An easy activity for a small group is one that asks for nothing bought, nothing set up before the meeting and nothing anybody has to remember during the week. The seven below use what is already in the room or already in people's pockets, with the time and the materials of each one.
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Everybody in that room has at least one message they never answered, from somebody who wrote and stayed waiting. It is almost never bad will: it is that message that took some work to answer and kept being left for later. This activity takes one of those and settles it on the spot.
Before you start, make it clear that nobody is going to show their screen, say the name of the person on the other side or tell what it is about. That is what makes each person pick the message that is really waiting for an answer, and not the one that would look good to the group. Whoever does not have their phone there, or would rather not touch it, keeps the two minutes in silence. Nobody insists and nobody asks why.
Each person opens their messages and looks for the oldest one they have not answered. Put two minutes on the clock. In that time everybody answers at once, in silence, and whoever finishes early turns the phone face down and waits, so that nobody feels rushed.
On a video call, everybody turns the camera off for the two minutes and comes back with it on. Whoever is on the call from their own phone leaves the screen for that while, and nobody finds it odd.
When the time is up, ask one question, and it is not about the message: how long had that been waiting? Each person answers with the time only: two days, three weeks, a month. No story.
Wrap-up
That message you did not answer a while ago fitted into two minutes. It was not for lack of time, it was a decision that had not been made. And while it sat there with no answer, somebody on the other side was drawing their own conclusions from the silence, because not answering is an answer too, and what it says is that the person could wait. Right now, on the other side of the phones in this room, there are people getting an answer they had given up on.
And no reason justifies leaving somebody with no answer, because there is always room for a quick one, not right away, but in the first break of the day. “I cannot answer you today”, “I need to think about it”, “remind me next week”. That is respect, and it takes ten seconds. Think about how you feel when you are the one waiting.
Passage
The text is not about refusing, it is about putting off. Do not tell your neighbour to come back tomorrow if you can settle it today (Proverbs 3:27-28, NIV). “I will answer later” is the pocket version of “come back tomorrow”.
Closing
Each person says in one word what usually makes them slow to answer. Tiredness, forgetfulness, fear of what comes next. Nobody explains and nobody comments. Then each one prays in silence, where they are, holding that word: Holy Spirit, show me why I treat people this way. You close it out loud when the room is ready.
Why this activity works
What makes the activity work is that the room never speaks about what the messages said, only about how long they waited. The distance between that wait and the two minutes is the whole point, and it only shows up if nobody tells who it was or what they answered. The natural urge of whoever is leading is to ask for those stories, and that is what ends the activity: the room starts talking about people who are not there and the contrast is lost among them.
The challenge
During the week, answer right away, even if it is only to say that you cannot answer now. “I am at work, I will get back to you tonight” already takes the person out of the waiting.
How it goes
The group sits around a table, or in a circle with a clear space on the floor in the middle, because that is where everything happens. Say at the start that nobody has to talk about a key or a place they would rather not, and that whatever is in your pocket and you would rather not show stays in your pocket. Nobody is emptying anybody's pocket.
Each person puts in front of them what they carry that opens something: the house key, the work badge, the building card, the gate remote, the phone, which today opens doors and opens cars. Gather in the middle a pile of small things already lying around, three or four for each person: coins, bottle caps, paper clips, beans, whatever there is.
Now each person speaks in turn. Each one names a place they walk into every week that asks for no key at all. Work, their mother's house, the gym, a friend's place, the room you are all in right now. For each place named, the person takes one small thing from the middle and puts it beside what they laid in front of them. Run as many rounds as it takes, until the middle is empty.
When it stops, ask everybody to look at the table and compare what came out of the pocket with the little pile that grew beside it.
Last of all: each person takes one small thing from their own pile, not what came out of the pocket, and holds it, choosing the place where the people on the other side have never heard you talk about faith. Nobody says which one it is, nobody explains, nobody comments on anybody else's choice.
Wrap-up
What opens doors is two or three things, and the pile beside it usually ends up much bigger. Almost every place where somebody is expected every week asks for no key, it asks that the person already belongs there. That is where life happens, and it can be exactly where nobody knows what you believe.
Passage
The man Jesus has just set free asks to go with him, and it is the only time Jesus turns down somebody who wants to follow him. He sends him home, to his own people, to tell them what happened (Mark 5:19, NIV). The hardest place was not the journey, it was the street where everybody already knew him.
