PEPPER SPRAY FOR EVERYONE
Tim Davis
One
Sunday, our large group teacher arrived with a PowerPoint presentation
on a flash drive which she handed to me. It was on her 10 lb.,
overloaded keychain. I went back and plugged the flash drive into the
computer to set up her lesson.
Just before she started teaching, I tried pulling the flash drive out of
the computer. It was stuck, and as I jiggled and fumbled with it and the
other items on her keychain, there was a short burst of spray into the
air. How odd, I thought as I examined the black handle on her keychain.
I put the keychain in her purse at the back as she started her lesson up
front.
A few minutes later, halfway through her lesson, she had all the kids
lay on the floor, as if they were Israelites sleeping. When it was time
to wake up, some kids in the back started coughing. It kept slowly
moving through the crowd until the entire room, adults and kids, were
hacking uncontrollably - it was HORRIBLE! We calmly got the kids with
their small group leaders and led them outside for some fresh air, then
down to another room where small groups could try to meet and finish.
As we tried to figure out what happened, I thought of the burst of
spray. I found the teacher, explained what happened, and asked her what
it could be. Oh my, she said in disbelief, her eyes growing huge -
that's PEPPER SPRAY! We realized that it had gone into the A/C system
and spread through the entire sanctuary. I just maced my kids!! And I
don't think my new nickname, Mace Man, will stick for very long.
EDIBLE PLAY-DOUGH
Sue Kahawaii
We decided to use
the peanut butter play-dough recipe I had seen in a book, so that our 2
yr olds could enjoy an edible version of their bible story that week.
However, we did not know that edible peanut butter play-dough should
only be consumed in very, very small quantities. I stress small! 30
minutes after consuming a generous portion of their creations, all 40
toddlers were having seriously messy bowel movements in a room with no
windows. The ushers thought a sewer line had broken, as the classroom
was, of course, located right next to the main sanctuary. With only a
few minutes to go before service got out, we were frantically trying to
change diapers, light candles, spray air fresheners, and clean up the
mess. Unfortunately, some of the children were in the toilet training
process and were not wearing diapers. I have never used edible play
dough since then.
THE GREAT STRESS BALL INVASION
Susan
Cutshall
Every Christmas Eve, I
share a children’s message near the beginning of the service. I always
try to have something to give to the kids to help them remember the
point of the message. One year I decided to focus on John 3:16 and
purchased the stress balls that look like the earth for the kids. (I
even wrote “For God so loved the World….” on 72 balls.) Well, the
message went well, the kids loved their gift. The problem? Our church
floor slants slightly towards the alter. For the rest of the service,
little earthly stress balls kept rolling to the front of the sanctuary!
THE CRACKED RIBS GAME
Brett Belleque
We were doing a fishing-for-kids unit in our kid's church. I had
devised what I thought would be a good game for teaching our kids to
work together. Basically each team member would put on a pair of hip
waders run to the end of the room, get down on their hands and knees,
pick up a gummy worm with their teeth, eat it and return to the next
team mate who would do the same. We were hoping the kids would realize
that if they helped each other on and off with the waders they would
have greater success in the game!
Well,
they didn't get it so the leaders decided to show them how! I was first
and my teaching partners slid the waders on me while I lay on the ground
- TEAMWORK! Then I ran to the end of the room, got on my knees and
picked up and ate the gummy worm. What I didn't realize was that
when kneeled down the hip waders slid down around my knees! So when
stood up and ran back I realized too late that I was running too fast
for my legs which were trapped at the knees by the waders! I tried to
stop but I fell hard! The kids were laughing hysterically and yelling,
"Do it again!". A trip to the doctor later that week confirmed two
cracked ribs and a sprained shoulder blade!!
TOASTING
IN THE NEW YEAR
(children's pastor wishes to remain
anonymous even
though we have verified this did actually happen)
We were having our New Years Eve service when all of a sudden one of the
children’s workers came in to the service in a hurry and soon there was
a buzz as the Associate Pastor seemed to get all worked up and then the
Senior Pastor was brought into it. Then they all got up and headed to
the children’s ministry in a hurry. I had to go and see what was going
on. It seems that one of the children’s workers who was around 18 had
thought he bought sparkling cider for the kids to toast in the New Year
but inadvertently had purchased wine coolers. The kids all had a drink
when the mistake was noticed. Well that’s one way of calming them down.
GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION GOES
AWRY
Pastor Marce Strong
We had a lesson explaining the last days of Samson. We
were to dress up a Styrofoam head and as we were explaining how he was
blinded we heated up a metal ice cream scoop with a torch and remove his
eyes (yea, it was pretty graphic). My kindergarten through 3rd grade
teacher held the torch on the scoop while he was explaining the story
(he talked too long). The scoop melted and a molten blob of metal fell
on the tablecloth, which caused a puff of smoke to go directly into the
smoke alarm sensor. As the fire alarm went off the pastor was just
finishing his sermon. He didn't miss a beat, he just continued with a
salvation invitation.
DUNK 'EM
ALL
Sue Kahawaii
The first camp I
ever conducted, we had an indoor swimming pool, and we decided to have
some organized activities. I instructed the kids to walk in a circle,
holding hands, going round and round to create a giant whirlpool. This
put ¾ of the kids at the edges of the pool as they walked, and the rest
along the rope line that divided the shallow end from the deep end.
When the whirlpool really got going, I then told the kids to turn and go
the other way. The effect was instantaneous, as the whirlpool sucked
kids down. Fortunately, all of them knew how to swim, but it was a
heart stopping moment watching all the life guards and counselors
jumping in to pull kids up out of the vortex.
THE GREAT FLOUR SUFFOCATION
Michelle Romain
We had a new game director who was striving to be very creative. Her
first game was to have 4 kids come on stage, blindfold them, and let
them root for a piece of candy in a pan. One glitch – the pans were
filled with flour. As soon as the kids put their faces into the pans,
the flour went up their noses, down their throats, and quickly began to
choke and gag them. We had to rush them to the bathrooms and stick their
faces in a sink full of water to de-clog their airways!
A SOUR EXAMPLE
Sue Kahawaii
We had a special
kids event outdoors in an amphitheatre, and seats were packed. The
teachers decided to have a sourball contest to see which teacher could
hold the most sourballs in their mouth. They were instructed to spit
the sourballs out when the “sour” got to be too much. Audience kids
were also given one sourball each. Unfortunately, one of the teachers
wanted so badly to win they didn’t quit in time, and spewed vomit out
along with the sourballs. Several kids in the audience apparently had
sensitive systems, and vomited on the children sitting around them after
seeing the teachers example.
THE EGG
DROP INVASION
Jim Wideman
I once decided to drop Easter eggs in a
field behind our church building instead of having a traditional egg hunt.
Not real Easter eggs; instead we bought 17,000 individually wrapped Candy
eggs. I chartered a helicopter from which to drop them down on the
thousands of kids I was sure would show up for this event.
The field in back of our building was
bordered on one side by a subdivision, by a horse pasture on the opposite
side, and on the third side there stood a huge oak tree.
We advertised for weeks, and on the day of
the event the field was full of kids. It was also full of gusting wind,
courtesy of Springtime in Alabama. Word got to me that the helicopter was
grounded out at the airport. Thousands of kids, 17,000 Easter eggs, and no
way to get them together. I had a problem.
What could I do? I’d promised an egg-drop
so I had to deliver one—no matter what. The pilot scratched his head and
offered to fly a small plane he owned instead of the helicopter. The plane
wasn’t grounded even with high winds in the area. He couldn’t make as
precise a drop, but if his brother hung out the window and they made a
couple passes to calculate the drift of the eggs…it might work.
On the first pass, the pilot’s brother
emptied a box of eggs out of the door and they caught a wind gust. Over in
the subdivision eggs shelled everything: cars, roofs, and yards. People
were running out of their houses to find out why they were under attack.
During the second pass, as the plane dove,
the horses decided they were under attack. They went berserk, running back
and forth, wild-eyed and frantic. But the eggs hit the target. Kids were
scrambling for eggs.
That’s when someone pointed at the plane.
Apparently the pilot was concentrating so hard on the egg drop that he’d
forgotten about that big oak tree. He was racing straight at it, his
brother hanging out the window and pointing. The good news: the pilot
missed the tree. By inches.
