Meandering Moments by Elsi

My word! We played Four on the Couch in youth group tonight—there’s no way I could keep track! Some of the kids were baffled too, but many were right on top of it. How do they do that?

Okay, so you divide into even teams; we did boys against girls. You sit in a circle of chairs, and four—two guys and two gals—(I suppose that varies according to group size; there were 15 of us) are on the “couch” (or four chairs together). The idea is to get all the kids on the couch from your team. You put everyone’s name on a slip of paper, and people draw names. Oh, and you have one more chair than players.

Now, the person to the left of the empty chair calls someone’s name. The person holding that name moves to the empty chair. In the easy version of the game, the person just sits down. In the hard version, the person who moved and the person who called now trade name-slips. Either way, you supposedly now know who has the name that was called.

Whoever is on the left of the new empty chair calls a name, and the person holding that slip moves (and they trade, if you’re a glutton for punishment). The idea is to remember who has each name, so you can call the other team off the couch and put members of your team on it.

Much laughter … much hilarity … much shouting and hinting … and total befuddlement on my part!