Monthly Archives: September 2011

Youth Ministry

Shrek Themed Birthday Party

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shrek.jpgDescription
In every youth group, there will be opportunities to celebrate the birthdays of your teens. Here is a Birthday Party theme with one of my favorite animated characters.

Decoration Ideas

  • Poster board cut and decorated to look like castle windows.
  • A poster on the Door saying: Welcome to the land of Far Far Away
  • Cut out poster board to look like Shrek and Fiona’s carriage (garlic clove of Garlic).
  • Shrek soft toys and plushies.
  • Cover your table with a bright yellow table cloth. Scatter green sequins all around the top. – Run strips of green and purple streamers down the center to create a table runner.
  • If your party is for younger youth or children, build a castle using a large appliance box and small boxes on-top. Cut a door and windows. Paint the entire castle with gray paint. Alternatively, decorate the box to look like a tree stump with windows. The children can use this for playtime and you’ll be able to keep it for your lucky birthday child! And it’s a great decoration for a youth party too!

 

Party Hat Ideas
Greet Everyone at the door with their very own pair of Ogre Ears.

Materials

    • Large sheets of light and dark green Craft Foam or construction paper.
  • Craft glue or a hot glue gun.
  • Headbands

 

Instructions

  1. Cut two shrek ears and two small triangles for the inside of the ears.
  2. Attach the small triangles to the ears with a glue gun.
  3. Then attach the ears to the head band with the glue gun.

 

Food Ideas:

  • Ginger Bread Man Cookies
  • Roasted Turkey Legs
  • Roasted Garlic Cloves
  • “Worms” in red swamp mud (Spaghetti Bolognese)
  • Soda with green food coloring

 

Game Ideas:
Pin the Wings on the Donkey

  • Just like Pin the Tail on the Donkey, but you’ll need to make wings with construction paper or craft foam sheets.
  • Enlist an artistic teen to draw a Donkey on poster board … they are much cuter that the donkey in the traditional game.

 

Prince Charming Tag

  • Designate a Prince Charming. That player will wear a crown.
  • When you say go…the guests will try to catch the Prince.To make it more difficult for youth, blindfold them and have prince charming quote lines from the movie. Youth follow the voice and try to tag prince charming.

 

Cupcake Walk

  • Let youth draw and color a picture of their favorite Shrek character on squares of heavy paper.
  • Tape the squares to the floor in a circle, using one fewer than the number of participants.
  • The birthday youth gets to start and stop the music at appropriate times during the game.
  • When the music starts, like in the traditional musical chairs, the teens walk from square to square.
  • When the music stops, the youth left without a square is out of the game but gets a cupcake.
  • Play continues until one player is left.
  • Award a prize to the winner, along with a tasty cupcake.
Game Ideas

Unwrap the Birthday Gift

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Description

The “Unwrap the Gift” game is similar to the Pass the Parcel Game with the difference being that this one gives you a phrase that determines which youth gets the gift next. While you can use this for Christmas, it can also be used for birthdays. Why should the birthday teen be the only one who gets a gift? Want to make it even more inclusive? — Then use a gift like snacks or party favors that everyone can enjoy!

Preparation

To play this Unwrap the Gift game, you’ll need to wrap a gift in multiple layers of wrapping paper with a slip of paper per wrapped layer. You’ll need pieces of paper or sticker labels with the phrases written on them. Remember that the final phrase is below the first layer you wrap.

Note: When wrapping the gift use at least 2 different designs of wrapping paper so visually the guest will easily know when they have unwrap the topmost layer. If you use pink paper for one layer and
purple for the next you won’t have someone unwrapping 2 layers at the same time by accident.

The Phrases

You could use rhymes, bible verses, accessories, clothing color, riddles, trivia questions, favorite foods, pets, hobbies, anything you can imagine. Some examples of phrases to use:

  • The next one to get it all, is someone who is very tall.
  • Who’s up next? The gift goes where? To the one with the longest hair.
  • Mark 9:3 “His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them.”
  • Someone who loves ice-cream.
  • Someone who has a pet dog.
  • Someone wearing a bracelet.
  • Someone who knows the number of books in the Old Testament.
  • Someone who can finish the verse,”The Lord is my shepherd…”

Please add a few phrases of your own by posting a comment to this entry with your own ideas.

 

The phrases should get progressively complex and go from general to specific. You’ll want to start by seeing people wanting to avoid receiving the gift early, then clamoring to get it later in the game.

What to Do

  1. Grab your wrapped gift and invite everyone in the room and have them sit in a circle facing each other.
  2. Announce that you are going to play Unwrap the Gift game.
  3. Explain that when you receive the gift, you’ll need to Unwrap 1 layer of wrapping paper and read the next phrase to determine who gets the gift next. The last person to unwrap the last layer of wrapping paper wins the gift and once you have had your turn unwrapping, you cannot receive the gift again. There’s no telling how many layers there are so, the next one to completely unwrap the gift gets to keep it!
  4. We suggest the Party Host save a spot in the circle and start the game off so everyone understands how it is played. The birthday teen could even be the first one to start the game.

Take it to the Next Level

Here are some possible lessons:

  • Surprises: Life is often full of surprises. Some are ours to keep and others are meant to be passed on.
  • Grace: While in this game, you have to do something or possess a certain characteristic to get the gift, the grace is different. Grace is unmerited favor.
  • Salvation: The gift of salvation is not the result of someone being born on a certain day, but because someone died on a certain day. Jesus gave his life, so that we might live. It was an unmerited gift, not based on who we are or what we do, but who God is and what he did for you! For God so loved he gave.
  • Gifts: A lot of gifts come to us in life. Some are ours to keep, but most are ours to share and pass on to others.
  • Evangelism: Evangelism is receiving the gift of God and passing it on so that someone else can be blessed.

 

Just for Fun

Of course, you can just play this as a fun game at a Birthday Party, Christmas Party or any other celebration with friends.

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MORE IDEAS? See “Creative Object Lessons”
200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.
Learn More…