LARPing in Youth Ministry

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April 7, 2012

“What’s LARPing?”, you ask. Well, you may just want to go re-measure yourself on the geek scale. If you look down on the far end of that scale, near infinity, you will find a term called LARPing. It stands for Live Action Role Play. That’s right! It’s Dungeons and Dragons with costumes, and this year the our youth ministry is holding 2 Larper events– we just won’t be calling them Larper events.They are actually modeled after an old YS! resource called Adventure Games. It’s out of print now, but if you can find one on Amazon or eBay I recommend it! The idea that Adventure Games are built on is that you minimize rules, maximize the story/narrative, and play on a huge area with 60-100 players. Here’s a description and video about our first adventure game event:

Our first will be a theme night called “Aliens”. That 4 hour event will be 1 long game that we are calling Battlefield: Earth. Essentially it’s capture the flag, only with humans. As I said earlier, adventure games EMPHASIZE the story! The better and more realistic your story is, the better the game! We decided that what our game needed was a few promo videos that were a little out of the ordinary. Here’s the one that we’ll be showing our students tomorrow morning. I’ll chat about the production a little bit in the comments– right now I have to go hide some Easter eggs for kids at my church!

 

 

4 Comments

  1. Jon

    This was a, “Hey, I know it’s Friday, but you know what would be sweet to show on Sunday?” video. Gear was minimal, and editing was even less. Here’s what we shot and edited with:

    Canon 60D and a 50mm f1.8 lens.
    4 Chauvet Colordash Led accent lights
    Blue Mic Yeti Pro ran into audacity.
    iMovie

    Our only light source (other than the leds) was normal fluorescent room lights. For the most part I think the video looks great considering it represents about 4 hours of shooting and editing.

    Question: What keeps you from doing more video in your ministry? rime, resources, ideas?

    Reply
  2. Cooper Miller

    Ok. This idea is great, and I love the video. Please post more details about what the event entails and more specifics. This sounds like a LOT of fun.

    Reply
    • Jon

      In our ministry we hold “Theme Nights” at least twice a year, and we try to schedule one every quarter. These are huge events that get a lot of budget and attention. All our theme nights are held on Friday nights and the theme leads into the new series we will begin the following Sunday. (This theme night will lead into a sermons series called: Aliens)

      The event is broken down into different categories: Atmosphere, Food, Games, Message, etc. and everything revolves around the theme.

      I will be finishing a handbook today that will give youth workers step by step instructions to plan and execute this event. If you are interested in having it connect with me on twitter (@jonhomesley) or facebook (http://www.facebook.com/jonhomesley) and I will send it to you.

      Reply
      • Cooper Miller

        Awesome. Will do, thanks.

        Reply

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