Don't Try These... Until you Hear My Mistakes!

About this Episode

Youth ministry theme nights are some of the BEST ways to get students inviting friends and to build momentum in your group.
But here’s the thing nobody tells you—every single one of my theme nights has come with a mistake. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it was painful… and one time I thought I was getting fired…

Before you try these for yourself, let me give you my five best theme nights from 15 years in youth ministry—and the one mistake I made in each, so you don’t have to learn the hard way.

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Fall Masterclass
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Duct Tape Trivia
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/duct-tape-trivia/kids-ministry/games-1029.html

Loot & Lunacy
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/loot-and-lunacy/games/video-enhanced-9909.html

Patreon (K)Night Episode
https://www.patreon.com/posts/back-2-school-k-137095993

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Youth Ministry Theme Nights
00:42 Theme Night #1
04:37 Theme Night #2
08:52 Theme Night #3
10:35 Theme Night #4
12:25 Theme Night #5

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TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:03:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Youth ministry theme nights are some of the best ways to get your students

00:00:03:13 - 00:00:09:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
inviting their friends to your group, as well as build momentum for the overall team. But here's

00:00:09:13 - 00:00:20:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
something that someone might not tell you about some of these theme nights is that in every single one, there is an opportunity for a huge mistake. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it was painful.

00:00:20:21 - 00:00:21:14
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And one time I

00:00:21:14 - 00:00:23:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
even thought I might be getting fired.

00:00:23:19 - 00:00:37:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so before you try this for yourself, in this episode, I'm going to share with you my five favorite theme nights from my last 15 years in youth ministry. And the one mistake I learned from each of those, so that you don't have

00:00:37:02 - 00:00:39:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
to learn it the hard way for yourself.

00:00:39:12 - 00:00:54:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Welcome my friends, to the Hybrid Ministry show. Well, hey my friends, welcome back to the Hybrid Ministry Show. I am your host, Nick Claussen, and I have been in this recent playlist asking and answering different questions found in different youth ministry

00:00:54:00 - 00:00:55:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Facebook groups. And this

00:00:55:19 - 00:00:55:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
one

00:00:55:27 - 00:00:59:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
says, hey, what are some theme nights you've done with your group that your kids have really enjoyed?

00:00:59:20 - 00:01:03:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like Jersey night? Crazy hair. Looking forward to some ideas.

00:01:03:16 - 00:01:03:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And

00:01:03:22 - 00:01:03:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
so

00:01:03:28 - 00:01:23:22
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I figured, hey, I want to share some of my best theme nights. And I've discussed this before in some recent episodes. In fact, we did kind of like a fall playlist master class thing where I talked about my strategy for youth ministry. And oftentimes I'll make a theme night, a cultivate night, which is a bring your friends and invite style night.

00:01:23:22 - 00:01:36:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so one of the very first, invite style nights that I did as a youth pastor was one that I grew up as a teenager doing my youth pastor shout out to Pastor Tim Blow. He did an event

00:01:36:16 - 00:01:42:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
called Duct Tape Night. And, then I went several years later to intern for him, and he also did it.

00:01:42:06 - 00:02:02:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so then when it was my turn to be a youth pastor, it was time to do duct tape night. And so we do all kinds of different duct tape. We buy a bunch. We encourage students to, you know, bring like, bring something made out of duct tape that they made, will play, you know, games with duct tape or I even have a game I download youth ministry, called duct tape Trivia.

00:02:02:28 - 00:02:23:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
It's one of my very, very first vivid early on games. And then we'll even play, like, steal the bacon. But in the middle, we'll we'll play, like, steal the duct tape instead. But one probably like the star of the show. Like the thing that kids and students and even leaders look the most forward to is the duct tape a student to the wall challenge.

00:02:23:00 - 00:02:41:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And, like, I was, like I said, within my first couple, months, even weeks of of taking this new job and got a couple kids and decided to duct tape them to the wall. And that's all well and good. No one got hurt. I mean, if you get enough duct tape, they literally can stick to the wall and they're not going to fall down.

00:02:41:20 - 00:02:42:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That wasn't the problem.

00:02:42:27 - 00:03:00:12
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
What was the problem was as soon as, they started to fall off the wall, we started to take them down off the wall. It took the paint with them. Mind you, I'm in week, like, three and a half of this job. And so, you know, it's Wednesday night. The entire church is their kids ministry, youth ministry, adult ministry.

