10 Youth Group Games You Can Play with Just a Kickball
Everyone loves games. Games can start connections with your group. As youth pastors, we want to make the time to
Remember your first crush? No? Me neither. Because we’re old. But still, I feel like most of us can relate to the students we lead in part because we remember, if vaguely, what “young love” is like. I mean if there’s one topic that never stops dominating your students’ thoughts, conversations, and social media feeds, it’s love and relationships. But here’s the challenge:
Culture bombards students with messages about love that are shallow, selfish, and disconnected from biblical truth. Most students are already forming their views on relationships long before they ever talk to a youth pastor about it. If the church is silent, culture fills the gap—and it doesn’t usually lead to Christ-centered relationships.
It’s not enough to just tell students to wait for marriage, avoid temptation, and choose sexual integrity. They need a bigger vision of love—one that is shaped by who God is, not just what the world says. Here’s how to teach teenagers about love and relationships in a way that resonates, transforms, and leads to lasting faith.
Time needed: 1 hour
Materials Needed: Bibles, whiteboard or large poster board, markers, pre-cut slips of paper with different types of relationships (friendship, dating, parent, etc.), pens for student responses
In a culture where love is often portrayed as obsession, performance, or sexual conquest, teens come to the table with a distorted understanding of what it means to love well. Start by asking: What’s the most common picture of love you’ve seen in a movie or song? What message do you think it sends?
Then flip the lens to 1 John 4:10:
“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son…”
Let students see that love, at its core, is not about getting—it’s about giving. Ground this idea by clarifying that love doesn’t begin with us trying harder to love others; it begins with letting God love us first. God initiates, we respond.
You might share a story or a visual of how a misdefinition of love—like confusing intensity for intimacy—can hurt someone emotionally or spiritually. Help students name the faulty scripts they’ve been handed.
Now that you’ve deconstructed cultural myths, you’re ready to rebuild with Scripture. Walk through 1 Corinthians 13:4–7 slowly and intentionally. Don’t just read it—work through each phrase: “Love is patient…” What does that actually look like in real relationships? What about “It does not envy…” when a friend starts dating someone you liked?
Ask: Which one of these qualities challenges you the most? Which one feels the most rare in your friend group?
This is where you start inviting them to see love not as an emotion, but as a set of practiced actions. Root it back in God’s character: everything Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13 is what Jesus has already demonstrated toward us.
Pro Tip: Consider using a hiking metaphor. Tie that in—loving others well is a steep climb, not a casual walk. It requires gear (wisdom), footing (truth), and endurance (the Spirit’s help).
Time to shift into personal decision-making. Ask: What does it mean to “guard your heart” without walling it off completely?
Use Proverbs 4:23 as a launch point: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
Teach that boundaries are more so about preservation than restriction. Use this to help teens articulate what wise, Christ-centered relationships might look like in practice. Discuss how boundaries apply not only to physical things, but also emotional vulnerability, time commitments, and spiritual alignment.
Make space for nuance: what’s wise for one student may not be wise for another. Let Scripture frame the conversation, not arbitrary dating rules.
Bonus Idea: Invite students to imagine a relationship where both people are growing closer to Jesus, not just to each other. You can adapt that as a group visualization exercise.
Here’s the emotional pivot point. Before you can talk about how to treat others in relationships, students need to confront how they view themselves.
Use Colossians 2:10: “In Christ you have been brought to fullness…”
Ask: Where do students currently look for validation? Dating? Social media? Compliments? Then push gently—what happens when that source dries up?
Help them see that identity must come before intimacy. When you know who you are in Christ, you’re less likely to hand your worth to someone else. If you skip this step, students will view the entire series through the lens of “How do I get someone to like me better?”
Pro Tip: This section can get vulnerable. Let silence do some of the work.
Distribute two index cards to each student. Give these instructions:
Card 1: Write a message someone might long to hear from a relationship. It can be honest, personal, or even silly. Examples: “You complete me,” “You make me feel worth something,” “Don’t leave me.”
Card 2: Flip that message to reflect how God speaks identity over us in Scripture. Examples:
“You are complete in Christ” (Col. 2:10)
“You are worth the life of the Son” (Rom. 5:8)
“I will never leave you or forsake you” (Heb. 13:5)
Let a few students read their card pairs aloud. Close the activity by affirming this: The best relationships are between people who already know they are fully loved.
Want the full four-week series that inspired this lesson?
Get Base Camp—a gospel-centered roadmap for teaching teens about relationships, dating, love, and identity without shame. Includes: Sermon Manuscripts, Video Messages, Interactive Discussion Guides, and Graphics.
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