Pumpkin Patch Relay

Game Description
In this relay, participants will try to replace the missing pieces that have been removed from their team's pumpkin. It can be used as party game for your October 31st Halloween alternative, for a harvest festival, or a Halloween carnival.

Game Materials

• One carved pumpkin for each team. (Keep the pieces that are cut out)
• Sharp knife for preparing the pumpkins.

Game Preparation

1. Cut off the top of the pumpkins and remove the seeds and pulp so that they have been cleaned out. Cut a different face in each pumpkin, but save the pieces that you remove and set them aside.
2. Collect all the pieces you removed from the pumpkin and mix them up and place them on a table at one end of the room.
3. At the other end of the room set up a small table for each team and place each team's pumpkin on the table.

Game Play

1. The objective of this game is to have team members run across the room... grab one piece that looks like it might fit the holes in that team's pumpkin and return to his team with the piece.
2. If the piece fits in the pumpkin, the next person can run to get a new piece. If the piece doesn't fit, the next person on the team must return it to the table at the end of the room and collect another piece to try.
3. First team to complete it's pumpkin wins the relay!

Game Variation
Play the game blindfolded. (Be sure to remove any furniture or other things in the room that might injure the participants. You can also place helpers at strategic locations to protect the players.)

Spiritual Applications
Use it with one of these ideas for a meaningful lesson:

• Use the pumpkin as a metaphor for a Christian - The Pumpkin
• Object Lesson / Children's sermon using a Pumpkin - Like A Halloween Pumpkin
• A specially carved pumpkin and poem to share the plan of Salvation - Jack-O-Lantern
• A Children's sermon on being the person God created you to be - Perky the orange Pumpkin
• A children's sermon or Object Lesson on being the light of the World - Peter Pumpkin
• An object lesson or Children's sermon on prayer - Pumpkin prayer
• Use this puzzle game to teach about the destructiveness of sin and Christ's payment for sin on the cross- Pumpkin Puzzles
• Talk about how we all have holes in our our lives (an emptiness) we are trying to fill. Some people may try to fill it with money, with relationships, with various types of pleasures, etc. But the only thing that can fill the emptiness we have in our lives is a relationship with God. Blaise Pascal says we were all created with a God-shaped vacuum that only he can fill.
• Just as you had to align the pieces with the various holes in the pumpkin, we have to align the various areas of our lives with the will of God. Only those things of God which are aligned with his plan for our individual lives, will fit correctly and make us whole.

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