Greetings fellow youth workers & Sunday School teachers! If you are like me you have probably seen the great potential Redemption® has in communicating the gospel. However, you might be wondering how can it be optimized? Here are a few ways you can transform Redemption into a learning experience.

A.) Have your youth play Redemption as a youth activity - This is really quite simple. All you have to do is buy enough starter decks for each of your kids. You can keep the decks at the church or in the youth room for them to enjoy. What is so nice is that the starter decks are already balanced and ready to play. All you have to know is the basic rules of the game. Just playing Redemption does four things:

1. It gets the youth to memorize Bible characters and events. Encourage them to say the names on the cards when they play. They will pick up the names in no time. It is really exciting when I am having a lesson and I will talk about someone that is a Redemption card. All of a sudden a youth will light up and say, "Hey, isn't that so and so?" They start making connections between the cards and the lessons!
2. It causes them to interact with each other. We live in a world that is full of individuals. Rarely do we have face-to-face talks with anyone anymore. Because of the way Redemption is played it forces the youth to do just that. It causes them to learn good interaction as well as problem-solving skills.
3. They can learn from you. Many times while I am playing I will say things about certain cards like, "Did you know that Gideon was an awesome military leader?" When they say "No" it gives me the opportunity to tell them about how Gideon and a few hundred men beat up on a far superior army. What is exciting is that months later they still remember the story!
4. It offers your youth a strong alternative to the other dark and sinister Card Collecting Games on the market today. This point alone should be enough for you to encourage your youth to play Redemption.

B.) Base your lessons around certain cards - One Sunday I taught my youth about faith. We covered several stories in which people were miraculously healed by Jesus because they had faith. Then we covered the passage about only needing the faith of a mustard seed to be able to move mountains. I then passed out the Faith card that has a picture of a person looking at a mustard seed. I told them to put the cards in their Bibles as a bookmark. Now, every time they come across that card, they will think of the lesson!

C.) Hold Redemption Trivia Contests! - Never have I had kids diving into their Bibles faster than with these contests! I have had a lot of success with this. All I do is take about eight of the cards that have facinating stories, (i.e. Elisha's Bones) and I will ask them something like "Why is a card about bones a healing card?" They have to look up the Bible reference at the bottom of the card and read the story in the Bible to find the answers. Prizes are usually packs of cards. Although this costs you a little, it is worth it for the Biblical knowledge that they gain.

D.) Host Redemption Tournaments - This is a lot of fun because you get to meet other believers from your area who also play. It gives your youth a chance to trade and talk strategies with fellow Christians. Fellowship is something that is desperately missing in teens' lives today and tournaments are one way of fulfilling that void. It also gives you an opportunity to teach about sportmanship should they start complaining when they lose.

E.) Start a Redemption Club - It gives the youth an opportunity to come hang out at the church and play. In fact, sometimes they don't even play, they just come to hang out. When is the last time you had your youth show up at church to hang out? This is also a great opportunity for them to bring their non-Christian friends to play. What a witness opportunity!

F.) Hold Dream Card Contests - This is always fun. Have your youth create cards from their favorite passages in the Bible. Winners are allowed to put them in their decks. (This can be done by putting white labels on extra Redemption cards and adding the info to them.) Be sure to keep your eye on the Official Redemption homepage as well because they have the same contest and the winners have their cards made into real redemption cards!