8 Youth Group Games That Run Entirely on Students’ Phones

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry

So for those of you that don't know, I have been using sidekick for many years, but more recently as Sidekick Pro came out, we were beta testing it in our youth ministry context, as it was still very much in development. And as a result of that, my friend Josh gave me this gigantic shout out at the D 100 conference and even bought me this exclusive Sidekick Pro hoodie for all of our work. And it was really, really awesome and really, really great of them. But

right now, sidekick is running a referral contest, and I've already put in five episodes worth on Sidekick Pro. And if you want to check that out, it's linked right up here at the top of the screen. But right now, dim is running a contest for a number of referrals of people that jump in and check out and use Sidekick Pro. It really, it costs you nothing. But if you click my link down below and then put in your referral code hybrid min, that will give me an entry potentially into this, Hawaii trip drawing. And like I said in the beginning, my family and I, we before my oldest graduates are trying to hit all 50 states. In Hawaii is

obviously one of the ones that we are like, we don't have any idea how we're going to get there. If you're in ministry, you know that people in ministry don't exactly get paid the best. And so figuring out how we're going to make that happen, you know, not really sure, but this would be a gigantic favor if if you don't mind, I've put it over 200 episodes out for free. And it would mean the world to me and my family.

So if you haven't already checked it out. You know, check out Sidekick Pro Pop in my code and give me a chance to maybe check out Hawaii. But without any further ado, let's talk through some of the upgrades to Sidekick Pro. So I recently hopped on a live stream with Josh Bollman. And we went through all of these themes and so intermittently, I'm just going to stitch over to that.

Josh Boldman 02:44

And so check out what he has to show about the new themes. But if I show you like this is what the standard trivia look like, right. Is you see that like there on your screen is like, oh, okay. Yeah, that's pretty But what we're going to do is we're going to actually edit this and we're going to see now there's this whole tab in a bunch of different features, have this now in the edit view called design. And so it's going to like what is the design that you want to use.

And so since this is Halloween I'm going to choose from this list of ten. I'm going to choose Halloween. And you see like it immediately looks infinitely does. But here's what I love about it is it's not just like a coat of paint, like it's a bunch of animations. So like, if somebody picks a wrong one, like it's, it's it's subtle, but you can see like it's it's pretty good. What I like is you get it right and then like, everything moves. And it's got a fun fact. It was crazy to me is you don't even just have to, like, pick this ahead of time. You can change this at any point while just while you're playing, you could like, do a different question that relates to each theme.

Like as you go, right? Like a not Halloween harvest. Right. And then a Christmas question and you could be like the nightmare before Halloween. Yeah, actually really like the Christmas one. It's all like like ugly sweater type type thing. Christmas has the best decorations, bro. Yeah, it's it's pretty good. So these themes, it's not just in trivia. So like this is a wheel that is all of the members of the d m team.

In that same, same vein, I can go through and I can change these to any of the retro. That's awesome. Retro gaming is pretty legit. Christmas or retro gaming? Goldman. Pick one. You have to pick one. I'm gonna go retro gaming. And so, like, even as you're spinning, you'll notice like, even like the little bit. Oh, hey, look at that. You know, and so it just it just looks really good. So, I mean, it's stuff that if you're, if you're already familiar with using it. It just it just makes it look that much better, a little bit more engaging, a little bit more especially. Or like, if you're doing multiple wheels and you just don't want it to always look the same every single week, it just gives you a little bit more variety.

And we'll keep we'll keep pumping out new, new themes.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry 05:00

In addition to that team picker, which I actually already showed you, this one I wasn't supposed to because I had access to it, but it wasn't released yet to the public. They held it. They released it at dime 100. So I was given forgiveness from Josh for doing it. But this is an awesome feature. Check this one out.

Josh Boldman 05:19

All right, so this is the last major feature that we released is called the Live Team Picker. So I'm going to do is actually, I'm gonna edit this, because we've got three people on right now. So. So I'll show you what this looks like just for the three of us is it's going to automatically. Yeah. Put us each on a different team. Right. So that puts you on the green screen. But where this gets really cool is okay, so say one. I'm gonna change it to pop quiz. Right. Let's go. And and for here for all of the themes. As long as it's less than I believe it's 40 people. It will list all of the team names on the screen.

Now, but I'm going to just do two teams because I am curious to see if it puts me and Nick on the same team or. Dawson. Oh, okay. Okay. So yeah. So it's me versus Nick and Dawson. Texas versus Illinois. Yeah, exactly.

