Set your youth group some fun challenges. Who can eat the most jelly with chopsticks in one minute? Who can eat the most doughnuts in three minutes? Who can text message the fastest? Who can hold the most live rattlesnakes in their mouth? Er, perhaps not the last one, but all are genuine Guinness world records.
For this youth evening you will need a copy of Guinness World Records 2008. This global publication is available in 100 different countries and 24 languages. Guinness World Records contains listings of the largest, heaviest, smallest, longest and fastest things on the planet, and a collection of epic human endevours and fantastic feats! It also contains a mind-boggling selection of unusual sports and bizarre human records. November 8th 2007 is Guinness World Record Day where many more records will be smashed around the world.
This is a great theme night to advertise widely and encourage your youth group to bring their friends. The aim is to have fun trying to break some simple but unusual feats of human achievement listed in Guinness World Records 2008. The challenges can work on two levels;
- Young people 'competing' against each other to see who will hold the youth group record.
- Trying to see how close they can come to the actual Guinness world record.
Do not make the world record times and scores available until the end of the evening. Remember to emphasize the fun and not the competition. Stress all of the challenges are genuine Guinness world records.
Below are 10 challenges, which are easy to set up and should be fun to watch and participate in. Look up the record details in your copy of Guinness World Records 2008. Some of the challenges can be run simultaneously. All of the challenges need to be supervised by a referee to keep score and make sure that no one hurts themselves. Have a camera or video to record the efforts for posterity!
- Fastest time to eat three dry cream crackers.
- Most doughnuts eaten in three minutes.
- Most grapes caught in the mouth in one minute.
- Most jelly eaten with chopsticks in one minute.
- Most leapfrog jumps in one minute.
- Most skips in a minute.
- Most shoes laces tied in a minute.
- Most pogo stick jumps in a minute.
- Fastest time to cover 50 meters as a human wheelbarrow.
- Fastest text message.
Other records you could might like to consider include; most underpants pulled on in a minute; most snails on the face; farthest peanut throw; most people tossing pancakes and the fastest 31 legged race over 50 meters!
REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION
Read out some athletic records including running records. Ask the group to consider all of the practice, training, and sacrifice these athletes have willingly gone through to achieve their goal of claiming a record or winning an Olympic medal.
The Olympic Games took place in Greece every four years without interruption from 776 BC until AD 393. That's 1,169 years. Everyone knew about the games and running in a race is also a picture used in the New Testament to help us think about how we are to live as Christians.
Close by either showing an interview with a Christian athlete or sportsman / sportswoman.
OR
Read 1 Corinthians 9: 24-27 and Hebrews 12:2–3. Make the point that God has not saved us to sit in the stands. God has not saved us to jog beside the track. God has saved us to run. Running the race reveals who Christ is for us, and who we are in him, and how precious the prize of eternal life is to us. Develop these thoughts in ways appropriate for your group and/or consider the following questions;
1 What do you think Paul means when he talks about 'running in the race'?
2 Athletes run with purpose and discipline. What disciplines do we need to practice to win the race?
3 Do you think God has a plan for each of our lives? If so, how do we discover it?
Our students participated in a record breaking event last year. We broke the record for the most people to fit in a porta-potty. Check it out at http://ipastor.blogspot.com/search?q=Record+Breaking+RIOT.
Posted by: Brian Eberly | 16/11/2007 at 18:27