Hybrid Ministry - Episodes Tagged with “Church Game Ideas”

Episode 205: I Tested These 5 Board Games With My Youth Group (Here’s What Happened)

Nick Clason — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0500

What are the best card & board games for Youth Ministry in 2026?
I've played all of these games with students, and here's what happened!
PLUS! One lucky winner will have an opportunity to win one of these games.

Details inside the episode!

🎲 GAME GUIDE, LINKS & TUTORIALS
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https://www.hybridministry.xyz/205

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 I tried all these games with my students
00:22 Game #1
00:45 Game #2
01:18 What about Social Media?
02:36 Game #3
03:15 Game #4
03:27 Game #5

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TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:11 - 00:00:16:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I'm going to share my five favorite games that I've played in youth ministry with my students, and make sure you stick around to the end, because I am going to be giving away one of these games to one of my listeners. So make sure that you stick around so you figure out how to do that. Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry show.

00:00:16:28 - 00:00:37:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And in this episode, my first game on the list, of course, Exploding Kittens. It's a classic. If you don't know how to play or you want to grab it, there is a link down below in the description. Or you can head over to my complete guide on my Patreon and join for free and and take a look at this along with the embedded How to Play video.

00:00:37:15 - 00:00:58:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But it's just a fun, kind of chaotic, very youth ministry centric kind of game. Exploding kittens can't really beat it. And then of course, next we have spoons. And so spoons, if you don't know it, it's basically like musical chairs or like reverse, reverse musical chairs where someone gets eliminated every single time. There's one less spoon for people playing.

00:00:58:00 - 00:01:19:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you have to be the first one to notice. Grab the spoon once again. Link down below. Grab this game, play it with your youth ministry. It's so replayable. Like you don't have to, like, have any real strategy, or you don't have to have a lot of, like, know how like, this one is like, just, play it as many times as you want, and this link here will take care of that for you.

00:01:19:22 - 00:01:38:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Hey, don't go anywhere. These games, as you know, are obviously great games to play when you're just vibin hanging out with students. But you probably can at least feel this. Maybe you don't know this empirically, but 95% of students 13 to 17 spent time on social media, and 1 in 3 of them actually say that they couldn't live without it.

00:01:38:12 - 00:01:59:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so my question is, how are you showing up for it? As Brady Scheer says, you should as a church plan to show up, publicly as well as connect with students personally. And I want to let you know that I have a seasonal social media pack built just for youth pastors to do just that, for you to show up, as well as give you the personalization side of it.

00:01:59:25 - 00:02:23:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
One of the problems with most social media packs is that if it can be done for you, it can be done for many. And so there's no real customization, there's no real edge to what makes your youth ministry unique and uniquely yours. And so my pack will not only help you with some of the showing up, but it will also give you the opportunity to become a little bit custom, and I'll coach you through how to do that.

00:02:23:21 - 00:02:41:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It promotes customized reels and shorts and for you, your voice, your face, your church, you as a pastor, I'll coach you do it as well as how to get it scheduled. So go ahead and take a look down below. Now let's get back to the episode. So next we got like a bit of a two for 30 burrito and throw throw avocado.

00:02:41:12 - 00:03:04:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
These are actually made by the, the team that made Exploding Kittens. But this game, there's not a more youth ministry game than either one of these. Like, you're literally throwing these stuffed avocados or these stuffed burritos at people. And it's a great chaos game. It's a great, like, play it again. Play it for fun. It's a super fun, like, middle school game.

00:03:04:12 - 00:03:26:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I actually have a ton of fun playing this game with my own children. Thurso. Brita, throw their avocado. They love it. And it's a great opportunity for us to just connect and do something fun together that's a little bit more wild. The fourth game on this list, of course, it's Uno. It's a classic. You don't need me to explain to you, but if you do, head on over to my Patreon where I'll link the how to Play Uno game, as well as the link to go ahead and grab this.

