By Rev. Doug Forbes

The Christian Life should be fun and filled with positive, happy activities. One fun activity your youth group will enjoy trying is a beach ball fun night.

For Beach Ball Fun Night, you need: Bibles, Bible concordances, a volleyball net, croquet mallets, a chair for each person, one to two dozen 9 or 12 inch beach balls (your goal is to have one beach ball for every two young people) and lots of hot air.

Begin with beach ball dodge ball, and then move on to the beach ball soccer, volleyball and croquet. (Make your giant wickets for beach-ball croquet from metal coat hangers.)

Finish by playing a game of wonder ball using beach balls. To play wonder ball, have your students sit in chairs forming a circle. When music is played, one or more balls are passed. The person holding the ball when the music stops is out. Keep playing until there is only one person left. That person wins the ball. You could play several games and have several winners. When we play this with younger children, we let everyone win a ball.

For a Bible study, conduct a short devotional on happiness. John 10:10(b) tells us that Jesus came to give us a full life. Psalm 1 and Psalm 68:3 tells us that we are happiest when we make good choices. Ask your young people to use their concordances to look up Bible verses or stories on happiness and joy. These could include the Exodus, the wedding in Cana of Galilee and Jesus feeding hungry people and healing the sick.

Conclude with prayer thanking God for joyful, happy times. Pray for those less fortunate in our country and around the world.

This could be a good opportunity to introduce a missions project that would bring happiness to other children. One possible project is Operation Christmas Child. This project involves filling a shoebox with toys, school supplies, candy and basic necessities for a needy child. For more information on Operation Christmas child, visit www.samaritanspurse.org.