00:03:00:12 - 00:03:01:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so at the end of the night,

00:03:01:18 - 00:03:14:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
all the adults like how duct tape night go because, like, they knew about it, heard about it, but had never, like, seen an event like this before. And we're like, oh, good, good, good. And I was talking to my, my senior pastor, my boss. Right. And I was like, oh, it's awesome.

00:03:14:25 - 00:03:31:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We had this, we had this, we had this many new kids, whatever. Oh, also, I had, kid, pull some of the tape off the, some of the paint off the wall with the duct tape. So just, you know, tell me, like what color paint that was, and, I'll. I'll repaint it. No big deal.

00:03:31:29 - 00:03:53:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Right. And he goes that we had to have that, like, specially painted with it in a very special way with, like, a sponge and like a finish. And the person who did that doesn't even live here anymore. They live in Georgia. And like my eyes, I'm just, like, wide eyed. Like what have I done? So I have to somehow get this wall repainted.

00:03:53:26 - 00:04:14:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But reach out to this person who doesn't go to the church anymore. And so within my first couple weeks of ever having a job, I took paint off the precious youth room walls that had been done in a very special and particular way, and so I've learned when you do that duct tape thing, don't put it on paint.

00:04:14:05 - 00:04:34:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I did put it on a brick wall, but it was a painted brick wall. So then in future years, I, stopped putting it on paint because it definitely was always taking the paint in the finish and the drywall off, but it is still an amazing and great event that you can theme, around duct tape. And it's it's a little bit niche and it's a little bit off the beaten track.

00:04:34:06 - 00:04:51:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So it's not your typical style of night. This one right here is one that we just did three weeks ago, and we called it our Back to School night. But in front of the, night, we spelled it with a k parentheses with the K. Back to school night, and we went medieval

00:04:51:21 - 00:04:53:27
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
themed. And, if you're due, I am member.

00:04:53:27 - 00:04:57:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Back in January, they dropped a, game called

00:04:57:02 - 00:05:04:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Loot and Lunacy, and we were going to play Loot and Lunacy at some point in January. But I remember we were in

00:05:04:13 - 00:05:14:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
our run through in our Q to Q and the game. It's just like long, like there are ten sides, ten questions, and they're each like a minute and 30s or so long.

00:05:14:09 - 00:05:32:08
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so you needed to carve out a good 15, maybe even 20 minutes to the whole game. And so that night, right on the moment, right on a dime, I actually decided to switch to another game. So I held loot and lunacy just in my back pocket, knowing I wanted to go back to at some point in the future.

00:05:32:11 - 00:05:50:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so when our back to school came around, I was like, let's, let's build a night around loot and lunacy. And in the meantime, we built up all of these sort of like ren fair ideas around it. And so, you know, we talked about, you know, the importance or not, the importance of we it was an invite.

00:05:50:04 - 00:06:08:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we didn't have like a message or anything, but, we had all sorts of different, like, medieval themed games. We did the impossible shot with the bow and arrow. We did like, a giant scavenger hunt. We got a joust. We even looked into getting turkey legs, but that was either a impossible or B cost prohibitive.

00:06:08:01 - 00:06:29:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I can't remember exactly the reason why, but either way we didn't come up with it. But then in and around it, we played Loot and Lunacy and we broke it up into two chunks. We played some at the beginning and we played some at the end. And, you know, here's the fact is, I actually, because this is recent, I detailed an outline this entire episode over on a recent bonus Patreon podcast episode.

00:06:29:16 - 00:06:40:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I get on and I talk every single week. Actually, as soon as this episode hits stop, I'm gonna turn around and a record and recap last night's, last night's Youth Mystery, which was we had an

00:06:40:20 - 00:06:50:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
amazing, like, custom game that came out of like one of our, team members just heads like, it was fantastic. And I can't wait to share it with you.

00:06:50:03 - 00:07:11:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So click the link down below. And guess what? You also get access to the seasonal summer social media pack. Hey quick break. Let me ask you a question. Are you still waking up every day? Is youth pastor scrambling to figure out what you need to post on your social media? Blurry dodgeball. Pick a video that your leader sent you that's a little bit pixelated, because iPhone still hasn't updated fully to RCS yet.

00:07:11:03 - 00:07:30:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
You see, you don't need that kind of stress this fall. That's why I created this the fast seasonal social media pack for youth pastors. It is three months worth of done for you content done for you, paired with some customization so that you and your leaders and your students are the faces and the personalities on your student ministry.

