Jesus Without Language

 

For this series Jude (Judas) Thaddaeus is given the gift of revelation, he sees the bigger meaning in part of Jesus’ teaching. Considering the apostles seem to stumble in and out of comprehension his question and it’s subsequent answer reveal a moment of increased clarity. Playing on the theme of revelation these games are suitable for a wide variety of groups.
 

Tangle – Grab yourself a big ball of string and arrange the kids in a circle. Throw that ball about letting it unravel as it goes until everybody is holding a bit… now time to untangle! Don’t let go of the string in your hands, just twist, turn, step over and under the string until you end up with a big circle. Link to how confusing and tangled some parts of faith can seem at first.
 

Replace the missing piece – Print some photo images. Remove one or more small sections from each image and stick it onto a piece of card. Write a letter on the cards with sections and number each large image. The object of the game is to match the letters and numbers. if you want to give your children a reason to move stick these around the room and make it a timed activity, this will encourage movement. Guess the missing piece – Before or as an alternative to the above, hand out the small pieces and see if the children can identify the picture. This can also be done with a single piece of any jigsaw puzzle.

 

Blind mans buff – This traditional game links well to revelation as a theme. Basically a game of tag with the child who is ‘it’ being blindfolded.
 

See or touch – this activity uses an open box with an arm hole cut into the base. The volunteer has to relay what is in the box to the rest of the room, they can either look in the open side and mime or feel through the hole and describe. An easy object would be a teddy (cuddly and fury, or miming something you hug at bedtime) a harder object would be an ornamental animal. Tailor it to your groups age range.

 

Memory tray – This is a traditional game involving an assortment of random objects arranged on a tray. Have the kids memorise as many objects as they can in 30 seconds, cover the tray and then get them to write down what was there. The winner is the one who remembers the most objects – that were actually there!