Just when I thought I had written off transitions completely as a waste of time, Microsoft PowerPoint has gone and implemented a beautiful one! It is called Morphing, a technique that lends itself well to situations where you want to include a graphic or textual idea on multiple slides in a presentation, but needs the element to be presented in different positions on the slides, or in different sizes.
Here is a quick video that demonstrates the effect:
I believe the effect is a little unfortunately named. When I first read about it, I was expecting graphic morphing something more along the lines of the Michael Jackson “Black or White” video. It is not. At all. However, this effect can be very useful. Here are some reasons I can think of that I will be using it:
To provide continuity to a presentation by including an important graphic or text block on more than one slide
To help audience members remember a certain graphic and illustrative point (think of key takeaways)
To add visual interest to the presentation without being “cheesy”
To balance the need to repeatedly show a graphic while creating room on a slide for other important text or graphics
Great, now that we have established a solid business need for this new feature, let’s break down how it is done. In general, the technique for this transition is the same as any other PowerPoint slide transition… you want to apply the transition to the slide you are moving TO.
Steps for the MS PowerPoint 2016 Morph Transition
Create a slide with the object you want to morph. Remember, in this context, “morph” means “smoothly animate, move and/or resize the same graphic.”
Create a second slide. Copy and paste the graphic from the first slide to the second. (If it is easier, you can duplicate the whole slide. But you do not have to.)
Move the graphic on the second slide to the new position and size you want it. You can move the graphic to a new position, resize it, and even crop it. The only rule is, it must be the exact same graphic.
Be sure the second slide is selected/active.
Click Transitions –> Morph to apply the transition.
Repeat for all slides where you want to include the graphic.
When you show the presentation (click the Slideshow icon), you should see your graphic move around and very smoothly resize, even growing/shrinking smoothly to accomodate differences in cropping AND differences in font sizes for text blocks!
A Few Tips About Morphing
Morphing works on graphics, but it must be the same graphic. Morphing does NOT make one graphic appear to “turn into” another graphic.
Morphing also works on blocks of text, as long as the text is the same. This includes changes in font size, and even the font itself!
If you change a block of text after you copied/pasted to another slide, you cannot “trick” PowerPoint into morphing if you change the text afterward. I tried it. The text must contain exactly the same characters to morph properly.
The Morph transition ONLY works for Office 365 users.
Have fun with this new feature. I am hoping to use it myself! Feel free to leave questions or other tips in the comments. I would love to hear from you.
The holidays are upon us, and I promised to write more details about the three-layered “Teacher Box of Awesomeness” that I included as the #1 teacher gift in my article Great Gifts to Thank Your Teacher.
This gift is completely customizable and can be made up very nicely for not-a-ton-of-money (or, you can choose to splurge a bit). Best of all, it is completely USEFUL, and works for both male and female teachers.
A box of awesomeness must start with, well, an awesome box. Start with a stackable organizer like this Sterilite 3 Layer Stack & Carry Box. The top layer has dividers for smaller items and the bottom two layers do not have dividers. I really love the size and versatility of these. Just by itself, this makes a very useful gift.
And now… fill it with awesomeness! I went for a combination of homemade sweets, chocolates that I knew my child’s teacher particularly liked, and an array of teacher supplies. Here are the layers of my box:
Brownies for the middle because, who doesn’t love home-made (from scratch, mmmm) brownies? I put down a layer of wax paper so she wouldn’t have to scrub brownie goo out of her new awesome box.
Our teacher is a chocolate lover, and we knew that. So we took advantage of the many yummy flavors that are especially available around holiday time, and placed them in the top, divided layer. If your teacher isn’t into to that (or you aren’t), you can fill this layer with smaller items like clips, post-it notes, stickers, or chalk.
On the bottom layer, we loaded up some fun scissors, magnets, and a set of colored pens.
Here are some ideas to get you going to fill your Teacher Box of Awesomeness:
Last but not least, don’t forget a note that tells your teacher how much you appreciate him or her. A note from your child is also a great addition. Have fun, and if you have other ideas for the Teacher Box of Awesomeness, leave them in the comments!