00:03:26:10 - 00:03:52:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then finally this game. I will be honest, I have not played it with students. It's couch. It's got some like think Harry Potter, vibes where it's like people are against wizardry. This is about psychics and ghosts. And so depending on how you and your church feel about that, but essentially it's it's clue matched with like a guessing game aimed at like, someone who's silent or the ghost, and they have to give clues to the psychics.

00:03:52:27 - 00:04:10:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The setup is a little bit more involved and it's a little bit longer. So you're going to need like a little bit more time, I think like 45 minutes or so. But this is a great like 2 to 7 player game. We just play it the other night with my family. I first heard about it on a youth ministry retreat, with my friend, Tyler and Jacob.

00:04:10:26 - 00:04:33:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Actually linked right here is an episode where they debated, and I moderated it. But Tyler introduced me to this game called Mysterium again over on my Patreon. Check it out. And here's the thing. Like I said at the beginning, you if you're interested in getting one of these, five. Actually six, because I combined 30 to 30 a avocado if you want one of these six games, head on over to that Patreon.

00:04:33:04 - 00:04:55:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's the the guide, for the games. Head on over there and comment which of these six you would be most interested in. And next week on my YouTube video channel and podcast, I am going to use Sidekick Random Name Generator and pick one of you within this next seven days of dropping one of you to be the winner of one of these games.

00:04:55:01 - 00:05:09:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So that's how you get the opportunity to do that. I will send it directly to the address that you want. You can you can take it for your house. If you don't think your church is going to go for it, maybe. Or you can give me your church address and I can send it directly to your church so that you can pray for your student ministry.

00:05:09:20 - 00:05:28:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
No one's going to know whatever decision you make. I want to gift it to you and I want you to enjoy it. So I hope that this episode was helpful. If it was, listen a like and subscribe would be an amazing form of payment. I'm literally willing to send one of these games to you. The least you could do.

00:05:28:24 - 00:05:37:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Give me like give me a subscribe and maybe share this with a friend. If you know someone who might be interested in any of these games. But until next time my friends. And as always, don't forget stay hybrid.

Episode 185: This Disney Trip Accidentally Gave Me My Best Camp Game Ever

Nick Clason — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 05:00:00 -0600

I stumbled into this camp idea, and I'm going to give it to you today!
How I discovered it, what I've done that's worked, and how you can adapt it for your context.
This is a great Winter Retreat, Summer Camp or D-Now game concept that runs in the background of your student ministry event!

My Game Cheat Sheet:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/object-hunt-146629811?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

SHOW NOTES
Shownotes & Transcripts
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/185

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//OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS
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//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 The Accidental Disney Game
00:28 How we stumbled into this…
01:29 How to Play
05:27 Cheat Sheet
06:13 Winter Social Media
07:04 My Recommendations

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TRANSCRIPT
00;00;00;10 - 00;00;25;42
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I was at Disney with my family, and every single day my wife and kids, we were obsessed with finding this one hidden thing somewhere littered all throughout our resort. And halfway through the shift, I realized that this would be a perfect camp, winter retreat or D now game option and make sure that you stick around to the end of this video, because I'm going to share with you a cheat sheet so that you can win at this in your context.

00;00;25;50 - 00;00;46;02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Welcome, everybody, to the Hybrid Ministership. So like I said there, I was at Disney and they had this like niche like almost like hard to figure out. Like the orange bird. Like, you know, I'm talking about you'll see here on screen if you're watching here on YouTube, they had this thing hidden just like a printed out like cutout of this of this bird.

00;00;46;07 - 00;01;04;34
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And you had to find it every day, and then you'd return to, like, the activity center. And all you would do is you tell them where you found them. And the first day they gave you, like a little prize for finding it. But they redid it every single day. And about halfway through the trip, I was sitting there thinking to myself, you know what?

00;01;04;39 - 00;01;31;01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
This would make an amazing camp game. And I actually put that application to the test. But here's what made this idea work in student ministry, right? The anticipation, obviously, like, where am I going to find it the next day? Plus, it's an easy, low hanging opportunity to engage kids who might be bored during free time. So let me explain this game to all right.

