It is almost March and the madness of college basketball is soon to begin, are you ready? I want to help you leverage this month to help you grow your ministry. The center of march Madness are the bracket sheets. Offices, work place, churches, etc. print blank bracket sheets and choose the teams they think will win their game and ultimately the College Basketball Championship.
Brackets can work for your youth ministry too. These ideas center around competitions and competition can grow your youth ministry and even deepen your youth ministry if you choose the right topic.
Some of these topics are meant to be ice breakers to start your you meeting and others will take a larger portion of your meeting. I recommend choosing one of these for your in person youth meeting use another for online voting and maybe one more for Sunday School or small group meeting.
Pick one of these your students would get most excited about.
Christian Music Artist Bracket: Choose popular Christian artists (genre) and have youth predict who would “win” in a musical face-off. Play the music of each band and let the youth group vote.Great way to expose your kids to new music like Lecrae, NF or Manfest.
Food Bracket: Create a bracket with different snack options or fast food restaurants. Youth vote for their favorite snack/food to be served at a future gathering. you can expand this into fast food like McDonald’s vs Burger King etc. and the winning fast food will be served at the end of the month.
Chair Basketball Bracket
Bible Quiz Bracket: Hold a Bible quiz with teams competing in a bracket format. Have funny names, cool intro music, and maybe some funny costumes but be sure students are tasteful about it.
Youth Group Games: Break your group into teams and have single elimination tournaments in a single game of Dodgeball or Whiffle Ball and play once a week with the winning teams moving on.
Minute to Win It: Design a series of minute-to-win-it challenges and have teams compete in a bracket format. You can find over 100 games in my Youtube Playlist.
Board Game Tournament: Organize a single-elimination tournament using quick and easy board games like Connect Four or Checkers
No matter the competition, be sure to have a trophy (store bought or ready for the winning individual or team. Make this a yearly event and allow the winners to defend their crown.
If you’d like this list along with a bracket page an over a dozen more ideas to make March Madness even crazier, subscribe to my newsletter and download it now.