Halloween

Last night at youth group we played clue. not 'murder mystery' clue like you might see in a movie. Not 'how to host a murder' clue like you might buy in a dinner party box. More like the board game of clue, supersized into a run around the church at night kind of game.

Halloween is a difficult evening as a teenager and as a youth minister. I've led evenings and afternoon events where we collect canned goods, but I'm vehemently opposed to canceling youth group in order to let kids live into indecisions which could possibly turn into bad decisions on an evening of masks, unsupervised activity, and darkness. Instead. I'm really interested in creating an exciting alternative that allows teens to make a positive choice about being together. So last year I created a game for our students that was a great success, this year we repeated it with similar success.

I don't like to repeat activities in identical form, but occasionally there are situations that warrant a total repeat: the strange quad cities halloween traditions being one (last year all kids in bettendorf were trick or treating, this year it was all davenport kids). this year and last year were almost identical replicas of each other. many different kids, slightly different feel, still lots of scaring, and still a lot of fun.

Here's how my game works. First, I chose 8 suspects (sponge bob, our senior pastor, a cartoon bat...), 8 weapons (hymnals, guitar strings, sharp pencils...), and 16 locations in our church (library, kitchen, my office...) to make my own board game about who smashed the pumpkin that can be played by small groups all over the church at the same time. Then I made each of them into cards about 3" by 3" and a simple score card. Then I placed a single candle in each of the rooms, got a bunch of kids together, grouped them into small groups, and had them play clue. Essentially on their turn, one person chose a room, the group traveled there, they made an accusation, then they rolled a dice to determine the next person to take a turn.

To make the game a little more fun, we also had two people dressed in costume running around the church scaring and tagging groups as they traveled. once tagged groups reported to me in the fellowship hall where they had to preform a stunt in order to return to the game. add in some black lights, dark rooms, and some silliness and you have a winner of an evening.

We won't likely repeat this activity next year, there's no reason to tire it out. but we began the evening with a quick conversation about reformations (obviously as Lutheran we're building off of the reformation day celebrated the same day). Unfortunately the mixture of costumes and the anticipation of the evening meant that there was little interest in the conversation and tons of chatter. We also didn't really have an ice breaker, so our new students didn't have a chance to get comfortable and get to know each other. An ice breaker would have helped calm the evening and allow a decent conversation as well... so next time... definitely an ice breaker!