The bad news: between aggravated neighbors
and an irate horse owner, the Federal Aviation Association pulled the
pilot’s license for a time. And our church’s neighbors weren’t too
thrilled with us, either. I still don’t like outdoor
events to this day.
THIS LITTLE FLAME OF MINE
Jennifer Keenan
We decided to make clay pots with votive candles one Sunday as an
authentic craft. We found the “perfect” clay with no mess called Model
Magic. The beautiful pots were sent home and then… we looked at the
package. KEEP AWAY FROM OPEN FLAME! We sent them home to hundreds of
children to light that night.
THE BIG KNIFE
GIVEAWAY
Dr. Robert McKinney
When I first started in children's ministry, we ran a church camp once a
year. We learned that the kids loved it when we threw out free stuff from
the stage before each service. Throughout the year, we looked for things
that we could use to throw to the kids at camp. We would grab the free
AOL disks at office stores, and anything else that we could find so that
we would have more things. Finally, God answered our prayer for more
items when a contact told us that her mother worked at a big promotional
warehouse. She told us that we could get the items with printer mistakes
from them free of charge.
As I got in the car and drove to this warehouse, I was so excited. They
showed me all kinds of goodies that I knew the kids would just go nuts
for. This place had everything, and I mean everything. We were given
little squishy stress balls, colorful lunch boxes, all kinds of amazing
flying disks, an assortment of cool pens, and many more items. The
warehouse told me that all they needed was a letter on our church
letterhead telling them that we would not resell the items. Cha-Ching, I
had found the jack pot! They loaded my van with boxes and boxes of free
goodies. When we got to camp, we started opening the boxes up. Each
night, we threw Frisbees and stress balls and pads of paper and back
packs. The kids absolutely loved it! Finally, the last night of camp we
opened the last box. Inside were pens and other little boxes of stuff. I
never thought about what was inside, I just gave the stuff to my leaders
and told them to throw it out. As the kids came in, they were so excited
to see what we would throw out that night. I started seeing little boxes
thrown out all over the theater.
Then it hit me as I saw a group of boys with wide eyed excitement rush the
stage. I knew something was wrong. Finally I spotted it. Three or four
boys stood with brand new pocket knives playing like they had swords and
they were Pirates. It was then that I realized that we had thrown out
pocket knives to a group of 7 to 10 year old children! We had to stop
everything and confiscate the knives. I am probably the only children’s
pastor in the world who has given out pocket knives to kids at a church
camp. The moral of the story is: always check the boxes of your
freebies. You’ll be glad you did.
THE
CLAY FIASCO
Lin Mattern
For one of our Super
Summer Specials during the month of August we decided to do a lesson on
God being the Potter and our being the clay. We had a friend who was a
potter and agreed to let us video tape her working on her potter’s
wheel. She did a wonderful lesson that talked about what happened to
the pot if the potter took his hand away while the wheel was still going
(splat) and what happened if he pressed too hard (squish.) We drew the
great analogy about God’s creation of man and the way He works in our
lives, and then, we really wanted to bring the lesson home to the kids.
We had made homemade
play-dough and gave each of the 100 kids a ball of play-dough and a
plastic plate to work on making a pot so they could see for themselves
the effect hands had on clay. The only problem is that the recipe we
had gotten on-line had left out a crucial ingredient. As the kids
worked the play-dough turned to mush and we had 100 kids in our chapel
with green mush all over their hands and then their faces and then their
clothes and then the chairs.
PLAYING
WITH FIRE
Adrienne Hodum
We were outside doing a
street service. I got the "bright" idea of teaching about how the three
Hebrew boys were thrown into a firey furnace and not even a hair on
their head was burnt. The bible story is a great lesson for street
kids in learning not to give into peer pressure. But the "Bright"
idea in teaching the lesson was I decided to "SHOW" the kids how the
boys went in the fire and came out of the fire. I cut out of
material three boys, then I soaked the "boys" in rubbing alcohol.
When I lit the boys up, it would look like they were on fire, but the
alcohol would protect them. That was they way it was supposed to
work at least. Instead, I got my hand wet with the rubbing alcohol
as well. When I lit those three Hebrew boys - POOF! My entire hand
was a ball of flames! Thankfully I had a bucket of water prepared
"just in case".
