Armor of God- Draw Your Sword Game

I am gearing up for a new CCD year, and planning activities for this years' theme.  Last year's theme of "My Soul Magnifies the Lord" was lots of fun, but although Mary is all of our Mother, it definitely felt like some (most) of our decorations and activities were more girl friendly than boy friendly.  So, I may be over compensating a little in the opposite direction, but the theme this year is "Put on the Whole Armor of God" and our patron Saint is St. Michael the Archangel.   I am planning decorations and ways to incorporate the theme into our year long activities, but I am also working on a Boys' Retreat to go along with the same theme.  I'll be sharing some of the games and activities that we use for that event.

First up: Draw Your Sword.

Every now and then in one of my college Bible Studies, we would play a "lame" game called Draw Your Sword.  The idea was to improve memorization of where to find things in the Bible and speed in looking things up.  Someone in the group would call out a book, chapter, and verse, and the first to find it and start reading was the winner and would get to call out the next verse.  A little friendly competition made it entertaining.

The name "Draw Your Sword" comes from Hebrews 4:12- "For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword."  Knowing the Word of God is the best weapon we can arm ourselves with against the world.

To make the idea of familiarizing them with the Bible and looking up references a little more fun, I made this game.

Starting with an empty small coffee can, I colored and attached the Draw Your Sword printable, (link below).

Then buy different colors of plastic knives (swords) and write a Book, Chapter, and Verse on the end of the knife with a Sharpie.  (Note- if you are working with really little kids, or kids prone to violence :) I don't recommend plastic knives- those suckers can still hurt.  I have a knife-free option below. I went ahead and used knives because I knew that my older students could handle it.)

There is a list below of verses, at least one from each book of the Bible, and a lot of them connect to the theme of the Armor of God.

Here is the finished jar.  Now, arm each kid with a Bible, have one draw out a sword, and race to see who can find it first.  The first one to read the verse gets to pull the next sword.  I made plenty of swords so they could even be split into cups for use with smaller groups.

Click here for a printable label to wrap around a jar or container:

Click here for a two page printable with Scripture verses from the entire Bible if you would rather use paper instead of plastic knives. You could cut these out and put them in a jar or envelope for the same kind of game.