I took this picture this morning – yep, all those beautiful flowers are November blooms! There’s a nice background story to this pretty little bush planted in my front garden. My Mammy in North Carolina, someone who was not related to me by blood but “adopted” me as her grandchild, had a very large camellia (probably 4-5x bigger than this one) outside her small farmhouse. This is the same woman to taught me how to sang (not sing) in church… a woman of incredible faith, love and kindness. When she died a little over 11 years ago, my Mom and I took clippings of the camellia from her house and tried to grow them, to remember her by. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful.
That year for my birthday, my mom surprised me with a new camellia, just about 18 inches tall, and said, “it’s not Mammy’s, but I thought we could try again.” We planted it in front of my dining room window, and look at it now! I think of her every time I trim it, weed around it, and especially when it blooms. It now stands almost 5 feet tall.
The thing about a camellia is, it blooms every year when everything else around it is dying. There is a life lesson in there, I’m sure of it. Aren’t we called to bloom for people, when everyone around us is hurting? Camellias are like the counter-culture of pink flowers. In November in the mid-Atlantic, there is nothing pink except these. And here they stand, as leaves are fading from yellow to crispy brown, and the brightest greens fade to their wintery shade. This beautiful flower reminds us that we can stand in the gap for another person, and be that glimmer of hope. We can be counter-cultural and reach out with kindness. We can be the nice thing that people see in a world full of not-nice. The camellia does not struggle to bloom in less than ideal conditions… neither should we. Have a great day, everyone. 🙂
Coffee. Just the smell of that hot, steaming mug in the morning, and the feel of the comforting warmth of said mug in my cold hands, makes me happy. How can one beverage be such a paradox… calming and reassuring… yet at times so stimulating it makes my head nearly spin off the top of my body after a few cups? Coffee is the Linus blanket of my generation, and it has completely permeated our culture in a way that, frankly, boggles my mind. I love it so much. And I absolutely love going to Starbucks to meet a girlfriend and share a few thousand calories together as we solve each other’s — and the world’s — problems. I know I’m not alone… Starbucks recently posted their 2014 financials, coming in at a cool $16.4 billion (yes, that’s a “b”) in net revenue. Wow!
Yes, we have certainly developed a definitive “need” for coffee! But do we really need it? Not really… I mean, if I didn’t have it, I would certainly miss it. But I don’t NEED it. When you think of the things in life you really need, what tops your list? I was shopping in Kirkland’s recently and came across this little sign that summed up my sentiments exactly: “All I need today is a little bit of coffee and a whole lot of Jesus.”
Smiling, I took it off the shelf and placed it in my basket. But then, oh THEN. Just around the corner in Kirkland’s I found a blank, black coffee-mug-shaped chalkboard, a little larger than the sign… and my gears started turning. Wouldn’t this saying be PERFECT done up in those oh-so-trendy chalkboard letters?!? So in my typical method of making something much harder than it needs to be in order to make it special, I put the ready-made sign back and purchased the materials for my project. (Note, I am not affiliated with Kirkland’s, but it is only fair of me to post a link to their product since I borrowed their idea… to decorate one of their OTHER products. The ready-made Coffee/Jesus sign is here on Kirkland’s web site. Also, the chalkboard coffee cup is here.
I would never claim to be an artist, but I am willing to try just about anything crafty. So I viewed some tutorials on YouTube for chalk drawing and decided to make a go of it. First, I created a gorgeously lettered design on my computer, with the intention of tracing it. I swear I followed all of the directions to transfer my gorgeous design from the paper to the chalkboard… but… well, it wasn’t happening. Note to self: those chalkboard tracing projects need to have pretty big letters to work out. So, I decided to wing it. I had Jesus on my side, right?