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry 06:18

right. Now there's some really, really cool new ones. And these really are the three like Game changers. The first one Wall of Trivia. I'm going to be using it at my later lunch this coming Sunday. It's amazing. It was generated by AI. It's custom, like we make a joke that our leader podcast is sponsored by Spindrift, so we're doing a whole category on sparkling water. Like, it's just it's a really cool way. If you've ever wanted to use a game show style kind of board like this, like sidekick now makes it possible. And the controls and the functionality are insane. Like, you have to check this one out. The next one is Extreme Bingo, which is a favorite, and it's been a cult classic of dim.

But now the bingo board, if you want to use it inside sidekick, along with the punishments are all woven into one. So you know, if you don't know how to play Extreme bingo, the punishments essentially are after your number is called every five or so turns. If your number was the one that was called, you have to go, and do that punishment before you're able to continue on in the game. The game keeps being called, but now the, the game board, can be played inside sidekick. The punishments all in the same feature. And you can do phone cards. So if you want your students to play on their phones. They can actually do the extreme bingo, like, cards inside their phone. And like, some of the punishments, like you have to change your card or whatever, it'll actually do that inside the phone.

It's phenomenal. And then this last one, I'm just going to be like, so honest and lose all my credibility and humility here. I want to take credit for this idea. I saw this real if you're watching here on screen. And the my favorite team shout out to the OKC Thunder recording this after the big win against the Denver Nuggets. Two and a start season. We're doing a media day challenge. And I was like I texted my friend Josh was like, dude, we got to put this in sidekick. And by we I mean him. And so stop the timer. We actually played it last Wednesday night in our youth ministry. By the way, I have an entire Patreon every single week on Monday, I drop an episode where I talk about what I did in my programing, so I'm going to be talking about it in episode.

I'm about to record. Whether you are listening to this live, this is released probably 5 or 6 weeks ago, but we just did it and just played it. It was a super fun game, super fun way. And on the live stream, Josh actually had this idea. Check it out.

Josh Boldman 08:42

But honestly like as a walk in, just like, hey, try it just as soon as you come in. Or like, if you did this at your check in stations, like, and everybody gets one shot. And just by the end of the night, you know, by the, by the time the service starts, you just see who was in the lead. And maybe that kid gets to be the one that plays the the big upfront game or something like that. Yeah, but that's great. I'm gonna

Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry 09:07

steal. That But anyway, the live would you rather is a new feature. Relatively new. And I had one of my associates getting ready to teach. He was doing would you rather questions and I was like, hey, do you want me to do like live sidekick? And so once again, you can integrate themes with it and you can kind of do like the tug of war back and forth in the room. This new feature wasn't included in the playlist that I did most recently, as well as Live Read the Room. I actually I did a talk on anxiety with some of my seniors. And the thing that we have called for seniors only and I asked them, like, how would you rate your current level of anxiety? And you were able to do a library in the room.

I love this feature. It's a really easy way to just kind of get a pulse on how people are feeling or how they're responding to something or like, hey, does this make sense? And you can do live read the room and you can kind of custom do the and and then again, as a reminder, this one, this is not a new feature, this one we've been talking about. But the live responses like QR code in the corner during your message live moderator access the amount of like deep like personal difficult conversations that we've been able to have by accepting anonymous live responses and live questions has been a game changer. And then the one that most people from sidekick Beta have missed the most is now available.

Streaming video. You can paste the link from YouTube, Vimeo, Dropbox, or even now, TikTok, and you are off to the races and you can just stream it directly off of the internet. So listen, here's the thing. Our family, we're trying to touch grass in all 50 states across the line. Take a picture in front of the state signs, and Hawaii is the one that, like, it feels like we're never going to get to.

And right now, with this referral program, we might have an opportunity to go check it out. So again, it costs you nothing. But I would greatly encourage and appreciate and be so, so, so thankful. If you would take a look at the link down below, pop in the code Hybrid Men as you are poking around Sidekick Pro. And here's the truth. It's a win win for both of us. I might get a chance to go check out Hawaii, and you, my friends, might actually get a chance to use the best youth ministry presentation software that is on the market. And again, is another way to lean into the phone conundrum that exists and that lives inside of all of us in youth ministry.

So once again, thank you guys. Appreciate you being here. And until next time. And as always don't ever forget. Stay hybrid.