Missions Events

LessIsMore

We took our students and made them homeless for 3 days. We transformed the church into 2 tent city environments (Guys downstairs and Girls upstairs). We slept, ate, and served as “the least of these” the entire weekend. We did NOT take showers, eat amazing meals or sleep well. We worked long hours, smelled really bad, and were hungry and tired. But, I believe this was the most life changing event our students have ever participated in.

Each day we spent working in Soup Kitchens, Homeless/Women’s shelters, Food pantries, and worked on ARK teams (Act’s of Random Kindness). In the evenings we had acoustic worship, group devotionals, and share time.

This event is designed to allow students to see, feel and smell what it means to serve humbly with no expectations. This is meant to be a mentally and physically draining event … This is only for your more mature students!!
*We designated jobs depending on the age and maturity level of each student.

Please let me know if you would like help running and event like this. I can send you files and contact info if your in the Altanta area. michael@placeofhope.org

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Prayer Tour Of The Inner City

Assemble the kids in the church van and drive around the inner city in front of spots you’ve pre-selected for your kids to lead out in public prayer while they’re in the van. For example you could stop in front of: an abortion clinic, a skid row hotel, a group of prostitutes on the corner, a soup kitchen for the homeless, a rescue mission, the county hospital, the police station.

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Shantytown Scavenger Hunt

Give the kids 30 mins to walk out into the surrounding neighbourhood to find things they could build a shelter with – a box, newspapers, etc. The goal is to find enough items to build a Shantytown with. When they arrive with their items, they have another 30 mins to build the Shantytown in the church parking lot. A 55 gallon drum for a fire will increase the shantytown feel. After they’ve set it up, gather around the fire and ask the following questions: How did it feel to scavenge? How did it feel to have to beg (for supplies)? What would it be like if you had to live like this night after night? Continue in the discussion.

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Watermelon Love Feast

Example situation: The youth fellowship was extremely involved in the workcamp; the sun was blazing. They were in need of a break and gathered in the shade of a nearby tree with some of the people who worshipped at the church. The teenager in charge read the account of the “Last Supper” in Matt 26:17-29. There was a watermelon sitting in the middle of the circle of 30 tired and thirsty teenagers. It was passed around (intact) and each person was asked to share how the watermelon helped him or her understand the passage. It was amazing how the students found a relationship between the watermelon and the passage. (i.e.: watermelon became the symbol of poor people.) After praying in a circle, the worship leader took a knife, cut the watermelon and gather the worshipers pieces of it.

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World Tour

At the beginning of the night youth groupers are put through customs (arrest a few for drug smuggling along the way, put them in jail). Give them money to buy things along he way (Monopoly money).
Send them off on a plane (do stuff on the plane – e.g. a hijacking).
At each stage of the night, we had some “guerillas” come and kidnap the group, blindfold them and take them to the next part of the world tour, e.g. an indian market, a jungle, night animal spotting (real or stuffed). Give them the experience of travelling overseas and plenty of third world hassles, even third world food, passports and problems etc etc. During some of the kidnaps, drive them to different places (suitably “guerrilla type” driving), and have tour guides rescue them.
This is an idea. The fun is in the plot and variations that YOU make up! Depending on your resources. E.g., we had animal spotting in a darkened church, an Arabic market at a friends house with sheets on the ceiling, candles, money to buy things, being ripped off by vendors etc. But YOU make the plot and the tour. Kidnapping and drug busts are good, so is jail.
Can be used as an experience of what missionaries go through in some countries. Tie in a talk along this theme.

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40-Hour Sit-out

Our 6th-8th Grade Youth Group participated in a 40 Hour Sit-out to raise money and awareness for homelessness in our area. Prior to the event we collected large boxes (washer/dryer – range size) and we prepared them in “shanty” type homes. We started the event on 5:00 PM (Friday) and lived outside in the boxes until Sunday @ 9:00 AM. We stayed out even in the rain. We had collected plastic and old tarps to cover us in the rain. We took pledges and donations from our church members and we had a lot of community people stop by to see what we were doing. We were on a main road in town and lots of people would pull up just to donate money because they had seen the segment on the Friday evening news. Members of our church also signed up to bring us food to eat for our meals (you can keep this from the kids, so they might start to wonder where their next meal is coming from.)