Closing
Each person keeps the small thing in their hand and whoever feels like it prays out loud for all those places at once, naming none of them. Whoever wants to say the name of a person from that place, says it. Whoever does not want to stays quiet, and nobody asks about it afterwards.
Once the prayer is over, the small things go back to the middle of the table and each person takes their own back. Nobody leaves the room with anything they did not arrive with.
Why this activity works
The value is in the contrast between the two piles, and it only shows up if the rounds keep going until the middle is empty. If whoever is leading stops at the first round to save time, each person ends up with one or two small things, the difference disappears and what is left is a conversation about keys.
How it goes
Nobody in that room has the phone on loud. We silence it so as not to disturb, at work, at church, in a meeting, and then we forget it is silenced. This activity is about what goes by while the phone is like that.
Before you start, make it clear that nobody is going to show their screen to anybody and nobody is going to read a message out loud. The phone only leaves its place when you ask.
Ask everybody to put the phone on silent now, right there in front of everyone, and leave it face down. On silent, never on airplane mode: the phone keeps receiving everything, it only does not announce it.
With the phones face down, carry the meeting on with something else for a few minutes. In the meantime, without saying anything, send a message of your own to people in the room, one person at a time, copying and pasting the same text. If the group is small, send it to everybody; if it is big, pick some, and nobody needs to know who. The message is short and has some hurry in it: “I really need your help with something, answer me as soon as you read this”.
Then ask everybody to pick the phone up at the same time and look. Whoever has a message from you raises their hand, without reading anything out loud.
Then one question, for whoever raised a hand: if I had not asked you to look right now, when would you have seen that message?
Wrap-up
The phone was not switched off. It received everything, at the moment it was sent, and it only did not announce it. Nobody missed the message for being far away, they missed it for being on silent, two steps from the person calling.
The silent mode of everyday life is not a lack of faith in God. It is what makes us lose the sense that the Holy Spirit is speaking, and he speaks in the small things, the way you answer at home, taking or not taking a call, and he speaks in the big ones too, a decision at work, going or not going somewhere, making or not making a trip. God has not stopped speaking. It is the alert that is switched off.
Passage
Elijah waits for God in the wind that tore the mountains apart, in the earthquake and in the fire, and it was in none of the three. After all of it came a gentle whisper, and that was where he was (1 Kings 19:11-12, NIV). What arrives without a sound is exactly what sets off nobody's phone.
Closing
Before praying, ask whether somebody wants to tell of a time when they were set on doing something, noticed God speaking and did not do it, and later saw that not doing it was the best decision they made. One story, from whoever wants to. If nobody says anything, move on and do not press.
Then put a worship song on, the way your group already does it, and the prayer is in silence, each one where they are, for the length of the song. Each person puts before God what they have already noticed is on silent in them, the numbness they recognise, the sense that has been missing. When the song ends, the prayer ends, and nobody has to say anything.
Why this activity works
It works because the room does not know a message is on its way. It is the not knowing that makes the discovery worth anything, and that is why whoever is leading does not announce it beforehand or keep asking whether everybody really silenced the phone: if the room suspects, everybody keeps an eye on the phone, nobody misses anything and there is no activity left.
And it is silent mode, never airplane mode. On airplane mode the message does not arrive, and the whole point is that it does.
How it goes
Agree before you start: nobody is going to explain or justify what they did, and whoever would rather not stand up does the same gestures sitting down, as discreetly as they want. Nobody insists with anybody.
Ask everybody to stand up, spread around the room, facing different directions. Say that this moment is the one where each person walks through the door into their own home, on an ordinary day. In silence and all at the same time, each one goes through the first five minutes of getting home, the way it really happens. Taking the shoes off, dropping the bag, turning the light on, opening the fridge, looking at the phone, sitting down. No talking, no performing for the others, each at their own pace.
After a couple of minutes, ask them to stop where they are and look around. Each one is standing in the middle of their own home, and there are as many homes happening in there as there are people in the room.
Then ask one question: at any point in those five minutes, did you speak to anybody?
Wrap-up
The whole room has just repeated a scene that happens almost every day, and there may be nobody else in it. It is not loneliness, it is routine. But it is the same routine that can make somebody arrive at the meeting without having said a whole sentence to anybody since morning.
