 pages longer than the complete Gutenberg Bible), and partly to understand the meaning of the title.
Les Misérables – a literal translation would be, “The Miserable Ones,” or the “The Wretched Ones.” Who is Victor Hugo referring to? Who are the miserable ones?
The most obvious answer is – the poor. The masses in France that were driven to hunger and poverty during that time lived in a truly wretched reality that unfortunately still plays out in many parts of the world.
But are the rich exempt from misery? No – heartless, they may be, but happy they are not.
How did Hugo define happiness? “The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves–say rather, loved in spite of ourselves (p. 167).”
Misery, then, is living without that conviction that we are loved just as we are. It’s the state of constant insecurity, of wanting approval and affirmation from others around us, even those we don’t particularly like or even know. A mistake, a disappointment, a heartache can make our worlds come crashing down.
The poor and the disenfranchised know what misery feels like. But so does anyone who has felt truly rejected, betrayed or abandoned. Or anyone in soul turmoil wondering who we truly are, what we’re all about (like Javert).
It is to us wretched individuals that God says,
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:9-13, NIV).
“Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name” (John 16:20-23, NIV).
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33, NIV).
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair” (Isaiah 61:1-3)
To all of us Les Misérables, Jesus offers the supreme happiness of being loved in spite of ourselves, a love tried and true, a love that overcomes the world and turns our mourning into dancing.
Did you miss Sam & James’ baptism? Watch their testimonies & Baptism.