This is a selection of activity ideas that you can plan for your cell group. Do you have any great activity ideas?
Please email them to us!

Bigger, Better, Best: Start with a small, insignificant item (a can of pop, a ball point pen) and go around the neighborhood asking people to trade the item for something "bigger or better". Repeat this process multiple times. After a predetermined amount of time, meet again to vote on which team ended up with the "best" thing.

Photo Scavenger Hunt: Prepare a list of funny photos for the teams to orchestrate. Make these scary, embarrassing, and legal. Such as: Get a picture of your team with a fireman or policeman; The whole team in a phone booth... Divide the group into carloads, making sure that each car has a camera (digital works best) and go out and get the pictures that fulfill the photo list. Meet up at a fast-food restaurant at a designated time. You could set up judges to see which group has the best pictures for each category, although the winners/losers will remain secondary to the memories that can be created. If you do this with the sixth graders, you will have silly pictures of them, which you can use to honor them when they graduate to the high school group. This can also be a seasonal activity! For Christmas add things to list like a manger with baby Jesus, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, a gingerbread house or most outrageously lit house.

Food Eating Contest: Set up stations with questionable food selections (i.e. Station #1 has apples+peanut butter+mayonnaise; Station #2 has orange+chocolate sauce+cream of chicken soup; Station #3 has banana+chocolate sauce+hot chili paste; Station #4 has oreo+cream of chicken soup+sardine). Pick several contestants. Each contestant eats from the stations, but if a contestant fails to eat from one or more station, they are disqualified. Whichever contestant eats a healthy amount from each station wins. The tie breaker can be whichever contestant doesn't vomit. The winner gets a package of good snacks.

Roller Skating and Ice Skating: Check out the Chiller or Skate Zone 71.

Visit a Nursing Home: Arrange with a local nursing home to come and assist the staff or visit with the residents. You could go all out and plan a craft or a performance!

Volunteer at a Local Animal Shelter: Offer your groups services to help clean and maintain a local human society.

Make-Your-Own Pizza Night: Adults can provide crust, sauce and cheese and have each student bring their own favorite topping.

Milkshake Night at Steak and Shake

Jeans Decorating Night: have the kids bring and old pair of jeans that they can do what they want with. Buy a few iron on patches, bring some permanent markers, and scissors and let them design their own new pair of jeans.

Creeking and a Camp Fire: Head up to the Xenos Campus to hike through up the creek. Bring flashlights, and a jar to catch small fish or snakes. If you reserve one of the fire rings, you can then have a camp fire for s'mores and hanging out.

Halo Party: Hook two or three video game systems together and let the mayhem proceed!

Cell Group Idol: Play the game just like it is done on American Idol.

Fishing

"Snowball" Fight: Fill segments of pantyhose with powdered sugar, tying them into baseball-sized packets and trimming the tied ends. Make five or so "snowballs" per participant. Divide into teams or try "free-for all" style. Each snowball is good for two or so throws before the powdered sugar is gone. Powdered sugar is better than flour because of 1) the gluten intolerant in the crowd, and 2) it's easier to wash out.

Night Rocket Launching: Take a bicycle pump, 6 foot of tubing, a rubber cork, and a long metal stake. Use duct tape to tape fins, flow in the dark necklace, and a straw to a two liter bottle. Place some water in the bottle; put the cork in with the tubing connected to the bicycle pump. Drive the metal stake in the ground and place the bottle on the stack through the straw. Pump hard and see the bottle rocket launch high into the air.

Local Sporting Events: Clippers, OSU baseball, OSU hockey, etc.

Vertical Adventures Rock Climbing Gym

Duct Tape Scavenger Hunt: Arrange a scavenger hunt where you have to collect everything on duct tape that's wrapped around your head (sticky part out). Note: Live insects or lizards and the like are particularly interesting for girls to collect.

Progressive Dinner: Arrange this with the parents and students before. Go from house to house eating different courses at each house -- salad, main course & desert as an example.