Closing
Still standing, each person picks one of the gestures they have just made and the group prays right there, on their feet, each in their own corner of the room, with no circle and no order of speaking.
The challenge
The gesture they chose becomes, for this week, the place of their own prayer. Thirty seconds, in the same gesture, every day.
Whoever lives with somebody tries, once in the week, to make those five minutes include a question to that person. Whoever lives alone sends a voice message to somebody within those five minutes.
How it goes
Everybody stays seated where they already are. Before you start, make it clear: nobody explains their own routine, nobody comments on anybody else's and nobody asks the reason for anything. Whoever does not use an alarm goes by the time they usually wake up.
Run a quick round of guesses: each person calls out how many hours the person sitting beside them has been awake. The number only, with no explaining why. Twelve, sixteen, eighteen. And one rule: nobody guesses about somebody whose routine they already know. Husband and wife, mother and son, people who live under the same roof, that is not a guess, it is an answer. In those cases, swap the pair before you start. On a video call, whoever is leading calls out the pairs.
Then, one at a time around the circle, each person says the time their alarm goes off on an ordinary day and, right after, how many hours they have been awake now. The arithmetic is each person's own, and it is quick: from the alarm until this moment. And that is when the guess comes back: whoever said twelve and heard seventeen has just found out something about somebody they see every week.
Wrap-up
The meeting starts at the same time for everybody, but nobody arrives in the same state. Whoever wakes up earliest may arrive quiet, and that has nothing to do with wanting to be there. The group may never have known it because it never asked.
Closing
The round has just shown that the week of each person in there is heavier than the room imagined. So the group books one thing, right then, to do together outside the meeting: a picnic, an afternoon on bikes with the children in the park, a walk, a weekend at somebody's place, whatever fits the group's calendar. Set the date before anybody leaves their seat, and whoever wakes up earliest has the last word.
And if it makes sense, change the time of the meeting, or even the day. Fitting the meeting to people's real lives may be what it takes.
Why this activity works
What makes the activity work is the guess being wrong. Hearing everybody's alarm, on its own, is a conversation about schedules. What changes the way the room sees it is the number said by the person, next to the guess somebody made about them. If whoever is leading skips the round of guesses to save time, the conversation stays and the discovery goes.
How it goes
The group sits with something in front of them where the paper can stay face down and in sight: a table, a tray, a bench, or the seat next to each person. Hand out paper and a pen. One rule holds the whole activity up, and it is said before the paper reaches anybody's hand: a paper that is face down is not opened, not commented on and not counted.
Each person writes a question they would like somebody to ask them and that nobody asks. The question, not the answer. If it helps, give short, ordinary examples: how is the new job, how is your mother, how did the appointment go.
Each person puts the paper in front of them, face down. Give the table a moment of silence like that, covered in questions nobody asks.
Then explain how it goes, before the first person starts: on their turn, each one decides whether to turn the paper over or not. Whoever turns it hands the paper to the person beside them, and it is that person who asks the question out loud, looking at whoever wrote it. That is what this activity has to give: the question nobody asks you, somebody finally asks.
Only after hearing it does the owner answer, if they want to answer. Whoever would rather not turn it says “pass”, leaves the paper where it is, and it moves on. One turn only, no second round.
Wrap-up
The table ends with papers face down and papers face up, and both say something. Nobody had to ask for attention and nobody had to expose themselves to be cared for. The group comes to know there are questions in that room nobody is asking, even without knowing which ones.
Passage
The man has been lying by the pool for thirty-eight years, and the first thing Jesus does is not to heal him, it is to ask whether he wants to get well (John 5:6, NIV). The answer could have been assumed. He preferred to hear the man say it.
Closing
The papers that stayed face down stay face down and go home with their owners. Nobody collects them. Whoever asked somebody's question prays for that person, by name, however they want to pray. For the papers that stayed face down the one who prays is you, without knowing what is written on them, and the group follows in silence.
Why this activity works
The real possibility of not turning the paper over is what makes the activity work: it is what gives confidence to whoever turns it. The temptation of whoever is leading is to ask everybody to turn theirs, because the table looks better that way, and that is exactly what ruins it, because once turning it becomes what is expected it stops being a choice.
How it goes
Every group is made of invitations that came one after another. Somebody called somebody, who called somebody else, and that is how the room filled up. This activity draws that chain on the floor.
