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Weekly Resources, Ideas and Articles from The Source for Youth Ministry Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Halloween's creeping up on us... and so are the emails asking me what we can do? Let's be honest: the church sometimes doesn't know what to do with this Holiday. Is it okay to celebrate it? I wrote an article on our web site about this very subject: Halloween's coming, and so are the questions churches are asking: "Is it okay to celebrate it?" "But it's Satan's Holiday!" "How should the church react?" I am asking a different question: "Can we use it?" Kid's are looking for something to do for the Holiday, and that opens up a door for ministry. How can we use this opportunity to plan something fun? That's basically what Lynette from South Carolina is asking me in her email below:
I need some help and ideas. Every October our church doesn't do the Halloween thing so we just pick different themes and have like a fall festival. Every year it gets a little bit-you know-BORING!! Ages range from 1 yr-25yrs+adults. I am the youth leader at our church but I primarily work with the teens and young adults. They come every year, but I can tell it is boring to them. I would like to plan something that they can have a ball at and at the same time reach the (unchurched) friends that they will want to bring because it is going to be a blast!! Do you understand where I am coming from? Can you please help? Lynette, South Carolina Basically, is there something fun we can plan on Halloween that would be a good outreach, but not compromise our beliefs?
As most of you know, our web site www.TheSource4YM.com has a gold mine of free resources just waiting for you to take and use in your ministry. The biggest question that many people ask is where to find the right resources on such a huge database of free resources. Glad you asked. Here's a few places to look for resources on www.TheSource4YM.com for this time of year. 1. The first place to look is our HOLIDAY IDEAS page on our web site. If you jump on our web site and scroll over to our left hand side bar, you'll see the words HOLIDAY IDEAS. Click there to access a page that links our resources for certain holidays. You'll find a handful of Halloween resources there. 2. But don't stop there, you might also want to access some articles on the subject. So jump on our web site and click on the left hand side bar where it says ARTICLE ARCHIVES. Once on this page you can do one of two things: You can just scroll down to past articles from over six years of EZINE articles; or you can click on the SUBJECT LISTING button in the top-middle of the page and access articles by subject. If you do this, you might find this article from a couple years ago where I linked a few Halloween games and activities, and then wrote a TALK that you could use for your Halloween event. CLICK HERE for that article from October of 2002.
Looking for a movie clip to help introduce the topic of evangelism? Here's a clip from an intense, yet clean film called The Day After Tomorrow. This film has a great clip that can help you launch a discussion about sharing the truth with others. 
The Movie clip: The Day After Tomorrow, starring Jake Gyllenhaal
(CLICK HERE for
Jonathan's review of the film)Main Point: We must not be ashamed of telling people the truth Attention Grabber: Movie - The Day After Tomorrow This movie is basically about global shift in the earth's climate as a result of global warming, which results in catastrophic weather all over the world. People must flee toward the equator, in order to avoid freezing to death in the northern parts. This is a great movie, very clean, as long as you can handle death on a global scale. Clip: We must not go out into the storm If you're using a DVD player, the clip can begin at the beginning of chapter 19, or if you're using a VCR with a counter, the time (if you begin the counter at the Twentieth Century Fox logo) of 1:08:05 or so. It ends almost three minutes later at 1:10:57. The clip features Sam, whose father is a climatologist (Dennis Quaid), who has told him that the storm will soon be strong enough to freeze everyone to death. They must stay indoors. In the scene, Sam musters up the courage to try stopping the people, who are stuck inside, from venturing out into the storm. Most do not believe what he says, so they leave anyway. The scene ends with people walking past Sam, out into the storm. Scene Script:
MAN 1: Where are they all going? MAN 2: Getting out of the city before it's too late. SECURITY GUARD: Alright everybody, quiet down. When was the last time anybody got a signal on a cell phone? WOMAN 1: I got through to my cousin in Memphis an hour ago. They're being evacuated to the south. SECURITY GUARD: We should get moving too. The water's frozen over enough to walk on. We should get going before the snow gets too deep. Everyone, grab yourselves up as fast as you can. SAM: We shouldn't go. JD: Why not Sam? Everyone is leaving. SAM: When I talked to my dad, he told me we should stay inside. The storm will kill anybody caught in it. MARA: Then you have to say something. SAM: I know. (walks over to SECURITY GUARD) Excuse me, sir, you're making a big mistake. SECURITY GUARD: Hey listen, son, we're all scared here, but we got no choice. SAM: But that's not it. SECURITY GUARD: Get ready to go. SAM: If these people go outside, they will freeze to death! SECURITY GUARD: Okay, what is this nonsense? SAM: It's not nonsense, alright? Look, this storm is going to get worse. And the people who are caught outside, they will freeze to death. MAN 3: Where are you getting this information? SAM: My father's a climatologist. He works for the government. MAN 3: So what are you suggesting we do? SAM: We stay inside, we keep warm, and we wait it out. SECURITY GUARD: The snow's getting deeper by the minute. We'll be trapped here without food, supplies... SAM: It's a risk, yeah. SECURITY GUARD: An unnecessary risk. SAM: No, no, no. It's not! SECURITY GUARD: We've wasted enough time talking about this. C'mon, people, let's go. SAM: Look, look, look. Just look for a second. SECURITY GUARD: Come on, everybody. SAM: Just one second. (everyone is leaving, SAM is desperately pleading with them) The storm is going to get bad. It's going to get really, really bad. You're not going to be able to survive it. Sir, please just stay. Just stay. No, just, don't... (some stay, but most people exit) Isn't it a pain when you try to tell someone the truth and they just won't listen? Sometimes it's embarrassing, when it seems like you're the only one who knows what the truth is. But for Sam, telling the truth was a matter of life and death. We're going to discuss just this issue in our small groups now. or CLICK HERE FOR OUR ENTIRE VIDEO CLIP IDEAS PAGE Delivered free via e-mail to subscribers each week. We encourage you to distribute this newsletter freely and ask only that you not change its contents. HAVE YOU MISSED PAST "EZINE" ARTICLES? CLICK HERE FOR JONATHAN'S "EZINE" ARCHIVES And for more FREE resources and ideas ... go to THE SOURCE www.TheSource4YM.com Copyright ©2006 The Source for Youth Ministry All rights reserved. |
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