Well, I wouldn’t say it turned out so well that I can quit my day job, but I am pretty happy with it. And my bestie that received it for Christmas, that aforementioned friend who solves the world’s problems with me at Starbucks, loved it! So today, I’ll thank Jesus for coffee, for great friends, and yes, even for Starbucks, Kirkland’s, and that pesky day job. 🙂
I really WANT to be crafty, thoughtful, and genius all the time. When it comes to gift-giving, I want to give THAT gift. That one that takes the teacher’s breath away, and makes her stop to reflect on how much she loves our family. 😉
Then record scratch, scrrrrrrreeeeaaachhhhhhh!!! The reality of a full time+ job and two kids’ schedules sinks in. Though I have contrived amazing ideas of hand-cut, glued and sewn works of art culled from Pinterest that seem amazing in my mind… well, when it comes to execution, it’s time to get real and just get a gift card. Gift cards, of course, are wonderful and useful gifts, except that in my psychosis it just doesn’t ever seem personal enough… especially for that one special teacher who I know has been painstakingly planning her daily lessons, grading papers during her “relaxation” time, and patiently helping my kids curve their B’s and S’s in just the right way. So maybe this wonderful teacher deserves more than the 7 seconds it takes me to slap a gift card on the counter at the Walmart checkout.
And honestly, if YOU wanted to get a gift card, you wouldn’t be reading my blog here! Not to mention the fact that you share in my psychosis, at least a little. So here is a list of several things I have put together for our teachers over the years. I included links to many items on Amazon to help you out!
1. Organizer filled with treats and/or supplies
This one was funny once it was wrapped. Was it a tackle box? A bird cage? (Real guesses from my kids’ teachers). But wait, it is an amazingly wonderful thing! I purchased a Sterilite Stack-n-carry organizer box — then filled in with sweets on the top 2 layers and teacher supplies (scissors, pens, magnets and other goodies) on the bottom layer. (See how I put this one together here in my post The Teacher Box of Awesomeness). About $25-$35 filled.
2. Beach tote and gear
An inexpensive beach tote filled with a beach towel, sunglasses, an insulated travel mug or water bottle, floppy straw hat, sunscreen and other beach goodies turned out to be very fun and well appreciated. My 5YO daughter suggests a beach ball would be a good addition. Check late spring sales and you can really fill up the bag with some nice things. About $40-$50 filled.
3. Cozy Blanket
I love blankets, and now I know that teachers do, too. One teacher commented to me this Christmas that she was still using the one we got her LAST Christmas. Here is a link to a lovely blanket. About $15-$25.
4. Chocolate
So, this idea is not so original, but I once read a great post that said if you give Chocolate, give the good stuff, and I agree. It doesn’t even necessarily need to be the most expensive; just find out what your teacher likes — she could be a Reese’s fanatic. Of course, a box of good chocolates with a gift card attached to the box can personalize the gift card gig, especially if you tune in to what kind of chocolate your teacher enjoys. You could even go for a lovely bag of Godiva coffee. $15 and up
5. Initial or personalized gifts
An initial or other personalization is one of the most thoughtful things you can give, and you can go first or last name with this one. Just try to avoid The Dreaded Ceramic Mug. Well, unless it is really super duper cute. I have found initial-clad totes, ornaments and purse hooks. The purse hook is unique and went over well with our Pre-K teachers! About $15.
6. Movie-themed basket
Purchase a gift card to cover two tickets to a movie, then place in a red-and-white popcorn tub with a few other movie-themed items for watching movies at home (some ideas: box of microwave popcorn, popcorn seasonings, cookies, Cracker Jacks, and bags of candy like Good-n-Plenty, Dots, Skittles) About $30-$40.
A few weeks ago marked the 5-year anniversary of the death of my best friend Holli. She passed away at age 37 during the H1N1 pandemic of 2009. I guess you could say I had Heaven on the Brain, because around this time of year ever since she died, one of the things I do to cope and avoid depression is to really think and pray about Heaven.
It was almost exactly a week past this anniversary when my husband and I were headed out of town on a little mini-vacation, just a few days of R&R time sans kids (only our second such trip in seven years). I found myself in the airport looking for books to read on the plane and on the beach during our trip.
With Heaven on the Brain, I chose three books:
At first I hesitated to buy three books about Heaven. I mean, that’s pretty weird, right? Even for someone in ministry, it just seemed a little over the top. But I reasoned to myself that if it is perfectly acceptable — even normal — to binge watch an entire season of Orange is the New Black on Netflix in a day… so then it shouldn’t be so weird to binge-read about Heaven over a few days. After all, two of these books are on the New York Times bestseller list and the third was #1 for a good while. Re-convinced of my normalcy, I made the purchase.
