One of my favorite months of the year as a youth minister was August. Summer was winding down, school was starting up, and adults began ducking me after Mass because they knew I was going to ask them to be on the Core Team. Oh August. You were so good to me, and in the midst of chasing down teens to beg and plead with them to come to youth group, somehow I found some time to plan our Fall Kickoff.
For me, every Fall Kickoff I planned became a contest in “Can You Top This”:
- Icebreakers with every gross food known to man blended up into a delicious smoothie, I say the grosser the better.
- Sumo suits and oversize inflatables that turned my parish parking lot into a circus, bring the monkeys and elephants too.
- Dodge ball? Not enough. Turn the lights out and make it glow. After all it’s not a true youth ministry social until someone breaks their arm.
- Oh, and those Olympic years. I once built a wooden boxing ring in my parish hall purely for decoration. (Brilliant!)
As youth ministers we love our over-the-top kickoffs. It’s our chance to show the teens that contrary to popular belief we do get outside our chapels and know how to have a good time. Hey, and maybe, just maybe if we do it well enough, they’ll come back the following week. One could only hope right? After all, what’s the point of a great Fall Kickoff if the teens don’t get to experience Jesus the other various times we meet throughout the year.
As you get ready to kickoff your Fall Semester, know that we at Life Teen are praying for you, and if there’s anything we can ever do to support you, we’re just a phone call away.
Question: What are you doing for your Fall Kickoff this year? (Share below.)
We’re doing a “St. Paul’s Got Talent” Talent Show with a warm up act of who can eat a carmel onion faster. I’m SO EXCITED!
Katie, That sounds like a lot of fun! Enjoy the looks on their faces when they do the carmel onion contest. Priceless!
Giant Angry Birds game.
some of the BEST ideas are stolen from (I mean, shared with) other YM’s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBOBlIvLXRE
Michelle, That’s sounds so fun! Enjoy!
We are doing the Life Teen kick off party from “The Office”….
Brigette, That’s one of my favorites! Have fun!
We had a back to school “‘Stache Bash” . We did human hamster balls and paint filled water balloon fights!
Haha! I love it!
For our first kick-off (we’re launching Life Teen in October) we’re having a luau! Hawaiian pizza, games, and fun!
I love Luaus! We did a Christmas Luau one year for our Christmas Party, and it was so fun!
We are doing the Parking Lot Palooza kick off and I’m so excited! Instead of a chili/pie contest we are doing a dessert contest and 3 of our fabulous religious sisters and our pastoral administrator are coming as judges for that and the core car decorating contest! Prayers for everyone’s start to a new year of ministry!
Amy, that sounds great! What desserts are you using for the contest?
We put down 2 huge tarps and topped it with: dawn dish detergent, water, cooking oil, grape and strawberry jelly, chocolate syrup, ice cream, pickles, pickle juice, pancake syrup, ketchup, mustard, tomato sauce, and anything else we could find. Don’t know how I will top it next year.
Wow! That’s quite a list of ingredients!
We did a back to school shenanigans night. Started with a skit each group made up about what freshmen should NOT do their first day of school, that had to have a scripture to go with it.
We also did a game called “What do you do when you wake up late and do not have time to shower and your hair is greasy?” To do this each team has one volunteer and the rest of the team takes a stick of margerine, greases up the volunteers hair and then styles it with inexpensive combs. Our teens loved this! I reccomend giving the volunteers a small bottle of dawn dish detergent to take home to help with clean-up! I have a great photo from the night but not sure how to post it.
Those sound like great ideas! Love the margarine idea! We don’t have anyway to post pics, but you can email it to me (eporteous@lifeteen.com). I’d love to see it.
Sometimes Fear Factor Bible edition sounds like a good idea until you realize that teens will do anything even if it seems insane. Lets just say Whole Jalapeno’s, Prune Juice, and Onions may lead to upset stomachs. Maybe next time we will only use the fear but not the physical items.
That’s funny! For a second I thought you were gonna mention how your worked the 10 Plagues into your Fear Factor night…