What do you need

You can use life preservers, life saver gummies, or any round candy with a hole in the middle for this game. For some of the games that don’t involve colors, you can also substitute popsicle mints or any donut-shaped candy or breakfast cereal (for example, Fruit Loops) with a hole.

Games using Lifesavers

• blind chicken – Each team is assigned a specific color of life jackets. Blindfolded, one member of each team must pick up a lifesaver from a table and return it to the team in their mouth. If the candy is the wrong color, the player must start over. The team can shout instructions to their team member.
• candy introductions – Get enough life preservers so that each person can have at least five pieces. Pass out the candy and tell each participant to choose between 1 and 5 life preservers of the color they want. However, instruct them not to eat it yet. After they have chosen their candy, tell them what each type/color of candy represents. (Example: red = favorite hobbies, green = favorite place on earth, blue = favorite memory, yellow = dream job, orange = wild card, tell us about yourself!)
• cut it close – Fill a teacup with flour, pack it down tightly, then flip a plate over and place a Lifesaver candy on top. Each young person takes turns cutting the flour with a knife. Whoever makes the life preserver fall, has to catch it with their mouth! No hands allowed!
• guess the color – Divide into groups of 8-10 with the same number of young people on each team. Teams line up for a relay race with the first member of each team blindfolded. With instructions from their team, the blindfolded person must find their way to a hanging bag filled with individually wrapped lifesaver candy or gummies, open one, and pop it into their mouth. They must then shout the color to a judge with their mouths open so that he can identify if the color is correct. If correct they return to their team and sit down. If it is incorrect, they go back to the end of their team’s line and must do it again. The first team to get everyone to identify the correct color of candy wins. or for some extra fun, place a super tart or sour candy between the life preservers and watch the lucky person receive it.
• lifebuoy roll away – The goal is to roll a LifeSavers candy across the floor as far as possible. Conditions: The candy cannot be lifted from the ground and must roll on its edge.
• lifeguard horseshoes – Build two ring toss pegs by placing a toothpick vertically in a slice of bread for each team. Youth try to throw LifeSavers candy at their team’s toothpick to score points. Each player gets two tosses. The lifeguard closest to the stake counts as one point. If a player’s two lifesavers are closer than the opponent’s, that player gets two points. If the lifeline lands on the peg (called a buzzer), three points are scored. In the case of a closer ringer and lifeguard, both lifeguards are scored for a total of four points. If a player throws two buzzers, that player scores six points. If each player throws a buzzer, the buzzers cancel and no points are scored.
• lifesaving measles – The youngsters must stick licked life preservers on someone’s face. If you want a more hygienic version, provide a saucer with some water to dip the life preservers in. Anyone who falls during the game must be put back on. The first to make everyone sick on a team member’s face or have the most stuck to their face after a set time limit wins.
• lifebuoy on a rope – Sit the young people in a circle and cut a piece of string long enough to reach the whole group. Thread a Life Savers candy onto the string, then tie the ends together. All players must place both hands on the rope holding it so that each hand makes a fist around the fort. Select a young person to be “it” and have them stand in the middle of the circle. You must close your eyes as the players pass the candy ring from fist to fist around the circle. When he says “Freeze”, players must stop past the lifeline. The person in the center has three attempts to correctly identify who has the life preserver hidden in their fist. If he guesses correctly, he selects the next player to be “it”.
• lifebuoy puzzle – Choose an equal number of lifesaver candies for each team. If you want to make it more difficult, use candies of the same color. Break the life preservers into several pieces and place them on a saucer. Teams must reassemble the pieces. The first to do it correctly wins.
• Lifeguard Race to the Middle – Two contestants facing each other with a long piece of rope between them and a life preserver tied exactly in the middle of the rope. The rope is placed with one end in each player’s mouth. On your signal, they must pull the string towards their mouth and move towards the candy in the center of the string. Hands are not allowed. The person who first puts the candy in their mouth is the winner. Beware, there may be some accidental kisses involved.
• lifeguard relay – Give each player a toothpick to hold the teeth. The leader places a lifebuoy on the toothpick of the player at the head of each row. Then you go from toothpick to toothpick until you reach the end of the line. If the candy is dropped, it must be quickly returned by hand to the start of the line and started down the line again. Have a few extras in case they break when dropped. The winning team is the one whose Lifesaver reaches the end of the line first. Instead of toothpicks, you can also use raw hard spaghetti or coffee stirrers. Drinking straws are often too large to fit in the life preserver.
• lifebuoy ring toss – Place an apple on a table so that it does not roll, and then place one or more toothpicks on top of the apple. From a designated distance, the youngster must throw life preservers at the chopsticks to score points. The highest score in a given time limit wins.
• lifesaver scavenger hunt – Each group of young people has 1 minute to collect their own color of life preservers that are distributed throughout the room. You can hang them on almost anything. Just be careful with those that are never found they are great at attracting ants.
• lifeguard seekers – Fill two cake pans or plates with flour. Put several Lifesavers in each can and mix them up so they are not visible. Smooth the surface. Two youngsters must compete to see who can retrieve the most life preservers, using only their mouths, in one minute.
• lifesaving team colors – Give lifesaver candies to everyone as they enter the room so that there are the same number of each color. Players can suck on the lifeline candy or simply place it on their tongue. Without speaking, they must gather in teams according to the color of the lifeguards, sticking out their tongues so that the others can see the color.
• lifeguard towers – Youngsters are given a stack of life preservers and must stack them on the highest tower possible within 60 seconds. Players can rebuild their tower if it falls within the time limit. When time runs out, the player or team with the tallest candy tower wins the game.
• lifebuoy toss game – Place six teacups in a vertical row, facing each other. Mark a starting line about 4 feet from the first cup of tea. Give each player six lifebuoys to try to knock over the teacups. Players must make a candy in each of the labeled buckets. Award a prize to the player on the first team who lands all of their candy in the individual teacups. If you want to make it easier, use bowls or saucers instead of teacups.