00;01;31;01 - 00;01;50;21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we'll do a side by side comparison. So at Disney you needed to find some sort of object. Obviously as I said it was the orange bird for them. But in our ministry context we actually have like a a designed platypus. His name is Pugsley the platypus. And this was designed just by an illustrator that we found on Fiverr.

00;01;50;21 - 00;02;09;09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I'll link his details down below if you want to check out his work. But he designed this for us. And so we get these little custom pins with the different like design adaptation printed for all of our different like events throughout the year. So he'd make us like a custom one for for camping. But you know, you're able to lean in pretty hard with different platypus stuff.

00;02;09;09 - 00;02;29;56
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like here's some some cards that we have made in the artwork, and you can just get random like platypus designs of stuffed animals. Of course, there's there's Perry the Platypus and they got all sorts of like Perry the Platypus merch and mugs. And so we've leaned in really hard with the platypus being our mascot, which linked right here at the top of the video, I explained these bracket style ideas talk about in that video.

00;02;29;57 - 00;02;51;19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Donuts have done Christmas brackets. We did a bracket on voting on the best mascot, and so it landed on on a platypus. And we've leaned in and over all the years. And so for us, we hid just a card like a cutout of our platypus Pugsley. All throughout camp, we've even done it in different moments, like, all throughout, like our midweek as well.

00;02;51;24 - 00;03;11;15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The rule, though, for this game is that it's very simple. One new spot once per day. So in Disney, they'd hide it somewhere along the property near the resort like clubhouse area, and we'd have to go find it like the day we found it. I think the picture you see here on screen, it was in the laundry room like we had we we were looking for hours for this thing at camp.

00;03;11;15 - 00;03;25;12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Same concept. We just hide it. New spot every single day. And you can lean into this as much as you want. You can make it a big deal and send all the kids out to find it. First one to find it wins, or you can just have it kind of playing in the background, which is what I like to do.

00;03;25;17 - 00;03;47;00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Just have it rotating through your announcement slides, reminding them that it's an option. As well as giving them like reminders, maybe in like their little notebooks or something, and then just giving them a few extra, incentives or bonus points or prizes to find it. So what happens if you do find it if you win, right. So at Disney they gave us like a button, you know, imagine like a politician running for office.

00;03;47;15 - 00;04;03;48
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then every day you could put a new sticker on your button indicating that you found it the next day until you got all the stickers filled up on your button. Assuming that you stayed at Disney for those amount of days at camp, we gave like a little stamp in the camp book, so it was like the Monday.

00;04;03;53 - 00;04;25;17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Did you find this, this thing on Monday? Did you find this thing on Tuesday? Did you find this thing on on, you know, Wednesday. And here's the hack. Okay. The hack is if you have some sort of like, merch table, first aid station or Lost and Found that's manned by a volunteer. So like, we have an entire, like, team of rec people, that run all of our rec and then also help us, like sell t shirts and merch at our merch table.

00;04;25;31 - 00;04;46;50
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so we just say, bring, a picture or explain where you found the the platypus at the merch table, and we'll give you some sort of reward for it. Here's why this scales and works well, not just at Disney like it did for us, right? It it's an easy thing to do if you're not at a park that day for whatever reason, and you're just having an extra resort day.

00;04;46;50 - 00;05;05;27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But here's why this works at camps, dinos retreats, summer camps. Because you know that if you give your your kids a big bucket of free time, you might have different things like Gaga ball nine square in there, basketball tournaments and all those types of things. But you might also have kids who just aren't really interested in participating in those things.

00;05;05;27 - 00;05;27;20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And this will give you an opportunity to help, give them something else to do. It's not athletic, it's not active. But it still is. At least like it brings about the anticipation. And it gives them a task to do with their friends to work together, and still stay engaged in some of the stuff that you're offering at your youth retreat, summer camp denial or winter retreat.

