*not created or endorsed by Mr. Beast
Mr. Beast (Jimmy Donaldson) is a Youtube juggernaught with 41.3 million subscribers on his main channel, not including his gaming channel. He does super expensive stunts and is a philanthropist.
In his most recent video, Mr. Beast buys and gives away an island. Here’s the breakdown of how you can mimic this super easy, end of summer/back to school competition you can do online or in person.
You can do this as a 10 week challenge with one game per week or do it in five weeks with two games per week. If you are inviting guests, I would do this all in one night because if a guest is eliminated, they have no incentive to come back.
I have included Mr. Beasts video below so you can watch how simple the competitions are, but I also breakdown the 10 Quick Competitions Mr. Beast does to give away the island.
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You you don’t have to give away an island to draw the attention of your students, but you could give away a pair of sneakers or, if you’re doing it in- house, give away a youth camp scholarship or some youth group “privilege”.
If you have a large youth group, you could eliminate whole sections of your audience as you get volunteers from each section to participate.
If you have a smaller youth ministry, this will work for 10-15 students or if you’re slightly larger, break them up into teams of three with one person competing in each challenge.
Contest #1 Last to put a coconut in the hole is out
In person, you lay out a hula hoop and have kids find an item that is in nature or something you have put around the church or room to grab.
Online, you’ve probably done this game where someone has to bring something to the screen before anyone else, but you can make it as hard or as easy as you want.
Contest #2 Voting someone off
In person or online, this could be a little mean. You don’t want to single anyone out, so ask simple questions about Mr. Beast and the person with the answer furthest from the correct answer is out.
Ex: How many subscribers does Mr. Beast have? How many videos does Mr. Beast have on his main channel? etc.
Contest #3 Hide and Seek
In Person: Mr. Beast gives each of the contestants a camera to record where they hide and film their reactions. You could have your students record themselves and send you the vides. Tell them to keep their messages to one minute. Use this as a fun post challenge video for the whole group.
Mr Beast only needed to find one person, and the first person he found was out of the competition.
Online: Have students go hide while the youth pastor or another student counts to 20 with their eyes closed. Everyone must have their camera on. When the person counting is done, whoever is it takes turns guessing where people are hiding (under the bed, in a closet). The first correct answer means that person is out and everyone can come back to the call.
Contest #4 Swimming Challenge
In person, you can easily turn this into a running challenge and even put a few obstacles in the way to slow your students down a little.
Remember this whole night is supposed to fast paced and the competitions simple and quick.
Online: You could make this a challenge for everyone that has a pool. Ask those with a pool to compete in a race to the other end of their pool and the loser is out of the competition.
Contest #5 Cornhole by Teams
In person, do it just like in the video; everyone throws at the same time and the team that gets one of their bean bags in the hole can eliminate one person from the other team.
Online, you can ask students to get a small container, like a waste paper basket, and a wadded up piece of paper and tell them to walk ten steps away from from the container. Each person takes a shot, the first person to miss getting their paper wad in the container is out.
To extend the game, have people keep shooting to find a winner. Last to make it in wins.
Contest #6 Find The Treasure Chest
In person, you could hide the treasure chest outside or inside. This doesn’t have to be a treasure chest, but if you do use a treasure chest, regardless of size, fill it with some snacks. You could use a suitcase, a bag, etc.
Online, hide the treasure chest somewhere at your house. Walk around your house with your phone or computer and let kids see where you may have hidden the treausure. You could have some funny signs like “it’s not here” or “Don’t even think about it”.
Students must send you a message with their one guess of where the treasure is. First person to get the answer right, wins.
Contest #7 Are You Subscribed?
In person or online, you can name a list of YouTuber channels and if someone is subscribed, they are eliminated. Call out popular channels like Good Mythical Morning, Pewtie Pie, James Charles, etc. If they are subscribed they are out. Last one left is the winner.
If you have a YouTube channel, you could see who is or is not subscribed to the channel or if you have an Instagram account, you could see who follows and who does not.
Contest #8 The Golden Coconut
Your students probably don’t have coconuts lying around, unless you’re from Hawaii, but they probably have some eggs.
The Golden Coconut is just an egg toss game where two people toss the egg and take a step away from each other after each toss.
In person, you just need an open space and an egg fro each partner.
Online, this may be a fun way to involve the family. Have the student get someone to hold the phone or the computer and then finds someone else to play this game.
Contest #9 Pick A Number
By now you’ve whittled down the number of participants playing, ask the winning team of the egg toss to pick a number between one and 10. The one closest stays in, the one furthest is out.
Online, just ask the winning team, through chat, to pick a number.
Contest #10 Bowling
In person, set up some 10 “bowling pins”, which could be anything from blocks of wood to cans of soda. Each person left gets one roll, most pins win. If there is a tie, repeat.
Online, ask students to set up there own bowling alley using only five pins. They can use bottles of salad dressing out of the fridge, etc. Ask them to find any ball (not a basketball) and then walk ten steps away from the pins. On your go, they roll the ball to see how many “pins” they knock down.
The last part of the video is a vote between the last two people. I don’t recommend this as it may cause some hard feelings. If you need to decide between two people, flip a coin or play another of these games again.
I hope this article has stirred up some ideas to reach more students. If you’d like more ideas in your inbox on a regular basis, click here