MORE
PLAYING WITH FIRE
Jeannie Foss
On the 4th of July, our pastor traditionally has a big sermon
about freedom in Christ. Because I wanted to give the teachers a “gift
of time” I brought all our kids into a big amphitheatre for a huge
program.
I thought it would be a good idea to celebrate the importance of one
person doing “the next right thing”. For one hour I gave examples, sang
songs, used puppets and illustrated what it looks like when one person
does the next right thing. At the end, I planned a grand finale
complete with sparklers behind the puppet stage to celebrate how people
in America put a light in their window on the 4th of July –
even though they didn’t know others would be doing it. (On the first 4th
of July, the town was lit up because each person decided to do “the next
right thing”.)
Then we broke out into the Happy Birthday song – singing it to America.
The kids saw the big cake coming. The lights all went off and the pretty
sparklers were lit for the song. The moment was dramatic. The kids were
into the sparklers, music and promised piece of cake. The puppeteers
suddenly found out they were afraid to hold lit sparklers.
Fire was being dropped in the form of sparklers onto the floor – right
beside the puppet curtains. Smoke was filling the room. Kids started
choking and crying. Chaos!!!
Suddenly I realized I had an even bigger problem. If the fire alarm went
off, and I interrupted the pastor’s big message, I’d have a lot of
explaining to do! I yelled to all the parents who were with their
younger kids to help me. We opened the one door in the room that went
to the outside and had all the kids blow in that direction (It didn’t
help but it gave them something to do)
Luckily for me, until I just submitted this story, our pastor never
found out!
SHAVING CREAM
DISASTER
Mandy LaFever
We have a singing at our church the 1st Sat. of every month and I try to
take all the kids outside to play games. (Their taste in music just
isn't the same as the older people of the church).
We
filled two balloons with shaving cream and tape them to the end of pool
noodles and let two kids (with protective eye wear on) beat each other
until one of the balloons pops. What happened was as soon as the 1st
balloon popped everyone grabbed the extra balloons (filled with shaving
cream) and started beating each other with them. They didn't have
protective eye wear on.
By
the time we where through there was shaving cream all over the
Fellowship Hall and mass hysteria with kids, blinded by shaving cream,
screaming and running everywhere. No one was blinded and with pastor's
wife help, we cleaned the Fellowship Hall before the end of the singing.
We WON'T try this game again.
BABY
JESUS HAS ACCIDENT
Brooke Edmonds
We recently did a Christmas sketch where Baby Jesus has an "accident" on
stage.
It was a
Betsy Wetsy doll. It squirted into "Joseph's" face. It
didn't go over so well with some of the more conservative crowd.
UNCLE HERSHEL'S BIRTHDAY CAKE
Roger Fields
In Florida
we had outgrown our room, so I conducted children's church in a tent. We
were doing a skit that involved a birthday cake for Uncle Hershel (one
of our characters). The action took place as we lit the candles and
began to sing Happy Birthday. I had taken the fire extinguisher from my
garage and given it to a character dressed as a fireman. On cue he ran
in from the back of the tent and turned the fire extinguisher on the
cake. He was screaming something about Uncle Hershel having too many
candles on his cake thus creating a fire hazard.
I had no
idea how much pressure there was in my fire extinguisher. The fireman
blew the cake to smithereens. Blasted the small table against the back
of the tent. The sulfur stream then bounced off the tent wall and
covered about 100 kids. We evacuated the tent and later send scores of
kids home with sulfur on them.
more stories coming!
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we want to
hear YOUR story!
(we know you have one) |
Let us learn from YOUR mistakes. Tell us your stories. What did
you do that did NOT work? We hear success stories constantly. It's time
to hear about the big flops. Let's laugh and learn together.
The best ones will be sent out on eBlitz, posted in
the Cold Water Cafe and/or published in
K
Magazine--the hot, new children's ministry magazine from KidzMatter.
Tell us about the...
- Big event that went bust.
- Lesson that backfired.
- Skit that flopped.
- Outreach idea that reached back and
whacked you upside the head.
- Etc., etc., etc. (you get the idea)
And yes, we are going to use your name. Don't
send it if you don't want it out. Include your name, church, city, and
state. Keep the story brief. We will edit it down if needed.
Send your Oops Story to
roger@kidzblitz.com Put "oops"
in the subject heading.
Roger Fields
Kidz Blitz
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