Before you start, make it clear that almost every line ends in somebody, and that this goes for the whole group, whoever is leading included. Being at the end of a line does not mean the person cares less. Whoever would rather answer sitting down does, and the line forms around them. That is why you go first and alone: the room sees right away that starting an incomplete line is nothing to be ashamed of.
Open a clear space in the middle of the room, big enough for several people to stand one behind the other, and keep everybody seated until they are called. Start with yourself: stand in the middle and say the name of whoever brought you to the group. If that person is not there, you stand alone, and the first line of the night already starts incomplete.
Then one at a time. Whoever was invited by somebody in the room stands up and goes behind that person. Whoever was invited by somebody who is no longer in the group says the name out loud and starts their own line, and whoever would rather not say the name just says it was somebody who is not here any more, and starts the line all the same. Whoever arrived with no invitation from anybody says who was the first person to talk to them on that first day, and stands behind them. In a few minutes the room turns into two or three lines, and some people are left standing alone.
When nobody else has anywhere to stand, ask everybody to look at the room and count how many lines formed and how many people are standing alone.
Wrap-up
The group is not a group that grew, it is a chain of invitations, and its drawing is there on the floor. Every line ends in somebody, and ending is not a failure. It is only the point where the chain has not carried on yet.
Passage
Andrew meets Jesus and the first thing he does is go after his own brother to tell him they have found the Messiah, and then he brings Simon to him (John 1:41-42, NIV). The church starts with somebody going to fetch one person by name.
Closing
Without anybody leaving their place, the group gives thanks. In this prayer nobody asks for anything: it is only gratitude, for whoever invited, for whoever insisted, for whoever prayed for that person to be there. Each one gives thanks in silence, and whoever wants to say out loud the name of the person who brought them, says it. Nobody asks afterwards about whoever stayed quiet.
The challenge
Whoever was invited sends a thank-you message today to the person who brought them, whether that person is in the room or not. That is all, with nothing asked for.
Whoever said a name during the activity makes the invitation during the week. At the next meeting the question is how the conversation went, not whether the person came.
Easy is not about what happens in the meeting, it is about what the meeting asks of whoever is leading before it starts. Three demands, and an easy activity makes none of them.
If it depends on cardboard, string, balloons or printing, somebody has to leave home early. What is already in the room and already in people's pockets costs nothing and holds nobody up.
Four of the twelve activities published here ask for something to be set up before people arrive, and that is exactly what disappears in this collection: none of the seven needs the room to be ready in advance.
An activity that only works if everybody did their homework usually dies on Wednesday. On this page, what crosses the week is always the challenge, which nobody is obliged to do, and never the activity itself.
People who already know each other can take a question that turns inward, and that is where an easy activity goes furthest, because the group needs no warming up. On this page, activities 1, 4 and 6.
Here the object does the work that closeness cannot do yet: people talk about places and things, not about themselves. On this page, activities 2 and 3.
The group is new and nobody knows yet who invited whom. The one in this band draws that on the floor of the room. On this page, activity 7.
A full room calls for something that does not depend on each person speaking in turn. On this page, activity 5.
It is one the leader can run without buying anything, without setting anything up before the meeting and without depending on materials nobody has at home. What it uses is already in the room or in people's pockets: the phone, the key or the badge in a pocket, a personal object, paper and a pen. Easy is about the preparation, not about how deep the night goes.
You can, and most of the good ones are like that. What you cannot do is lead without having read it. None of the seven on this page asks for preparation, and all of them ask that whoever leads knows by heart the rule that is said before starting and the question at the end. Reading it once on the way to the meeting is usually enough.
No. What usually makes an activity weak is the group doing something and nothing changing meaning along the way. That has nothing to do with the materials. The seven on this page ask for little and still have a moment where what the group has just done means something else.
Pick one that uses only what people already bring and that has a single question at the end, so you do not have to improvise on the spot. On this page, “Two minutes to answer” and “The first five minutes at home” are the ones that ask least: fifteen minutes each, with nothing to carry.
It gets in the way when the phone comes in with no agreement and everybody goes their own way. When it is the material of the activity, with the time marked and a rule said beforehand, the effect is the opposite: the whole room does the same thing at the same time and then puts the device away. Two of the seven use the phone like that, and both say when it goes back in the pocket.
Want to keep the seven activities? We send the PDF by email, free of charge and with no sales talk.
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