Volunteer Appreciation Event
"Sowing Seeds"
A teacher appreciation event based on a farming theme: Sowing Seeds.
Jesus used a lot of farming/agricultural themes in his teaching. The parables of: the mustard seed, the workers and the vineyard, the lost sheep, the parable of the sowing of the seeds.
"I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow." - 1 Cor. 3:6
This information was shared with everyone together, then all the teachers were recognized with their specific areas: children, teens & adults. Every teacher was given a packet of seeds. Check around and find the packets on sale.
We then broke and headed to the gym for finger foods, and some fun "farming games." Everyone was invited to dress for the farm (overalls, jeans, bonnets, cowboy hats, etc.) Living in Texas, this really wasn't a hard thing to do! Throw up a few decorations and a little country music in the background (I made a CD using the country music from www.freeplaymusic.com). I purchased some plastic steer (cow) heads from a local tractor/farm supply store and some lassos, We mounted the cow heads on wooden saw horses and let kids try their hand at roping. We had a washer pit (coffee can with some sand in it) for tossing metal washers (much like horse shoes). Everyone gathered around the outside perimeter of the gym to eat. In the center we had several competitions. We had seed spitting contests by age groups (over 50, 30's & 40's, teens & 20's, and then kids). We also did sack races. If you've ever been to a rodeo you may have seen the greased pig contest, well we did a similar game with kids. We taped candy bars on their backs and let their teachers try to catch them and take the candy from their back. Our ministers and elders paired off for wagon races. We gathered several little red wagons, had one person sit in the wagon and another pull. Lots of fun and one spill. Next we let kids and their parents pair up and race. Wagons can flip at high speeds, so it's always recommended to be careful and let parents pull their kids. We ended the night with a little "country sing along."
We had great fun and great participation from a variety of age groups.