Deep Fun: Games and Activities
Deep Fun is also available as a PDF.As Young Religious Unitarian Universalists (YRUU), we develop our own culture. Games have always been an important part of that culture. We play games in youth group meetings, at conferences, during worships, or to break up a business plenary session. Although games are a wonderful way to socialize, they can also fulfill other goals of successful YRUU programming. They can be a vehicle for learning, leadership, worship, and even social action. Games remind us that the spirit of fun can permeate everything we do, and that fun can be full of meaning.
In the course of Unitarian Universalist Youth history, many games have endeared themselves to all our hearts. Games like Silent Football, and All My Friends and Neighbors have become legendary in YRUU circles all over the continent. They generate some of our fondest and silliest memories. More serious “games,” like the Angel Wash and the Power Shuffle are used in worships and have a loyal following. Their rules are passed from district to district and from YRUU generation to generation. This book will document these games so they will not be forgotten by future YRUUers. It will be distributed continentally, so that new or remote youth groups will have immediate access to the games the rest of us know and love. We have collected these games from our own memories and those of our friends, and from games discussions on the YRUU email list-serve. We have refined their descriptions using many books and resources, including books by the Raccoon Institute and Learned Enterprises, The New Games Book, and an LRY programs packet by Bev Hendricks. Many of these games have rules or names that vary from district to district. This book does not, by any means, contain the “right” version of any game, only the one that has found its way to us and that we have used successfully. We encourage you to make these games your own by adapting them to the size, needs, and tastes of your group.
To make this book more user-friendly for youth and advisors, we decided to organize the games into five chapters, loosely based on Denny Rydberg’s “Five Steps to Building Community.” Introducing new games to your youth group or conference will work best if your timing is right—if you choose games that fit the level of community already attained and nudge the group on to the next level. Following this introduction is an outline of the “Five Steps.” We have relied on this system to explain how community develops in YRUU settings at continental trainings, and we consider it whenever we plan programming for a YRUU event. Before each chapter are a few hints and suggestions for planning youth programming for that particular stage. In the game descriptions themselves, we tried to alternate between masculine and feminine pronouns, in order to be grammatically and politically correct. Don’t let it confuse you!
This book is a stockpile of ideas; the rest is up to you. Anyone who has ever had a flash of inspiration, stood up and tried to explain a game to a group of excited, noisy, and energetic YRUUers can tell you, teaching and learning games with each other is half the fun.
Since ours is a living tradition, and new games are being introduced all the time, this book will be a first edition of many. We will to continue to revise and add to it in the future. If your favorite game did not make it in, or if you and your friends have invented a new game, send us a description and soon the whole continent may be playing it! Send any correspondence to:
The Office of Youth Ministries
25 Beacon St.
Boston, MA 02108
Acknowledgments
Putting this book together while working at the Youth Office has been a terrific challenge. I want to thank everyone who wanted a gamebook for your patience. I hope the product was worth it! Thanks to Marc for leaving this unfinished project on my desk (and for the huge chunk of work you did on it)! Thank you to my Youth Office cohorts, Jen Devine, Alison Purcell, and Galen Moore for your editing skills and contributions. And thank you Florida District YRUU, for teaching me how to play.
Contents
- Five Steps to Community Building
- Step One: Bonding
- Step Two: Opening Up
- Step Three: Affirming
- Quick Energy Breaks
- Step Four: Stretching
- Step Five: Deeper Sharing and Goal Setting
For more information contact youth @ uua.org.
Last updated on Friday, April 18, 2008.