While the subject matter of Heaven is certainly a common denominator in the three works, each book is quite different. The first one I read, The First Phone Call from Heaven, is a fictional novel. Set in a made-up northern Michigan town, First Phone Call tells the story of a select group of residents who begin receiving phone calls from the deceased. A flurry in the town erupts as miracle after miracle seems to occur. I can’t really say much more about the story without spoiling, but what struck me about this fictional account was how real I imagined people’s reactions to the miracles were. We so badly want to believe there is a Heaven, but when presented with possible proof, we are all skeptical. We have been duped so many times, we all have a penchant toward non-belief in the face of something that could be truly miraculous. I wonder how much we miss because of our bias.
I switched gears when I finished First Phone Call, and read some non-fiction: The Map of Heaven. OK, I’ll be honest, I started reading The Map of Heaven and got a few chapters under my belt. This book is dense. One of those ones that if you didn’t pay attention in science class (I didn’t), you have to read reallll slooooowwww. So I am continuing to slowly read. But man, it is fascinating stuff. Written by a neurosurgeon who previously did not believe in God and had a near-death experience that changed his mind, as a Christian there is an angle that takes getting used to as you read. It’s a cross-cultural, cross-religious view of the scientific and philosophical principals that support the concept of Heaven and the assertion that there must be a creator. For someone who is accustomed to reading about Heaven purely from a Christocentric perspective, in reading this book that mentions Jesus as one of the “possibilities,” I almost felt like I was cheating at first. One the other hand, as I read, I enjoyed getting the more cross-cultural view. The more I know, the better I can communicate with anyone struggling to believe.
So I didn’t finish reading Map yet, but, give me a few weeks and I’ll get ‘er done. For the plane ride home, I decided to dive into Heaven is for Real. The movie came out this year, and I hadn’t seen it because I really wanted to read the book. But yet I didn’t want to read the book, because I honestly felt like I had heard so much about it, what was the point of reading it? I felt the same way when I went to see the movie Titanic in 1997. One of the most colossal movies of all time, and I had a bad attitude going in, because, really, didn’t we already know how it was going to end? And then of course by the end of the movie I was bawling my eyes out to Celine Dion. Well, the same thing happened in For Real. Except the Celine Dion part. This book got a grip on me, largely because my own children are very close in age to Colton Burpo, the little boy featured in the book. During his illness and hospital scare, I think I held my breath for the entirety of two chapters. The story is well-told, and a nice read.
There is no question that worship over the centuries has been at the center of debate at one time or another in most churches. Fifteen or twenty years ago, we had heated disagreements over drums and clapping. Thirty years ago, we had heated debates over the guitar. A hundred years ago or more, the debates were over whether the hymns sung in church should so closely resemble pub songs. Today, the debate continues over lights, haze, and the accusation that worship leaders everywhere are making church “like a rock concert.”
It’s interesting, the line of thought that goes into these heated debates. Most often, the argument comes down to a singular point: we want the worship to be about God, not the _______ (fill in that blank with the word being debated at the time: drums. lights. guitar. singer. pastor. musical style.)
The department I manage at New Life would be called something like Worship Arts or Creative Arts at most other churches. Here, our group is called the Reach team. On Reach team, our mantra is very simple. As the name implies, we have only one goal, and that is to reach people for Jesus Christ. We will use every tool at our disposal to reach people. All ages, races and genders. We are happy if people enjoy worship, but our priority is on reaching the lost for Christ. It’s not just about making it younger and hipper. We are seeking to hit a target rich environment of lost people. This year, we made a conscious decision to start incorporating more creative elements into our worship services to help us realize the goal.
We actually didn’t wake up one day and decide that we were going to do rock-n-roll church. Rather, we thoughtfully decided that every element in the room needed to be executed at a level of professional excellence that would glorify God. We wanted to use every tool at our disposal to reach people for Christ who had not otherwise been reached in any other church in our community. That meant doing things a little differently. OK, for some, it was a lot differently. In our transition in worship, this boiled down to introducing three new visual elements: additional colored lights, haze and staging. We have also worked with volume and EQ levels, and introduced some usage of multitracks for the worship teams. The sermon series are now themed and the theme is supported with logos, bumper videos that precede the sermon, and social media reinforcement of key scriptures and biblical ideals.
