Whether you participate in trunk or treat at church, decorate your car for your driveway, or adapt the ideas for your door, let Halloween be an opportunity to weave in faith with fun and sweet treats. Choose a theme, make the display fun and inviting, give out treats related to the theme, and add an activity or handout to share a loving message.
Jesus interacted with sinners, and Paul used a statue of an unknown god as an opportunity to share Christ. We can use Halloween as a time to reach out with love and share faith, too.
Whether you participate in trunk or treat at church, decorate your car for your driveway, or adapt the ideas for your door, let Halloween be an opportunity to weave in faith with fun and sweet treats.
Choose a theme, make the display fun and inviting, give out treats related to the theme, and add an activity or handout to share a loving message. Choose candy to reflect the theme and add a printed note or activity to give out. Make sure there's lots of lighting, and add more with solar lights if needed. Here are a dozen ideas to connect with kids and their parents.
1. Optical Illusion Truth Walk
Decorate your car with optical illusion printouts. Many can be found on Pinterest. Set up an arrow for the Walk by Faith, not by Sight Walk around the car. Such illusions show your eyes can deceive you.
- Cut a footprint for the note to accompany A Rocky Road or Milky Way candy in a bag with a cut-out footprint can share truth on how to walk by faith. Add a small maze and 2 Corinthians 5:7.
- Draw two parts of a picture on two cards (flower and pot, bird and cage) and tape them together with a popsicle straw in between. When they rub the straw fast to spin, it will appear to be one picture. Print them on card stock, cut them apart, and add straw in a baggie with instructions.
2. Popping with Goodness
Children like pop-up surprises, so create balloon pop-up messages with helium balloons and boxes decorated like treasure chests that are easy to open and reclose or buy plastic treasure chests. Decorate each balloon with a picture of God's goodness and a short scripture on the reverse side of a few of the balloons. Add sound effects to make popping noises. Or put the scripture on the box and let the balloon be decorated to match the scripture. Check online how to make paper poppers, print a message on each paper, and have some to show and give you.
- For treats, use blow pops and ring pops or good and plenty.
- Scriptures can be Psalm 33:5 with nature pics; Psalm 146:7 and food; 2 Corinthians 1:4-5 with a teddy bear, and Psalm 27:9 and friendly smiles; Psalm 133;1 and a happy home; Psalm 139:14 and a mirror inside the cover for the gift of their lives!
3. Sweet Heaven
Create the throne and rainbow described in Revelation 4. Invite people to experience joy in heaven with a joyful greeting, a red pompom for the softness of God's love, a bag of confetti for blessings God sends us, and listening to the joy of nature of rolling waves in a shell. Fill the air with sweet scents like vanilla or apple cider. Praise each child to nurture inner joy.
- Pass out rainbow skittles, starburst, almond joy, or fruit gusher candies. Or give out glow-in-the-dark balls for bouncing with joy.
- Have some joyful stamps to add a design to a child's hand or a card to take as a reminder of joy in heaven.
- Scriptures on heaven: Revelation 21:4 with a crystal bead for tears becoming crystalized jewels, or Matthew 6:19-20 with foil-covered chocolate coins.
Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Nataliia Kheilo
4. Prayer Station, Prayer Swap
Decorate the car like a trading post. Prayer swap-drop off your prayer need, pick up a sweet treat, and promise your need will be prayed over. Promises can be slips of paper to pull out or a fishing pole to fish for one. Have a chalkboard or easel to write prayer answers that people share.
- Give out smarties because our great God knows how best to answer every prayers.
- Recycle paper bags: cut and pass out folded praying hands and colored pencils for kids to take as mini prayer journals.
- Give them a stone on which they can write the prayer and, on the other side, fill in how God responded, as a reminder that God listens to our prayers.
5. Creation Celebration
Decorate the trunk as a jungle with stuffed animals, stars, and the moon. Have a mirror inside a case for kids to open and see the best of all God created. Use a green sheet or plastic tablecloth for a green canopy and draw the trunks on it.
- Use dove candy, Milky Way bars, or animal crackers as treats.
- Have cards numbered 1 to seven. Let kids draw a card and see if they can name what God did that day. If so, reward them with a sticker of an animal or plant.
- Give children a balloon and suggest they think of all things God made that they like that match the color. Remind them as they use their breath to blow up the balloon, God breathed life into them.
6. Connect the Dots to Faith
Decorate with polka dots and make a polka dot maze for kids to follow to the treats. On the big stepping stone, dots have a few simple steps to faith.
- Candy dots or buttons make great treats, along with a bulleted dot list of ways to grow in faith. Have a game of twister on the ground.
- Make a large connect-the-dot mural and have kids connect two numbered dots. Invite them to circle back later and see what biblical scene it makes. Or make several scenes to place on an easel to make various Bible scenes during the evening. Post finished photos online.
- Print out some dot-to-dot pictures for kids to take home to do. Create or find ones that relate to Bible stories.
