How to run a church games night people come back to

Every church has one. The games night that was going to be brilliant, where the quiz was too hard for the children and too easy for the men in the back row, the round ran forty minutes long, and someone's teenager spent the whole evening on their phone. I've run that night. Here's what I learned from it, and from the nights that went right.

Mixed ages are the point, not the problem

The instinct is to split the room — children over here, adults over there. Don't. The evenings people talk about afterwards are the ones where a nine-year-old beat the elders' table on a Bible round, and everyone saw it. Build teams across ages on purpose: a child, a teenager, a parent and a grandparent together. Give every round at least one question a child can answer and one that will make an adult think.

Short rounds, more of them

Ten questions is a round. Twenty is a test. Five or six short rounds with a break between them keeps the energy up, gives the tea urn a job, and means a table having a bad round isn't having a bad night.

Vary the shape

True or false with a proof verse. “Who said it?” A picture round. A word game where you're hunting for what three Bible stories have in common. A round where every answer ends with the same letters. The change of format is what stops it feeling like school.

Let it be funny

Faith and laughter are not opposites. A quiz master with a bit of cheek, a bonus point for the best wrong answer, a round of “which of these is actually in the Bible” — this is what turns an event into a memory. Keep it warm; nobody in the room should be the joke.

No app, no batteries, no “has anyone got a charger?”

Paper works. Everyone can see it, nobody's screen dies, and the phones stay in pockets. Print one answer sheet per table and put a spare pen at every seat.

Plan the ending

Announce the last round before it starts. Make the prize a laugh rather than a trophy. Close with something short — a verse, a prayer, thanks to whoever made the sandwiches — and let people go while they're still enjoying it.

Start before the season lands

Harvest, Light Party, Advent: churches plan weeks ahead, and the leader who has the pack printed on the Wednesday is the one who enjoys the Friday.

If you'd like the rounds done for you

Everything we make for a games night — quizzes, word games, escape rooms, Light Party and Christmas packs — is grouped by what you're running at For Churches, Groups & Schools, and there's a free sample pack at the top of it so you can see what a Giddymoose round looks like before you spend anything. Print tonight, run tomorrow.