Gingerbread Houses

Last night at youth group we hosted our second annual gingerbread night at church. I carried this tradition on from my previous church, which allows teenagers to creatively tell the Jesus story using frosting, candy and graham crackers. In years past, this event was mostly built around learning the story of Christmas and having an excuse for kids to gather, create and share what they've made. This year, I wanted to focus a little more on stories, a theme that we've been exploring with our students (sunday school, senior stories, and next our confirmation classes), so instead of having each group create nativity gingerbread houses, I gave each group of students a different story from Jesus' life to be made into a diorama. The results are extremely creative and were loads of fun for the kids to make!

We began the evening by meeting in the youth room like usual. As we gather we always spend the first few minutes posing questions to the group and letting them share answers with each other while the leader pulls out clever answers or tries to engage kids who are more isolated. These are generally ice breaker questions in nature, just conversation starters to relax kids. We also have a counter full of ready snacks: capri-sun and bags of chips last night.

Then we moved on to the fellowship hall for games and the main event. as the students departed they were each given a playing card. I had presorted the deck (removing all face cards and then shuffled because we had less than 50 students). The random card they were assigned as they left would indicate two groups that they would be in.

Our first game was called Backtionary. I simple game where student form a single file line facing one direction. the person at the rear of the line looks at an image, then attempts to draw that image on the back of the person in front of them. this is continued until the front person received the image and draws it on a piece of paper. After all groups have completed their image, we reveal the real image and show off each team's drawing. laughter always ensues. For this game I initially placed each person in groups according to their suit on their card, then I invited adults to mix into each line - making even teams. The design was good, but there were too many students in each line. probably the ideal number is 6 people, most of our lines had more like 10-12, which was just too many because students got bored. after the first image, I decided to make things more interesting by introducing a series of images. It added a lot of energy to the crowd, but none of the students connected that I was actually drawing the nativity, a sheep, and a present (three elements of the Christmas story).

This should have been a great lead into our story time. I recapped teh game by saying that stories are so valuable: the help us connect, they are memorable, and they can be repplied later - which is why Jesus told so many parables. But sharing stories is hard, especially if you're using unconventional methods, which was the challenge. That's the message that should have been conveyed, but I think the smell of 50lbs of frosting was overwhelming and few understood the point of our first game or the gingerbread stories at this point.

Then using the same card they were given earlier, students found themselves according to number and sat down at a table. Leaders mixed into the tables, providing at least one leader per table. This was excellent! most tables were really well mixed and the leaders were able to choose where they ought to sit based on their relationships with students. really good!

I reserved some leaders for photos and to help distribute candy/frosting and then I explained the purpose - to learn a story about Jesus and then retell it was gingerbread materials. Each group was given a different story which they first read aloud, then talked about for a few minutes. I think the competitive nature of the event took over here and some groups didn't do diligence in reading the story or talking about it. I should have given each group a few minutes before I released the supplies - next time!

Then there was about 50 minutes of activity as each group created their dioramas. I played Christmas music and used the microphone to add a few icebreaker questions to the evening.

Then we placed all the stories for display, cleaned up and had each group share their story, and how it might be relevant for someone today. this instruction was on their instruction sheet, but many groups hadn't really discussed how the story might apply, so I put students on the spot and drew out answers as they showed off their diorama.

I was surprised how little our kids knew these stories (all of which are basic Jesus stories) and how difficult it was for some groups to discover how the story could be reapplied into today's life. BUT it was such a good exercise that I allowed it to persist, taking up the rest of our evening. It was an excellent end to the evening.

Today, the day after, I setup the dioramas in our church library with simple description of each story and invited people to try to match the stories with the dioramas. I hope that as staff and parents gather this week they'll enjoy our gingerbread sets as much as we did!