Pavement Painting
Split the members into teams. Give each team a copy of the verse and a packet of pavement chalks. Take them to the car-park and give each team a sharply defined area and a time limit. Challenge each team to come up with the best decorated memory verse and design. You could make a ‘big event’ of this. Get an impartial judge and award prizes. Take photos of the end results and display. Either wash off chalk afterwards, or let the next rain do it for you.
Twig Words
One fine day – collect lengths of thin twigs.
One wet day – (using secatuers) clip twigs into short pieces. You will need a lot!
Have your Rally sit in teams, leaving plenty of space between them. Give them a copy of the Memory Verse. Then give them a large handful of twigs. They lay out the twigs to form the letters and words in the verse (in correct order).
You could give points for the first team to complete the verse correctly. Say the verse through together a few times
Collect twigs and save for another time. (This keeps the floor clean and tidy too!)
Ping Pong
Play this as a team game. Write each word of the verse on a ping pong ball and place the balls in a container. Also add some balls with nothing written on them – one blank ball for each space between words. Divide into teams. One team at a time plays the game. The team assembles in the designated area, while the others stand by watching. The game begins when the leader throws all balls into the air so they spill all over the area. The challenge is for the team to collect all the balls, and then assemble them in the correct order with the blank balls separating the words. Each team is timed. The fastest team wins a prize or points.
John 3:16
Write out your verse in large letters on an A4 sheet (you will need one per team). Keep a few key words out so it looks like this…
John 3 v 16. For ___________ so loved the ___________________ that He gave His only
____________ so that whoever ________________________ in Him should not die but
have eternal _____________. world life Son believes God
Make sure there is plenty of room in the gaps as they then have to RIP PAPER into the shapes of the letters of each missing word. It is a good team game where all can be involved. Each person can be responsible for ripping out a word or several letters each. You may like to have the missing words written at the bottom of the page. If they don’t know the verse, you may have to go through it with them to see what they think fits each space. Then compete for the fastest team to place the ‘ripped paper words’ in the correct spaces.
Computer printout
Print your memory verse out on computer – have it cover an A4 page, so you will need to enlarge it until it fits. (eg. You may have to change the borders to get size 72 font onto page, depending on length of the verse.)
Then print it again – this time smaller – say 48.
Now another time even smaller. Do this until it is almost impossible to see. You may like to do one copy of it so small that you have to write it under a magnifying glass – and that is how they will have to read it! (bring a magnifying glass for each team/group)
They may know the verse by the time you have done it a few times!
Grid Puzzle
This method works well as revision of a verse previously learnt.
Preparation: Draw up strips of square cells. Write each word of the memory verse either horizontally or vertically and cut out each word. Arrange the words in a rectangle and blutack them onto a backing sheet. Fill in any gaps with other words/letters. (See photo.)
Presentation: Ask what is the first word of the memory verse? Can you find it in the grid?
(the memory verse shown is James 1 v 22 in CEV: Obey God’s message. Don’t fool yourselves by just listening to it.) Remove word from grid and blu-tak it to wall. Repeat questions for next words in the memory verse.
Pirates Treasure
Preparation: Find a picture of a gold coin & enlarge the size to about 10cm diameter. Photocopy enough for your verse. You will want 1 coin per 1-3 words. Cut coins out, then write the words of the verse on the back of the coins. Hide the coins around the room before your members arrive.
Presentation:
Send Rally members to hunt for the ‘pirates treasure’. If they find a coin they either …1. Bring them to you. Stick them onto a board in any order. Then together put them in correct order. Say the verse together.
2. Hold onto the coin they found until you start to say the verse. Then they bring their coin up in the order you read out, and stick them to the board. Say the verse together.
Jigsaw Race
Write out your MV on coloured papers/cards/corflute (plastic corrugated card) – do a different colour paper/card for each team.
Then cut the paper/card into about 10-12 pieces (as a jigsaw). Hide them around the room you will use for devotions (ideal if you have furniture etc in the room to make it not too easy to find)!
Divide your Rally into teams if they aren’t already, and assign them a colour each. They have to find their coloured pieces – don’t touch others! Bring their pieces back to their Leader & put them together to see the memory verse. Say it all together once the teams are finished.
Option: give points to the teams first finished.
Bounce & Blow
Prep: Write the memory verse onto a piece of paper – one for each team. Then cut each paper into about 6 pieces, fold, & push into the balloons.
At Rally: Divide members into teams & they stand behind a line. About 3-4 m in front of each team, place a chair & bucket. Have 1 team member sitting on each chair & give them a balloon (with MV inside). Each team has a ping-pong ball. Have a Leader beside each bucket. On ‘GO’, the first person in each team bounces the ping-pong ball towards the bucket to try and land in it. Leader can retrieve and throw the ball back to the next person in line to have a throw. Each time the ball lands in the bucket, the person on the chair gets to blow 1 puff (as large as possible) into the balloon. The winners are the first team to blow up the balloon until it pops, retrieve the pieces of the verse and put it together correctly.