So when we add all this, aren’t we worried about distracting people from God? Let me answer that question with another series of questions. When you go to the Maroon5 concert, is there any concern that an awesome light show will make you forget you’re there to see Maroon5? Is there a worry that the haze on the stage will obstruct the view of Adam Levine? Does the stage design detract from the meaning of the music or the quality? Of course not. When we go to a concert, it is an expectation that the artist puts on a highly professional, produced show worthy of the money we paid for the ticket.
Let’s translate that example to post-modern, “rock concert” worship. Through our stage elements, song lyrics, posture on stage, and surrounding activities, we make it quite clear who the star of the “show” is: Jesus Christ, our one true God. How much effort should we then put into worship of OUR star? He paid the ultimate price for us; more than we could ever fathom paying for a ticket to a show. Why would we settle for anything less than an all-out, no-holds-barred worship experience that lives up at least to the standards of what we would expect when we come out to see our favorite secular artist? Our God is worthy of EVERYTHING we can give. Every tool, technology, light, sound and creative offering. Yes, what is created is cool — but isn’t that the point? Shouldn’t the worship we offer up to God be amazing in every way? In addition, when we open ourselves to methods of worship that the unchurched can relate to, we close the door on exclusivity and elitism that plagues so many churches. The unchurched — remember them? Oh right. They are the whole reason we exist as a church. If there is any doubt, read the great commission in Matthew 28:20.
But wait! As a church, isn’t it important that we stay rooted in our core beliefs and values? Of course it is. Lights and haze are no further from our core beliefs than stained glass and incense. All of the above are expressions of worship. Think for a moment about one of the major contributors to the value system of the United Methodist and Wesleyan churches, John Wesley. Wesley was a structure guy. He valued discipline and order. But did you know that he also valued corporate worship and corporate involvement, and sought to find ways to reach people for Christ? In The Way to Heaven: The Gospel According to John Wesley
author Steve Harper explains that Wesley understood transition and the need for evolution in the church. Wesley believed, “We have no other age to serve but the one we’re in, and we recognize it to be one of substantial and radical evolution.” Wesley strove to see the Gospel influence the culture. But then, how do we influence culture? By being completely apart from it or by leveraging the cultural tools of our time? I argue the latter. I’ve seen it work SO MUCH. When you speak – or worship – in the language
of people you are trying to reach – deliver messages in a medium people understand and engage with — we then have a chance of delivering the truth of the gospel to folks who may not have otherwise given this message a chance. In this way we turn culture inside out. Media, lights, haze are all tools. You can use them to glorify secular rock stars, or turn culture on its head and use all this awesome technology to glorify the Lord.
These things are just things, they are not God. We use these things to glorify God.
Now back to Wesley. Wesley’s structure, discipline and appreciation for doctrine did not mean he was stuck in his ways. He sought to use this theology “to address the time and place in which he lived,” according to Harper. Doing all this creates a kind of tension between two truths, one that has existed for all of humanity. On one hand, we are called to not conform to the patterns of this world. On the other hand, we must meet people where they are in order to reach them and make disciples for Christ.
Let’s take a look at David, a shining example of a great worshiper in the Old Testament. In 2 Samuel 6, we read that David is bringing the ark of God to Jerusalem. They are worshipping “with all their might.” Then in 2 Samuel 6:5 we see that “David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating with all their might before the Lord, with songs and with harps lyres, tambourines, sistrums and cymbals.”
What does it look like when we worship with all our might? With all of our energy?
What does it look like when we worship with everything we have at our disposal to lift up to the Lord?
Keep reading there in 2 Samuel. A little later, Michal is watching David worship this way and didn’t like it at all. In 2 Sam 6:16 we see her reaction to his showy worship: “As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart.”
Not everyone will like the style of worship as it evolves today, tomorrow or ten years from now. Why?