While this is only a glimpse into the life of homeless person, it made quite a large impact on our kids and adults too (we had lots of “security guards”). The total money raised was then donated to our local Gospel Mission. You can do many things with this concept, and while it’s a lot of work, God rewards those involved with a feeling of accomplishment. **you could incorporate the Shanty town idea on EGAD! with this event**

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Traveling Trunk

God has called all believers to celebrate diversity. This is not only a part of our lives – to be lights in the world – but is is a part of our mission and commission – to go into all the world to teach all to observe those things that Jesus has taught.

Learners at this age enjoy creativity, music, art, and imagination. The youth leader will be the tour guide. They should decorate an old suitcase (well traveled) with bumper stickers, pictures and sayings of various cultures, places and people. SUGGESTION: The young people can make their own bumper sticker, stickers or paint designs on the suitcase to give the trunk a special meaning to the group.

Gather artifacts that represent different places that the Jesus and His disciples may have traveled. Place them in the trunk for valuable Bible lessons, activities and discussions. For example, Jewish music, parchment paper, matzah bread, reprinted scriptures from Psalms, candleabras and grapes can be used to teach about the celebration of the Passover Feast. Afterwards, the children can enjoy what the food of the Jewish culture was like and learn a Jewish dance. OR perhaps, the youth group is learning how to witness to others from a different culture. THIS IS A BIGGIE! The youth leader will have to do some research to get some background and ideas for this one.

I have found that the traveling trunk can be used to study several units of scripture and the children enjoy when they can take another trip with the traveling trunk.

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Cheeri-0

We have a very successful plan of raising money for missionaries.
We select a different missionary, evangelist, or an organization that we feel that is need of help. (Such as Problem Pregnancy Center, Orphanages, Clothe a Child)
We divide the children’s church into teams, Boys against Girls.
We have 2 baskets one for girls and the other for the boys. It is a good idea to label these baskets.
We have designed a wooden scarecrow, with 2 arms that are set like weights.
Whoever has the most money by weight. The arms of this guy will move down.
We call this guy, ” Cheeri-O” He represents the cheerful giver.
After each month we collect the change and count it and send a check to whom we support. Of course the kids are anxious to find out how much they have given to help people in need.
The kids love it especially when they receive a letter back from the missions. It makes them feel like they had a part of helping others.
Another incentive to help bring in the money : Which ever teams wins, their names are put in a basket and one person from the team can win a prize.
Another funny idea: If the boys win, The Youth Pastor squirts Ms. Youth Pastor with a super soaker and if the girls win, Ms. Youth Pastor soaks Mr. Youth Pastor. The kids love it.
This has been a lot of fun, and we have supported several missions. We have about 25 kids in Children’s church and they bring in over $100 a month.

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Live A Day Homeless

Our Youth group spent a night outdoors as homeless people in order to raise money to support homeless people. Since I am from Hawaii there is quite a number of homeless people. Well we spent the night in our church yard from 6 at night to 6 in the morning. Here’s the catch… we only were allowed to bring news paper for our blanket and a cardboard box for our shelter and for dinner, our church served us mush. It was a great experience and a great thing for raising money for a good cause.

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Handi-Camp

My brother-in-law actually ran this, but he did it with my youth group. What you do is you invite handicap children and young adults from around your community to come to your church for a few hours during your youth group’s Spring Break. We used Mon. & Tues. from 10:30-1:30 PM. We would have games, crafts, lunch and devotion time on both days. You can use a variety of themes. We are using an hawaiin luau theme. This means we’ll have island music with hawaiin shirts and grass skirts (over regular clothes of course).
For crafts we will let them color a visor for themselves with their name on it, and we will help them make the hawaiin necklaces. And for our lunch we would have items like Shishkibob and Hawaiian Punch. The key is that the youth will be the volunteers to help the disabled with the games, their crafts, and even their lunch. Between the Monday session and the Tuesday session, the kids will sleep at the church and have a debriefing session, Praise and worship, Bible Study, and also relaxation time. It’s really an eye opening experience for the youth to work with disabled children one-on-one. It would also be wise to try to have several volunteer youth sponsors to help as well if you have small group. It is also a great idea to get your group started with missions work.

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