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Take this wonderful time of year to energize your small church children’s ministry and host a Pumpkin Party! Invite neighborhood kids to participate in some pumpkin fun while hearing the message of Jesus, too! Get your whole church involved in planning, promoting, and executing this event.
Fun Children’s Ministry Events like this can help your small church to:
- Build connections between the ages
- Reach out to your community
- Show children you value them
- Allow your small church family to work together & have fun
Decor Sets The Stage For Fun!
As you decorate your space, you set the stage for your guests. They should know they are entering an area intended for fun. They can feel like valued guests when they see you took the time to make things special for their arrival! Decorations don’t have to be expensive or elaborate; they just need to focus on impact, fun, and creating the mood!
Decorate With Corn Stalks, Pumpkins, And Gourds!
- Corn stalks, pumpkins, and gourds are fun to use, especially if you live in the countryside where items like these are available. If you don’t, make corn stalks from twisted craft paper & gift wrap tubes. Find decorative pumpkins and gourds at discount or craft stores. Whether real or not, they all work to set the mood.
- Scarecrows and fall leaves can be festive. Garlands of fall leaves hanging from the ceiling, around door frames or tables are colorful and give a feeling of being outside.
- Photo backdrops can be purchased online for under $25 and make a great scene setter. These backdrops are perfect for photo booths, and almost everyone loves to take pictures to share with others.
- Use orange construction paper to cut out shapes of pumpkins and leaves for a more budget-friendly decor idea.
- Black and white buffalo check tablecloths are a great country touch for this fall pumpkin party.
Plan Your Pumpkin Party Stations
Set up different areas of your party so they are ready to go when it’s party time. Assign volunteers to each area, armed with a smile and ready to interact with your guests! Remember, we are representing the light of Christ in all we do. Let’s shine brightly!
1. Always Have A Welcome Table
As your guests enter, give each a fun fall name tag. This can encourage interaction between guests who don’t know each other.
On a separate piece of paper, write each participant’s name and place their name in a basket for a prize drawing at the end of the party.
2. Plan Autumn Crafts For The First Activity
Have fun with foam or construction paper pumpkins on a table with markers, crayons, and stickers. Allow the children time to decorate their own pumpkins as they wait for all the guests to arrive and get signed in. Volunteers at this table can get to know your guests, chat, ask questions, and make connections.
3. Play A Guessing Game For Easy Fun
Place a mason jar full of candy pumpkins on a small table. Next to it, put a basket, small squares of paper, and pencils. Ask guests, young & old alike, to write a guess of how many pumpkins they think are in the jar. After they write their name and number guess on the paper, place it in the basket. At the end of the party, the closest guess wins the candy jar!
4. Party Snacks Are A Must
Have a crew plan for refreshments. They can create a list of foods to serve and recruit people to bring in or donate the snacks for your party. There are so many fun ideas for food. Make it creative. This crew also decorates the tables and purchases the party ware, napkins, plates, and cups.
5. Create Fun With Cookie Decorating
Add to the party fun and have pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies ready to decorate. Provide the frosting, sprinkles, and other toppings for the children to make their own creations. Once the frosting has dried, put each child’s cookie in a baggie so they can bring it home to eat.
6. Make A Pizza Pan Pumpkin
Children craft a pumpkin face on a pizza pan.
Materials needed per child:
- Tin foil pizza pan, spray painted orange before the event
- Sticky back fun foam for all the parts of the face. Pre-cut half-circle eyes, triangle nose, and different shapes for the mouth. Optional: use self-stick googly eyes.
- Add a green fun foam or felt leaf and stem at the top of your pumpkin
- Add rosy cheeks by using rouge and a cotton ball,
- Attach a piece of jute string, twine, or wire to the back of the pan so it can hang. Use pieces of black duct tape to hold it down.
- Write the child’s name with a permanent marker.
This is a fun pumpkin door hanger for your children to take home! Plus, it’s a great reminder of our fun at the party.
7. Party Favors Engage Guests On Final Time
Make a large sign that says, “We’re So Glad You Came!!”
Use decorated lunch sacks to place a few treats for your guests to take home to remember the day. Don’t forget to include an invitation to your children’s ministries at your small church. This is your last chance to engage your guests. Speak to their families as they pick up their children and acknowledge each person who attended.
Try These Party Favor Treats
Pumpkin Munch Mix
This is a fun fall treat mix to send home with your guests. This recipe makes a big batch!
Combine the following in a great big bowl:
- 2 cups Corn Chex Cereal
- 2 cups Wheat Chex Cereal
- 1 bag of Bugles Corn Chips
- 1 bag of candy pumpkins
- 2 cups of pretzel rounds
- 1 lg. Bag of fall colored M & M’s
Scoop one cup or more of the Pumpkin Munch Mix into clear treat bags decorated with fall pumpkin stickers and tied with raffia.
Also, CTA offers several products with the Pumpkin Prayer. Try one for your children’s party.
Candy Corn
A great way to send the gospel home is individually wrapped bags of candy corn with a gospel message verse on the outside. Try this at your event!
3 Pumpkin Games To Play
After you gather your guests together for a welcome time and introduction, explain the schedule of events for the gathering. Depending on the number of participants, break into 2 or 4 teams. Teams can be as small as three kids per team. If you don’t have enough players, get some of your volunteers to step in and play!
1. The Pumpkin Patch Relay Race
It would be fantastic if you have a local farm or another source willing to donate or discount real pumpkins. However, you can easily use faux pumpkins or even orange pumpkin balloons (weighted a little bit with water or rice) to play the Pumpkin Patch Relay Game.