– They judge it as insincere or fake
– They mistake who or what is being worshipped
– They are distracted by the thing we are using to exalt
In this story, I like to imagine Michal looking at that ark, shaking her head. I envision her thoughts: “Ridiculous. They could have used the money and energy of building that ark to help people. What a waste. There they are out there dancing and singing and having a good old time. You know they aren’t thinking about God. They’re just having a go-go and not thinking about anything but jamming with the band!” Do you think she thought they were worshiping the ark? What thoughts do you suppose were going through her mind? The bible doesn’t say, this is just what I envision.
When it comes down to it, we know a few things about modern worship. Within a few years, the thing we’re doing today that is effective in reaching people will fade and something else will be in the toolbox. The thing that is shocking today will be commonplace and well accepted in a few years, because there was nothing wrong with it in the first place. Regardless of our methods, the important thing is the heart of the worship leaders and the sincerity of the tech team. Are we doing what we’re doing to be cool? Or to reach people for Christ? If we keep our goal at the front of our minds… if we make “reaching” a priority… then we are doing exactly what Jesus called us to do. Rock on.
Need an idea for your next Volunteer Appreciation celebration? One of our most fun volunteer parties at our church was called “Volunteers are Super!” This was a (relatively) easy and low cost party to pull off, and turned out to be very fun! Volunteers are the superheroes that truly make the world go ’round. And when you really think about it, most of the superheroes you grew up idolizing were VOLUNTEERS. So, it works!
We decorated with solid bright tablecloths and the food tables had comic-book-themed tablecloths. Each table had an assortment of superhero stuff: water bottles with superhero duct tape over the labels, silicone bracelets in bright colors that said “BAM!” and “POW!”, plain white masks with items to decorate (read more about the masks here), and cute “Volunteers Are Super” candybar favors.
Because it’s volunteer appreciation, the staff prepared and served all the food to the volunteers. Many of the staff and volunteers got into the dress-up fun. Some costumes were as simple as a super-hero themed t-shirt; others went for more elaborate superhero costumes.
We got REALLY lucky, because the stage setup already in place for the current sermon series at the time worked very well for our theme. The backdrop is black curtains and the cross is part of our sanctuary. The steel-looking structures are made from aluminum stage truss pieces with sheets of metal roofing (available at any home improvement store) hung by chain links. There are Edison lights hanging from the ceiling and colorful LEDs made it come alive. The projection image is a superhero motion background from WorshipHouseMedia.
Of course we started with a great superhero-themed invitation, designed by one of our volunteers, Kelye Tucker. We saved money by emailing the invitation and distributing paper copies at church. You can click on the image to enlarge it:
I put together the widget below so you can easily find party supplies on Amazon.
Superhero Volunteer Party Playlist
The criteria for our church superhero-themed volunteer appreciation playlist was simple: clean lyrics and family friendly. Some are obvious, and some we threw in there for a humorous twist. Give them a preview or download, below! Let me know in the comments if there are any you would add.
Superhero Selfie Photo Booth
We had often talked about the idea of renting a photo booth for our parties and banquets at church, but at $600 and up for a rental, the cost usually exceeded our budget. Enter the “Selfie Photo Booth!”
The concept couldn’t be more simple to execute! Create a backdrop to match your party theme, and provide a bin full of costume accessories. Then let your guests take their own photos with personal cameras and smartphones.
For the Superhero Selfie photo booth, we needed three simple things:
Superhero cityscape backdrop
Black sheet or draping
A string of white Christmas lights
A bin of dress-up props
Most of what we needed, we already had on hand. We splurged a little on the cityscape (~$40). You could certainly make one out of cardboard and paint for an even more economical solution.
In our example, the black draping is set atop our Children’s Check-in area. You could just as easily tack the draping to the wall, poles, whatever you have in your space. You could even use a couple of ladders. The key is to make sure the backdrop is a few feet taller than the average person, to allow some room for your backdrop and lights to peek above where they are standing. Or, you could make a sit-down version; just ensure the bulk of your background decorations are slightly ABOVE shoulder level with enough overlap behind to create a nice overall effect.
