Bible Smugglers

MAIN POINT: Gets kids to solidify what they’ve learned concerning the salvation message.

This game works well if all of your kids are regular attendees. If not, don’t use this game. Visitors or students new to church may feel out of place.

Bible Smugglers works best outdoors, like at a camp. However, it can also work in a large facility.

Materials: plastic spoons (they represent Bibles), one flashlight.

Have two leaders be “missionaries.” They hide somewhere with the flashlight turned on, holding it straight up. Each kid gets a “Bible” and they have to bring it to the missionaries.

The Catch: They are in a foreign country and there are border guards everywhere (these are the other youth staff). If a kid gets caught by a border guard, they have to do what the guard says. The guard can be from any country (it’s fun to have crazy accents), and their job is to get the kids to tell them the gospel message. The guards should ask questions like, “What are you doing?”, “What is a Bible?” “What is the Bible about?” “Who is this Jesus?” “What happens if I believe in Jesus?”, “What is Heaven?” etc. (You can throw in things like, “In my country, we believe in a million gods…”). The kids get sent to jail if they answer a question wrong or if they lie (such as if you ask them what they are doing and they say, “just going for a midnight stroll”). If they explain the message well, then they can go on to find the missionaries. Once they find the missionaries, they can come back to the start (which is where the jail is located) and get more Bibles to deliver to the missionaries. When in jail, the kids have to convince the guard to let them out of jail by the same methods as getting caught by a border guard.

Added by Candice Thiessen