Bible Smugglers

THIS GAME IS SO FUN! Students loved it, staff loved it. Works best on big property, but also works well in small property. The only problem was making kids be quiet when hiding and not exposing their fellow teammates.

Number 1, persecution is real and communicating it to our kids is needed. We may want to just call them persecutors and not communists but.... Secondly, for a little more fun make a dungeon where people that refuse to give up their bibles have to each pudding and raisins out of a diaper or do 20 push-ups etc..

Love this, taking it to youth group to play

This is an awesome game! Exactly what I was looking for for the survival camp we are hosting. Great idea.

Indigenous, it is not "their" community to blockade, keeping their fellow neighbors cut off from outside information like the Gospel. You've got is rather backwards. And in any case its no excuss to hurt christians, or anyone. Persecution of Christians/churches and baning bibles is certainly no different than book burning and baring free speech, but even if those social values are thwarted the Gospel will still be preached. You cannot force your neighbours to be athiest.

Hey, uuhh it's just a game you guys.

OP, its a game. a kids game. the point is to have fun. not only is the game a knockoff of capture the flag (except with bibles, oh goody), its also extremely unnecessary to have a drastic storyline like this one. why do we have to bring up the past? games shouldnt be as... heavy as this one. way too radical...

If you don't like the Christian theme then you can change it to, say, Vodka Smugglers. Smugglers smuggle "vodka" into Russia, and they have to avoid getting caught by the border patrol or something along those lines.

People who hurt Christians do so precisely because Christians try to indoctrinate them and save them with their Gospel. Let people come to you instead of you invading their communities.

I see many "snowflakes in the making" comments here. We need to make Christian soldiers out of our youth. Be willing to be hurt for what you believe in - Jesus Christ and His mission.

hello. what has happened to my life that i ended up here and then read all the comments

I read some of the comments and found some repulsive being in the sense if we are all believers (some are not) in youth ministry our goal is to create or continue with games that show we (Christians) have fun but to share Jesus, Our Savior, who saved each and every last one of us. To show love and mercy and courage traits Jesus created and had.
I am studying to be a missionary, but I have also been on countless missions to various places. People do hate Christians and they will destroy, hurt, and/or kill a Christian. It is sad that most Christians, in America, hide this reality from their children and when these children become teen the foundation is shaken because the child was never properly prepared for opposition. I said above courage, mercy, but importantly love. Bible Smugglers show this concept. You have to hide a Bible and show courage as well as protect in some versions your other Christians or who you are trying to share that bible with. You have to show love to the enemy who is coming and waiting to hurt you. Mercy is being shown because some groups (depending on how you play) get caught and have to face a punishment (depending how you play again) [I have stories] and during that time you are sharing Jesus and forgiving your persecutor. As Jesus forgave all of us who persecuted Him who is perfect and us who are imperfect.
When I played this game the place could change from China, North Korea, Middle East, etc. We would play at camp at night in the woods. There would be about 30 leaders (20 bad guys, 5 people we need to get information on where everyone is meeting, 5 others to give bibles to them). Each group would get a bible or pieces of pages which needed to be hidden if we got caught from the bad guys. I remember sometimes the guards who captured us, we would minister to and they were actually the person we need to tell Jesus about (courage, love, mercy). In the end we would get to a bonfire and praise God for our freedom to worship and pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters and missionaries who still smuggle Bibles to people.
For the Glory of God. Let His Will be Done. Amen.

God loves everyone equally, so technically christians are communists. Just sayin'

There is no such thing as a Christian Nazi. Hitler was an occultist who hated God and closed down Bible colleges. Now re: understanding that in a massive part of the world people take risks to deliver Bibles to those who are begging for them, that I would not call "intolerant". In Australia I have had freedom to attend Socialist meetings, Islamic meetings, Hindu meetings and Christian meetings. After intent seeking of the truth I decided to follow Jesus. As a historically somewhat Christian nation we have given people freedom to think - I have never been imprisoned for meeting with the socialist party. Christians in communist countries, however, are imprisoned for their meetings. Our peculiar white Australian heritage was not by any means Biblical either, that was merely greed and corruption- I thought to add that as my children are descended from the stolen generation.

I think this Trump vs. Mexicans would work...

Interesting, when I was a camper we played this game but we called it Hebrews vs inquisitors. My little brother says he played a version called progressives vs McCarthyists. I’ve also heard farmers vs crusaders is a fun one but if you want to stay more recent I figure you could make this Jews, blacks, gypsies, and gays vs Christian nazis. Funny how our childhoods differ in these little ways.

Over 215,000,000 Christians are CURRENTLY being persecuted around the world. According to Open Doors, every month 255 Christians are killed; 104 abducted; 180 Christian women are raped, sexually assaulted, or forced into marriage; 160 Christians detained or imprisoned without trial; and 66 churches are attacked.

Nothing wrong with bringing awareness to the plight of Christians outside of the U.S.

Religion is outdated, but, so is the monetary system and many other institutions. Whatever helps you sleep at night I suppose.
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." -Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Roman Stoic philosopher
Also, this is a great game! I'll be using it without the spin of religion.

I used this game for my kids camp this past summer, except we used duct tape on the back instead of wool. We bent the duct tape so that it would have a "tag" that you could just pull off really quick instead of battling to get the tape off. We had a secret agent theme, and the kids were trying to escape the enemy base with the secret that the enemy group had stole and make it back to their home base to be able to share the great secret with everyone. It went along with a drama that we did. Almost all of the kids said that this was their favorite game out of the whole camp. With the few tweaks I made, it was a great game. Setup took a little longer than I thought, though.