TAKE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL

MAKE IT SPIRITUAL

Lifesaver’s Candy is known for the hole in the middle. At its center is emptiness. Unfortunately, this also describes many young people. Outside everything seems sweet, but inside there is an emptiness.

In the Bible, Solomon had the opportunity to taste everything that is supposed to make us happy and bring pleasure to life. But everything he tried left him empty inside. (Ecclesiastes 2:1-11)

• What was Solomon’s goal in this passage?
• What are some of the things that Solomon mentions in his search for happiness?

MAKE IT PRACTICAL

Inside each of us is a God-shaped hole that only God can fill. If God is not the center of your life, everything in life will leave you feeling empty.

• What are some of the silly things that young people and adults do to find pleasure and happiness?
• Why should our meaning, our happiness, be centered on Christ?
• What things can a person do to make God the center of everything in life? To your goals? To his happiness? In your activities?
• What makes life meaningful?

MAKE IT PERSONAL

• What are some of the achievements you are most proud of? Why?
• What are some things in life that you find significant? Why? Are they things that will stay with you as if they have meaning for a long time? For an eternity? Why or why not?
• What things do you sometimes find meaningless in life? How can you find meaning in them?
• How can you make Christ more central in your life this week?

ADDITIONAL VERSES OF SCRIPTURE

• Mark 8:36 – “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and lose their soul?”
• Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life that I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself same for me.”
• Philippians 3:7-9 – “But whatever was gain to me I now count as loss for Christ’s sake. Furthermore, I count all loss for the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have I have lost all things, I count them as rubbish, that I might gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is by law, but that which is through faith in[a] Christ, the righteousness that proceeds from God on the basis of faith.”
• 2 Corinthians 5:17 – “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, the new has become!”
• Romans 14:8 – “For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord; so whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”
• Paul says, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18) That tells me that being crucified with Christ, having our meaning from Him makes time irrelevant because we are in Him the eternal.
• Matthew 22:37-40 – “Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like a him: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”