Spa Party: Present a teaching on serving then invite another cell group over to practice serving them with spa stations to rotate through including foot massage, pedicure, facial, hair, nails, etc.

Fashion Show: Go to a thrift store and buy 3-5 dollars worth of the ugliest outfits you could find in 15 minutes and come back to do a fashion show. Take pictures and make a calendar for the following year!

Egg Catapult: Provide cut 2X4's, bungee cord, 2' by 2' square of plywood, a bunch of screws, screwdrivers and have the kids built the catapults. Take the catapults to Calumet ravine and launch eggs at a target.

Sock Wrestling: The object of this wrestling match is to get your opponents socks off before they remove yours.

Mini Golf: Either go to a miniature golf course or arrange a mini golf night at Xenos with Sarah.

Lumberjack/Paul Bunyan Night: Find one or two small trees you have permission to chop, preferably dead trees. Everyone dawns flannel, helps chop down a dead tree or two using manual saws, axes. Insure adequate lighting, chopping training, and supervision. Either make pancakes as a treat afterwards or go to a local breakfast place for your lumberjack evening breakfast.

Casino Night: Tell the students to bring pennies. Set up several games like Black Jack and High Low. You can even purchase McDonald's Coupons for raffle winners, the big winners, fastest loser etc... Then take the kids to McDonald's to spend their winnings.

Donate Food to a Local Food Bank: Divide your group into carloads. Each carload of students starts with a given sum of money. They go to a grocery store and buy as much nonperishable food as they can. Afterwards see which group did the best job and got the most food for their money and go together for donation.

Slam Dunk Contest: Rent or go to a facility where you can lower the basketball rim. Play a game or two and then hold a slam dunk contest. Video tape it and show it the next time you meet. It would be cool to put music over it like "Chariots of Fire" by Vangelis or the NBA songs.

Seasonal Ideas: Carve or paint pumpkins at Halloween (see Flaming Pumpkin activity as well), decorate Easter Eggs, make ornaments for a nursing home at Christmas. The Photo Scavenger Hunt can also be made into a seasonal activity.

Buckeye Necklace Charity: Collect buckeyes and use cord with red and grey beads to make buckeye necklaces. Sell your necklaces at a game, CT or local grocery store (check with managers before setting up) to raise money for a chosen charity.

Flaming Pumpkin Toss: Buy 3 pumpkins, have kids carve scary faces in them, fill them full of newspaper and light them. Have the kids blow down from the top and the flames shoot out the eyes, mouth and nose of the pumpkins. Then toss them while they are aflame into a fire pit. If you take pictures, it leaves a cool affect and memory!

Bowling

Batting Cages, Go-Carts, Arcade Games at Magic Mountain or Grand Slam

Boating or Swimming in the Summer

Playground Games: Four square (Let the students explain all the new rules.), kickball, team tag (Everyone is it and when you are tagged you have to sit down. Last one standing wins.), dodgeball (Arrange for another group to join in and make it a tournament!), etc.

Frisbee Golf or Ultimate Frisbee: There is a frisbee golf course by the Scioto River.

Local Restaurants: Culvers, BW3's (Blazin' Wing Challenge!), Qdoba, McDonalds, KFC, Chipotle, Taco Bell, etc.

Soda Pop Tasting Contest: See if they really can tell the difference of Coke/Pepsi generics in a few categories. You can try Colas, Diet Colas (boys are not good at this), Mountain Dew and its generics, or even mix up the different types. You'll need to use unmarked containers, even the colored ring on the 2 liter top will give it away. For example: Have a preprinted score sheet with the different cups identified for the different type of pop you'll be using. Use small Dixie cups (all you need is the bathroom size since just tasting) marked with the sample number. Have them sit around a table trying each. Give them a point for each correctly identified pop to determine a winner. If have time could have the top 2 do an extra taste off of a mixed type. Have a small prize or just the honor of being the best taster for the winner. You could also do this with energy drinks or whatever is popular at the time.