7. Falling for Jesus
Decorate a fall scene with apples for the apple picking. Cut open an apple crosswise for kids to see the star inside. Remind them that there is star quality in everyone because we are made in God's image. A big pile of leaves and a rake can add to the appearance. If it's on soft grass, kids can jump in. Have bubbles to blow to shout praise while sending bubbles to God.
- Candies can be candy corn, starbursts, and milky ways.
- Create a small slide for kids to send an apple down and see how far it rolls off the slide. Lines could be labeled Getting to know Jesus, believing in Jesus, attending church, and loving Jesus completely.
- Let children dip a sliced apple in an ink stamp and stamp the print on an index card to take home.
8. The Light of the World
Decorate the trunk with lights like solar lights and use solar lights (or luminaries in bags) to make a path to the trunk. Or use black light shining on neon-colored signs. Add a light-up globe or shine light onto a globe and add a sign with John 3:16.
- Candies can be starbursts, gummy stars, rock candy, or edible crystal candies.
- Spin a globe and let a child use a finger to stop it and see where the finger lands. Can they name something about the country under their finger or nearest to it?
- Pass out a birthday candle with a note that angels sing praises in heaven when someone believes in Jesus (Luke 15:10).
9. Treasure Trove
Hang up a treasure map and mark the spot for giving out candy. Place the candies in a treasure chest or hide them in small chests. Make a large interactive map with doors they can open to find out more about treasures from God. Hang a row of balloon hearts and the words of Matthew 6:21: for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Post hearts around the car for kids to open and find treasures of words that share God's blessings for them.
- Use candies with something inside, like Rolo Candy, Reese's cups, and other caramel-filled candy.
- Make a large saran wrap treasure ball for kids to unroll until they get a treat or a sorry note. Or create a dig of a treasure sandbox with shovels or scoops to find a treasure. Kids can scoop up sand and drop it through a sifter to catch the treasure.
- Pass out heart stickers as reminders to think about lasting treasure.
10. U-turns and Rocky Roads
Make mock street signs with danger signs and U-turns to make a path around the car. On the danger signs, add words for some sins that trip kids up (lies, cheating). Look online for directions and make large sliding 2-picture cards or agamographs to show transformations like a caterpillar and butterfly, Jesus on the cross and then rising, or a healed cut.
- Have a bucket of erasers below a cross to give out erasers.
- Share a way to purify water and share how God purifies our hearts. Show pictures from a ministry like Filter of Hope and let kids know how to donate to help get pure water to kids worldwide.
- Pass out rocky road candy.
11. S'more Faith
Decorate the place like a campfire with smores supplies. Make large Smores posters with messages of Smore's reasons for faith. Make a large s'more by wrapping white felt or craft foam around a slice of a paper towel or wrapping paper roll to make a giant marshmallow. Cut a brown and beige piece of craft foam for the cracker and chocolate. Layer them up. Add a hanger and hang them up from the open trunk top.
- Pass out s'mores candies, Hershey chocolates, or the ingredients of smores in a baggie (graham cracker, marshmallows, and chocolate candy with a note to have s'more of Jesus).
- Have some squishy items for kids to squeeze and remind them we need soft, huggable hearts like the soft marshmallows.
- Hand out invites to a kid's event to get s'more of Jesus.
12. The Nativity and Christmas
Create a nativity scene or one of the shepherds and angels. Use Christmas lights. Wear costumes of Mary, Joseph, shepherds, and angels, and add a creche with Jesus.
- Pass out candy canes with a message about the shape and almond joy bars to rejoice.
- Print nativity cards for kids to take and color.
- Make a large tree from green crepe paper that creates a curtain for kids to put their hands in and grab a treasure. Add Hosea 14:8 as a reminder that God compared himself to an evergreen tree and that he has nothing to do with idols.
- Give out papers with decorations to color or little kits to take and make an ornament.
Smile and greet everyone with joy and praise for coming. Understand some kids will grab and go while others will linger to do activities. Be gracious as people leave with joyful thanks for coming and a welcome to visit again or join in on the next event. Rejoice as the community participates and play some joyful music. At the exit, have a welcome sign that announces the next event and church times.
Photo credit: ©GettyImages/kajakiki
Related: Check out Karen Whiting's book, 52 Weekly Devotions for Family Prayer!
Top Photo credit: ©Getty Images/evgenyatamanenko
Karen Whiting is a mom, author, international speaker, writing coach, and former television host who loves sharing ideas to strengthen families. She has written Growing a Mother’s Heart: Devotions of Faith, Hope, and Love from Mothers Past, Present, and Future and 52 Weekly Devotions for Family Prayer, which includes a different way to pray each week plus stories and activities to explore questions children ask about prayer. Her newest book, Growing a Joyful Heart co-authored with Pam Farrel, shares stories that show how to have inner joy, more joy in relationships, choose joy in all circumstances, and become a joy-giver. She loves adventure including camel riding, scuba diving, treetop courses, and white water rafting plus time at home crafting and baking.
