Free Youth Group Games — youth games on loving others

YOUTH GROUP GAME ON LOVING OTHERS

Bible: Romans 13:8
 
Bottom Line: When we love others, God’s love is shown through us.
 
SUPPLIES

• Paper (one per person)
• Pen (one per person)
• 4 containers (one per team) 

GAME PREP
 
Divide students into four teams of equal size.
 
Choose a leader from each team to stand at the front of his or her team.
 
Before beginning the game, have each student (not a team leader) write down one of his or her favorite things (food, activity, place, or movie).
 
Collect all the papers and place them into the corresponding team’s container.
 
HOW TO PLAY THE GAME

Say: Let’s talk about some things that you love.
 
Each person on your team has been given a piece of paper and asked to write down one favorite thing.
 
It can be a food, or movie, place, or activity.
 
Next, collect the from each student and put into their team’s container (bowl, hat, bucket, etc.)
 
For each round, without looking, I will draw one piece of paper from each of the team’s containers.
 
I will read each of the four objects, one from each team.
 
Then, I will ask each team leader, which of those four objects he/she LOVES more than the other three items.
 
If the team leader chooses an answer that came from his or her own team, then that team receives three points.
 
If one of the other three team leaders chooses the correct answer from another team, his or her team will receive one point.
 
If the team leader chooses an answer from the incorrect team, that team receives no points.
 
The team with the most points at the end of the game wins.
 
The key to winning is for students to write down things that their team leader would like, so that their team leader will choose their answers.
 
For instance, if the team leader loves Star Wars, the team member might write down “Darth Vader.”

TEACH
 
Say: Let’s admit it right now. It’s a lot easier to love “things” than it is to love people.
 
Loving other people can be hard.
 
It’s pretty easy to love our family, our friends, and people at church.
 
But what about loving people that we don’t know?
 
First of all, why would we even want to do that?
 
And second, why does it even matter?
 
Believe it or not, people had a hard time loving other people even back in the Apostle Paul’s day.
 
Let’s read what the Apostle Paul wrote about to the church in Rome:
 
Read Romans 13:8.
 
Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law.
 
Ask: How many of you have ever borrowed something from one of the people in here?
 
Did you return it or pay it back?
 
Allow a few responses from students after each question.
 
Paul says here that we are obligated, as Christians, to love one another.
 
He didn’t say we should love one another or that it would be a good idea to love one another.
 
He said we are obligated to love one another.
 
And he didn’t say to just tolerate one another.
 
Loving others is a different story.
 
In Luke chapter 10, Jesus tells a religious lawyer that he should not only love God with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind, but also that he should love his neighbor.
 
The man, being a lawyer, wanted clarification.
 
He asked Jesus directly, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied by relating the story of The Good Samaritan.
 
Samaritans were considered outcasts in Jewish society, and to associate with them, much less “love” them, would have been unheard of.
 
According to Jesus, loving other people is one of the most important things that sets Jesus’ followers apart from those that don’t know Him.
 
Think about that student you know who is always picked on and made fun of because they act differently or maybe don’t like the things that you do.
 
Just like the church in Rome that Paul was writing to, it is our obligation to love others in the same way that Jesus Christ loved us.
 
Paul also famously said, “…while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
 
What greater love is there than that?
 
When we love others, the love that God showed us in sending Jesus to Earth is shown through our lives.