For your bin of dress-up props, you can get a lot of fun things without spending ANY money. Raid your kids’ dress up stuff, check with your children’s ministry, or local teachers. Here’s a list to get you started:
Masks
Funny/big glasses
Sunglasses
Hats of various shapes and sizes
Silly headbands
Scarves
Googly eyes
Necklaces
People have a ball with photo booths and with a little imagination — and VERY little money — you can have one at YOUR next party. Have fun!
Superhero Mask Craft
Danielle’s Madame Rocket Nose
At our Superhero-themed Volunteer Appreciation party at church, we put these masks out on the tables for people to decorate. I was amazed at the creativity! My favorite one was created by my friend Danielle, who titled her creation “Madame Rocket Nose.”
Mask-making was inexpensive and the adults and kids all had a lot of fun with it. We kept the mess under control by using self-adhesive decorations and markers. If you don’t mind more mess, you can add items like glitter or other objects that need to be glued. Since we had food being served at the same tables, we kept the materials for the masks “clean,” which I think everyone can appreciate. You can use this idea for several different themes — think Mardi Gras, Fall Festival, Mystery Dinner Theater — lots of possibilities! Here are the materials:
White masks, buy in bulk
Self-adhesive craft foam stickers (we used glitter stars and outer space shapes to go with the theme)
Self-adhesive jewels
Sharpies in various colors – we put out 6 colors per table
You can customize your mask decorations to the theme of the party. Since we had a superhero theme, the outer space shapes and star shapes worked really well with people’s costumes. We just set the materials out on the tables and let the magic begin!
Here are links to all the materials I ordered for the masks on Amazon.
The “I Need A Hero” Game
So we had this awesome theme for our volunteer appreciation party this year. AWESOME. It was: “Volunteers are SUPER” with all things superhero-y. Indeed, volunteers are the superheroes that truly make the world go ’round. And when you really think about it, most of the superheroes you grew up idolizing were VOLUNTEERS. So, it works! We had the decorations, the invitations, an awesome photo booth idea, and now we just had to come up with some entertainment. A song? Thought’s of Bonnie Tyler’s “I Need a Hero” rung through our minds. Strike one. A video tribute? Nice idea, but we were already doing a video shout out from the pastor. How about some kind of game?
I was coming up blank and running out of time as I juggled other projects and time was tick, tick, ticking away before our big event. Like any good, worn-out creative type, I trolled Pinterest to rip off — er, borrow — someone else’s idea. Only, I couldn’t really find a game that worked on the scale of a room of 200 people. Then, I found this Power Punch Game idea from blogger Becky Lee Burke. If you don’t follow the link, I’ll sum it up: paper bowls covered in tissue paper with a prize inside, mounted on a backboard and hung to a fence. Kids could “power punch” through the tissue to get the prize inside.
I loved the concept, original and perfect for a superhero party. But, I had two problems: (1) no budget for prizes, and (2) I needed a way to scale the concept for a large crowd. So again like any good, worn-out creative type would do, I took someone else’s awesome idea and modified it.
In the end, this game is “super” easy, inexpensive to create, and was a HUGE hit. There is really no competition or point to it, other than entertainment (and being chosen also means receiving one of our SUPER-DUPER POWERADE TROPIES (see below)). Sometimes the silly ones are the best kind of games!
So here is how it goes:
Set up a tall backboard at the front of the room. Our room has a stage. We used inexpensive Coroplast for the backboard (in fact, we already had the coroplast leftover from another project). We stood up a 4X8 sheet on its short end and use zip ties to attach to two poles that we normally use to support pipe-and-drape walls. But really, you can use any sort of sturdy backdrop.
On the backdrop, mount circles made of cardstock. We glued the ends of two sheets of vertically trimmed 8-1/2X11 cardstock together to form a circle about 8 inches across and about 8 inches tall once it protruded from the board. We taped on the inside of the circles to attach them to the backdrop; this was plenty strong and the tape was never seen. Nice and clean. We used red, blue and yellow cardstock for nice pops of color. On the top of each circle, we taped target shapes and “POW” shapes. We pre-scored the paper with an X so that people didn’t knock the whole thing down trying to punch through. (Note, you could use tissue paper here like the original idea which doesn’t need to be scored. Regular paper DOES. It’s surprisingly hard to punch through a regular sheet of paper without destroying everything around it. We used it because we liked the patterns and visual interest of printed shapes.)
