Halloween Alternative

I went to Family Bookstore last night, and they had the Heroes Unlimited Sample for me to look at. It’s a great program, but it’s set up as an outreach event (lots of work), and I think with BTSW and Joy of Sharing (A big Christmas outreach), we’ll spread ourselves too thin if we try to do it. Plus, it’s pretty costly if you want to do it right. It includes giving a special Bible to every kid visitor. They’re cool Bibles, but wow.

So as I went to sleep last night, I thought of another alternative that we could sort of do from scratch. Fear Not Festival. The younger kids would have a movie, like Rack, Shack, and Benny, and little party because I think it would be fun to gear this festival toward the schoolagers just in our church.

What I’m thinking is to have the kids come in and grab a sticker or name badge that has a particular color or character on it. Break them up into groups that way. Then each group “tricks or treats” together, led by a teen or something, going to each room where they see a person dressed as a Bible Character ready to tell them a story and give them treats/prizes. The rooms would be themed from different Bible stories where a Bible character faces a scary challenge and with the Lord’s help, overcomes the fear and the situation. Examples: Daniel, Joseph in the pit., Moses and the Red Sea, Esther, etc.

I picture the kids, for instance, walking into a room which is dimly lit decorated to look like the lion’s den. Daniel is there on a stool and tells the story from a first person point of view and then passes out little tokens of remembrance (prizes/candy) like Milky Way bars with a card that says: “Remember that God is bigger than the entire Milky Way. Fear Not!” or something.

With dimmed lights, the rooms can easily be transformed with paper. Then in Celebration hall, we can have games like use a slingshot to kill Goliath or something like that.

Is this feasible?