Gross. Communists may/have persecuted Christians for their beliefs but Christians have done the same. It's propaganda, no other way to put it. I see "good christians" spew hate towards Muslims for no other reason besides the fact that they are Muslim.

I played this once years ago at a Bible camp only they called it "The Underground Church." Same premise, but if you got caught, you would just go hang out on the Noah's Ark play themed playground until the game is was over. Might as well have just played sardines. Christian youth group is weird.

Why not indoctrinate kids at every opportunity huh? With religious nonsense, and outdated political propaganda. Great idea!

Great game thanks, I'll use it.😊

This is ridiculous. The game isn't racist or teach kids to be ignorant of other people's beliefs, it is just a fun game. The name isn't racist or oppressing either. Communist countries persecute people for no good reason other than that those persecuted people don't believe what they believe. That is selfish and what sin has brought upon those ignorant people. Innocent people are persecuted and you can't say that mentioning this is bad, because saying THAT doesn't change or hide that fact that it is still happening. These persecuted people have families, families that won't see them again because some guy with power decided to kill or jail them. If you disagree with persecuting people for wanting to change to be a better person and go to Heaven with Christ, you should rethink what your values are.

woazes um. this game is good teaches kids the importance and wealth of our freedom. to appreciate our freedom to worship and have a bible to read without being persecuted. Too comfortable here. Good game. How blessed are we.

This is a very interesting game, and those who call it racist or an us against them kind of game need to realize that it is a game. Capture the flag is an us vs them game and no one complains about that. People need to stop being so sensitive to these types of games, if you don't like it then don't play it.

Wow, I am miffed. How utterly selfish of adults to impose their views on young kids who should be learning to think for themselves. Teaching children "us" against "them" does nothing but keep humans further away from each other. How about teaching, tolerance and compassion. Just because our history may not always reflect those values, it does not mean we should not nurture them in our children.
People hurt because they are hurt.
This "bible smugglers" game teaches kids to do the very thing you are frustrated about. You say the communist countries are intolerant of the bible. Are you tolerant to their views and decisions?

i have played this game with my youth group at church camp, i must admit it is very fun, challenging, amusing, and also fun for the leaders. yes it is a christian game but you do NOT have to make it that way. i have made a game that's exactly the same but i called it Jewel Thieves. same rules and every thing but, the kids are thieves and the adults are detectives/cops. so yes Bible Smugglers IS a christian game, but, you DO NOT have to make it that way. please DO NOT go hating christian or hating this game.

Hahaha this is hilarious, but I love it lol might play it on our youth camp!

At my church, we call this game "Bible Smugglers". It is the same premise where kids try to get their Bibles (or wool) from one end of the property to the other. We primarily play this at camp where leaders can hide in the trees and scare them. If they got caught, they could either deny their faith and start again or they were taken to jail. It was very fun and showed the kids how scary missionary work was

I played this at camp after my 5th grade year, only it was romans and christians. f you got caught by a roman, you had to either deny your faith or be taken to "jail" where the counselors were putting on basically an Apologetics boot camp, yelling at the kids about how God didnt exist, and it was our job to try and convince them that He did. I absolutely LOVED this game. It is one of the things I remember from camp and it was SO intense, but it was great. My first time LARPing. :-D

How has no one mentioned the complete lack of supervision in this game? You take your campers to the farthest point on site from their building and leave them there to go hide anywhere on site? What a mess that would be, any camp counselor with any respect for their job would laugh instantly at such a concept.

Um....pretty sure communism isn't a race. Just saying. This game would be great if you're doing a lesson involving the persecuted church. Maybe call it something different if you think it offends, but there is no denying that it's a great concept to use.

Its a GAME. Stop taking it so serious. Theres nothing wrong with the meaning behind the game. And George, do you even know what racist means because nothing about this game is.

If you have flag football flags - this is a great game to play during the day and then toward the evening devotional - focus prayer on the Persecuted/Underground Church. (See Voice of the Martyrs.)

I played this when I was at school and we called it cats and dogs... just saying the name dosent really matter

I'm going to use it. We're running a camp with the theme "The Sword", as in the Bible. One of our stories is the life of Brother Andrew. So we'll use the game in the context of the history of Open Doors, and the current reality of Christians in (for example) Laos.

I'm with Jeremy and Sandra.

call it romans vs. christians if you are afraid of offending someone

If this site had a 'like' button, I'd 'like' the post above ^^

Well, the youths will have no problem getting back to base because all the leaders will be too busy debating and arguing amongst themselves to notice.

Do you know, George, how oppressive Communism is? Most Christians I know refuse to stand by while innocent people are persecuted for no reason; and it's not necessarily 'other people's beliefs', either. There's plenty of Christians and people willing to accept the Gospel, but, due to their oppressive Government, have to have Bibles smuggled into the country (hence the premise of the game). I find standing by and watching people get persecuted offensive, as long as that's happening I have NO PROBLEM offending 'communists'.

This game is very offensive, and almost racist. Christian's need to learn to keep their noses out of other people's belief's. Has Iraq and the Cold War taught us nothing?? Come on people..

It does sound pretty weird, I'll admit, but Dave, are you aware of the persecution Christians suffer in places like China, Korea and, recently in the news, Russia? It's not as outdated as you seem to think.

Agreed, what an outdated premise - christians vs communists? I mean really...

This is the weirdest game I've ever heard of.