With all the circles mounted on the board, we placed our printed challenges inside. We placed one challenge inside each circle. Remember, the point of these challenges and questions is NOT to be challenging! They were created to be silly and ridiculously easy, actually. I’ve included our original list, which includes a few more than you really need. You can do this game with any number of circles and any number of questions. The one thing that I will caution, is that actually picking out the people, getting them up on stage and introducing them, having them answer the challenge, and giving them their (totally awesome) PowerAde trophy takes time. With just 12 questions, our game ran about 20 minutes. So here they are… the challenges were:
Name three of Superman’s powers. (Answer: Heat vision, icy breath, super speed, flight, super strength, and nearly invincible.)
What is Batman’s true identity? (Answer: Bruce Wayne)
Find one person with red lipstick, chap-stick, or lip-gloss on their person.
If you were a super hero, what would your power be? Demonstrate it.
Who is Batman’s sidekick? (Answer: Boy Wonder, Robin, Richard “Dick” Grayson)
Find one person with a cape, mask, or insignia and bring them onstage.
Can you demonstrate how Superman would fly around the stage?
Show how you would take down the bad guys if you were Spiderman.
What is Spiderman’s real name? (Answer: Peter Parker)
Find someone at your table that knows the name of the newspaper Clark Kent works for. (Answer: The Daily Planet)
Find a person dressed like a well-known super hero and bring them onstage.
T or F? Batman, Superman, and Green Lantern are ALL members of the Justice League. (Answer: True)
Find and identify one person with a mask on.
What song would you pick to be your ‘Hero Anthem’ or theme music? Perform a few bars.
As a volunteer, what super power would best help you? Why? Demonstrate how you would use it.
The game is hosted by a superhero of your choosing to be the emcee. We had Batman. He walks around the room and picks each contestant at random. Our Batman, Pastor Bryan Sells, has a lot of personality and he brought that special something! Be mindful to pick people from the crowd from various volunteer ministries and age groups.
Use music to keep things moving. We played snips of songs from our SuperHero Playlist at Batman was walking around, as as people walked up to the stage. Not only did this keep things feeling like they were “moving” at all times — sometimes, the music inspired people to do comical dance moves and other funny things.
After a person is chosen, they are brought to the stage at the front of the room where they punch out one of the circles from the game board and pull out their challenge. They then answer it or act it out on the spot. Batman has the person read the question/challenge out loud on the mic, and then when they answer the question or complete the challenge, they get a prize. We gave them these awesome PowerAde “trophies.”
When creating games like this, there is always that feeling inside — that nagging little “this could go either way.” I was thrilled that our crowd REALLY got into the game and most people really hammed it up! It was a big success.
This is the best Christian worship album I have heard in a long, long time. I was blessed to see BJ Putnam live at the National Worship Leader Conference in 2013. Soon after, the album More and More (Live) was released. So many albums have a good song or two, and in the age of iTunes and single-song downloads, we don’t often buy a whole album. This is one album that is worth it. Favorites include Sing a New Song, Glorious and Beautiful Love. A Spanish version was also released recently, Más y Más (En Vivo). Worship leaders, worshipers, everyone should download this album in its entirety and listen for an awesome worship experience.
I recently completed Old Testament Introduction through the Cross Training program at Oklahoma Wesleyan University. To be honest, I was dreading this class. Why? I was intimidated. While I have studied the Bible in church my whole life, I was overwhelmed at the prospect of taking on — and sorting through — the meaning of 39 distinct books and thousands of characters spanning several thousand years!
Enter Epic of Edenby Sandra Richter. Richter’s strategy in approaching this overwhelming topic is to categorize and bring order to a huge stockpile of information. She organizes the Old Testament into key places, time periods and people. The time, space and persons of the Old Testament are not only clarified for the reader, but suddenly much easier to memorize and recall. Richter is thorough, intelligent and explanatory.
This book is not just a reference, it is a fascinating and enjoyable read. Learn more about it at the Amazon link below!
by Mitch Albom