You need eight pumpkins per team.
Set a wheelbarrow or a large wicker laundry basket at the end of the room.
At the opposite end of the room, place one hula hoop for each team at the back of their team line.
Put a sign near the hula hoop that says, ‘The Pumpkin Patch.’ Place the eight pumpkins in each hoop.
When the leader says “GO,” the first person in each line grabs a pumpkin from their patch and runs to the wheelbarrow/container. They place it in the container and run back to the line. As soon as they get to the line, they tag the next person, who repeats the process.
The first team to have picked all the pumpkins in their patch and get them to their wheelbarrow wins!
2. The Pumpkin Patch Obstacle Course
To play this game, add a twist to the Pumpkin Patch Relay Game. The concept is the same, and the play is the same, with one exception.
Add a little ‘obstacle course’ between the wheelbarrow and the Pumpkin Patch. Try simple things like a chair players have to crawl under, a length of ribbon they have to walk along like a balance beam, or 2-liter soda pop bottles they have to weave in and out of as they walk.
3. Toss The Candy Corn Into The Pumpkin
- Each team has a plastic pumpkin pail.
- Give each child a cup with ten candy corn pieces.
- Determine where the ‘tossing line’ is, the designated distance from the pumpkin.
- Each player takes a turn tossing their candies into their team pumpkin.
- Play continues until all players have tossed their candy corn.
- Do the official count up.
- The team with the most candy corn in their pumpkin is the winner.
How To End The Pumpkin Party
Read the following devotional as an ending to your Pumpkin party. You’ll need a pumpkin and a carving knife. After reading the devotion, remember to hand out your special prize: the candy jar to the person who came closest to the Pumpkin Candy Jar Guess. Then, hand out party favor bags to all.
Let Your Pumpkin Light Shine
Read this for your Children’s Pumpkin party Devotional.
“In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16 NIV).
It’s been really fun celebrating fall and talking pumpkins today, hasn’t it?
Who can tell me what we call a pumpkin that gets hollowed out and has cut eyes and a light inside?
Yes, it’s called a jack-o’-lantern. Have any of you ever made one?
(You can actually do the following steps as you talk if you like or pre-cut your pumpkin, but have it turned around when you start your talk. Lift a bag of the seeds & innards out and show them, then turn the face of the jack-o’-lantern around to show the completed face)
Who can help me list what you have to do with a pumpkin like this to make a jack-o’-lantern? (have a real, little dirty pumpkin on your table)
- We have to clean it up and get all the dirt off. After all, it grew in the dirt in the pumpkin patch right? Of course, it’s going to be dirty!
- Then we cut it open and clean out the ‘guts’ or the seeds. Who likes that part?
I think it’s a little slimy and kind of gross. - Then you cut out the face—the eyes, nose, and mouth. Check!
- What’s the last important step we have to do?
That’s right, put the light inside.
Let People See Your Pumpkin Light
But wait! We need to put the pumpkin somewhere where people will see the light. Or else it’s not really serving any purpose.
I bet you didn’t even realize we just made a perfect object lesson about what happens to us when Jesus comes into our lives!!
When we decide to follow Jesus and build a relationship with him, that’s called being a Christian. It’s just like the pumpkin. That pumpkin gets picked by someone who loves it. Jesus picks us because He loves us. He wants to clean us up. Just like the pumpkin who got dirty because of the pumpkin patch, we can have the dirt of sin on us. We can have dirt on us because we live here in a world. We see sin all around us, and the Bible tells us everybody has some sin in their life!!
Jesus is so amazing. He doesn’t just want to wipe the outside clean to make it look pretty. He wants us to change, to be truly clean and full of His love. So, He removes all the yucky thoughts and seeds in our lives, seeds of hate, disobedience, anger, and selfishness we have inside of us.
Then, once Jesus forgives us for all those yucky things, He puts a smile on our faces. Even better, it’s just like He puts his light inside of us so we can shine it for all the world to see.
How To Show Jesus’ Light
How do we do that? Does anybody know how I can show Jesus’ light to other people?
That’s right. We can show Jesus’ light by sharing God’s love, being kind, helping others, and talking about what the Bible says. That is shining Jesus wherever we go!!
I am so thankful. Jesus loves me so much that He chooses me to be His friend, to be in his family. The Bible says that’s how he thinks about us!!! Isn’t that amazing? I will never think of a pumpkin the same way again!!!
Dear Jesus, help us shine our Jesus light so everyone sees our kindness and knows it comes from you. Thank you for our time together today! Thank you for each child here; they are so special, and we are so glad they are here. Amen.
Let Your Children’s Ministry To Shine
Start your pumpkin party planning today. Reach out and get your small church excited about the possibilities of what God can do through a children’s ministry party! Your efforts in hosting a simple, fun Pumpkin Party can result in a child becoming a Christ follower!
Statistics back this up:
- It’s been said, 43% of all believers came to know Jesus before the age of 12, according to Ministry-To-Children.com
Children’s ministry can make a difference
- Steve Chang recently wrote in an article for the Gospel Coalition – ”One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen among those who have a heart for the lost is that they don’t see the children in their own church as lost.”
Children’s ministry is critical in bringing the gospel to the children in our small churches.
- Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” (Luke 18:16 NIV)
Children’s ministry has value in the sight of Jesus!
So, let’s get our church excited about shining our light for Jesus to children in our neighborhoods. Let’s see what God can do as we serve Him through these events and as we are faithful to the work of sharing the gospel.
Read About More Fall Events Here:
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