00;05;27;20 - 00;05;43;43
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And this works whether you're at your church, whether you're at a camp, or even like a rented retreat space. And I'm actually going to give you a cheat sheet, it's going to be linked down below. As I said at the beginning, and I'm going to give you a variety of gameplay options, as well as a list and a slew of prize options as well.

00;05;43;43 - 00;06;01;37
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But first, here's the thing. You know, you come together. You found this YouTube video. You're on track to create an amazing winter retreat, an amazing camp, an amazing dinner. But you're still busy because you show up Monday morning. And once you've already posted your recap, slideshow, or video of the event, you're still scrambling to try to figure out what you're going to do on social media.

00;06;01;37 - 00;06;27;25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Well, here the Hybrid ministry show we have a solution for the busy youth pastor. In fact, a couple months ago I was as busy as I've ever been, and I put my seasonal social media pack to the test. Here's what I found out. Imagine it's six minutes per week. Have your entire social media strategy done for you. I mean, think about it like three months of youth ministry content for just $0.23 a man.

00;06;27;31 - 00;06;48;06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Some weeks it takes me seven, other weeks it takes me five. But the point is, and especially at the end of this, as I was sitting in my youth ministry leader cohort, everyone said time management and scheduling was the issue with staying consistent on social. So my recommendation would be take my pack, let it be the the basics of what you do.

00;06;48;06 - 00;07;09;31
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And if you do get busy, if something else comes up, you have something to fall back. And then when you do have the creative energy to create something more custom and more elaborate, scrap one of mine and put one of your own in there. But mine will at least keep you moving in the right direction. So as I said, you can get a lot of these in the description down below, with the cheat sheet.

00;07;09;31 - 00;07;27;38
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But like if you were to play this at a summer camp, my recommendation would be create a new daily hiding spot for your thing every single day. But if you are like a winter retreat, say it's only like three days long. Then maybe especially on your middle day. Like, say it's a Saturday, maybe at noon. Have a break and create a new hiding spot for it.

00;07;27;38 - 00;07;46;05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So there's four opportunities to find your hidden object. And, you know, here's the thing. Like maybe consider adding that as a note in your schedule. Like object will be hidden in a new location starting after lunch on this day. And you can put a little note or little sticker on the on the lanyard schedule or on your notebook schedule.

00;07;46;10 - 00;08;06;37
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
If you're in a dinner type situation, I would, make it similar to that as well. Like ask them or let them know, like when you're going to be hiding it and maybe putting it in in different locations at different times so that you can have them find it in more, more moments than just 1 or 2 spots per day, like a camp, you can do one per day, but maybe the deny you need to live in it up a bit.

00;08;06;37 - 00;08;21;41
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And, you know, here's the fact you can actually even include an idea like this, like your weekly youth group gathering. So every single Sunday or every single Wednesday when students show up, your, object is hidden in a new place and you need to create a little bit of infrastructure, like, what do you do if you find it, what do you get if you find it?

00;08;21;41 - 00;08;38;24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And what can you create that's sustainable in the long run? That would actually keep people interested in something like that. I have all sorts of different price ideas, as well as links in art linked down below in the description in the show notes. Check that out and hopefully it's helpful to you. Maybe something. I'm not just here to sell things.

00;08;38;24 - 00;08;55;15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I actually want to help. If you want your ministry to feel alive. Between the big events, between the dinners in the winter, retreats, in the summer camps like this, hybrid stuff matters, which quick personal plug. I'm not over here trying to get rich off of any of this. In fact, if that were my goal, I would be failing miserably.

00;08;55;15 - 00;09;19;25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But I'm a real life boots on the ground youth pastor who who runs a youth ministry on a day to day basis. In my own context. And like I said, I have created resources that would be helpful and beneficial to me that I've used, and I just want to give them back to you. And so if you're interested in figuring out how to continue to to stay alive and post on a regular basis in your youth ministry, then check out, this channel, subscribe, like, share it with a friend.

00;09;19;34 - 00;09;24;29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But until next time, my friends. And as always, I just want to remind you to not forget to stay hybrid.