00:07:30:17 - 00:07:50:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Instagram, TikTok and YouTube shorts feed. So here's the thing. You can grab my pack right now over on Patreon. And did you know that monthly hybrid? Here are Patreon members who only pay $4 per month and get a bonus podcast. They get this pack completely for free, so if you do the math for three months worth of social media content, it's only $12.

00:07:51:03 - 00:08:11:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Where the pack is 1799. Either way, it is a steal for you and it will take away the stress of posting. And you can grab that pack right now and start becoming a master at social media and hybrid ministry. In your youth ministry context, rooting for you as you are crushing it this fall in your student ministry. Moving on.

00:08:11:27 - 00:08:31:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Talking about back to school bashes. That was a like back to school night, medieval themed back school bash. The mistake I made in that is that. Do you know how to spell medieval? I spelled it wrong so many times. And emails out to parents. The whole thing. And I

00:08:31:02 - 00:08:33:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
still don't even know if I know how to spell it.

00:08:33:05 - 00:08:40:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Grammarly tells me it's medieval, but I was spelling it MLG. Easy io.

00:08:40:18 - 00:08:45:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But then I had to spell it mega. I even I like it, I messed it up

00:08:45:24 - 00:09:06:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
so many times. So don't be like me and look up how to spell medieval before you send out emails to parents. But, typically a back to school bash for me, growing up in youth ministry and this is like a big event, a party and a bunch of, like, those giant inflatables and like, you know, obstacle courses, not bounce houses.

00:09:06:16 - 00:09:29:24
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Exactly, but like, obstacle courses, jousts, Velcro wall, like the hanging wrecking ball, the bucking bronco, like stuff like that. And so one year I had, created a special events team, and there's a guy at our church who's super awesome, super willing to help, but, like, didn't want to be, like, necessarily like a youth leader. But he was like, I'll be on like the events team, which was great.

00:09:29:24 - 00:09:50:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so I had our students helpline the night and like what they wanted for food. And they said they wanted Buffalo Wild Wings, which was great and so called ahead place to order. And you know, all the inflatables, all the things are going, kids are showing up, but the food's not there. And I had sent this guy and his name was Tim to go out and grab the Buffalo Wild Wings.

00:09:50:12 - 00:10:09:07
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Order. And I had placed it ready to be picked up at, you know, let's say 615. Well, he told me that when he got there that they didn't start preparing the order of nearly 250 wings until he arrived at 615, and it was supposed to be ready to pick up at 615. And I said, no, it was supposed to be pick up.

00:10:09:07 - 00:10:33:00
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
He said, that's what I told them. And they even said, oh yeah, but we want your wings to be fresh. And so he was like 45 minutes late and all the kids are like, where's the wings? So when you're doing catering and when you're doing a big giant pickup order like that, like just make sure the restaurants don't do harebrained stuff like wait until you get there to start preparing it, which is going to then make it like an hour late.

00:10:33:01 - 00:10:52:05
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Good grief. Event idea number four is last year actually linked right here? I discussed our Christmas movie bracket. And what we did out of that. And again, this is another good plug for my Patreon as I discussed in detail and outlined all of this in my Patreon as well. But we did a bracket which is movies go head to head.

00:10:52:05 - 00:11:09:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
In fact, this was the member resource back in, youth ministry back in December of 2024. So if you remember, you might even have access to this for free. Otherwise, I'll put the link down in the show notes. You can go grab it for just a few bucks, but kids vote head to head on different Christmas movies.

00:11:09:18 - 00:11:33:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then what we did was that was just running in the background. In the month of November. But then what we did was the winner was what became our Christmas movie night. And then my boss shout out to Darren, he did a, he added a flavor of bring your own chair to the Christmas movie night. And so kids are coming in and in shopping carts and in camping chairs, and one group even brought a full air mattress to sit on.

00:11:33:18 - 00:11:54:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So we took all the chairs out of our auditorium and we played the movie, up on the screen. And the kids brought all their own chairs. Now, the mistake that I made in this event was trusting that ChatGPT would know where all of the homeland Swearwords were, because I actually edited, I was going to edit out any cuss words from the Home Alone movie.

00:11:54:16 - 00:12:22:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so ChatGPT told me. And then what happened was, by the grace of God himself, I was thinking about a certain part of the movie, and I remember, oh, there's a swear word there. And I didn't edit that out, so I had to go back in and reedit it, a reedit another edit that after one I had already made, because the first one I made was I was trusting ChatGPT to give me accurate information, and alas, it gave me some accurate information, but not entirely accurate information.

00:12:22:09 - 00:12:41:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So check your AI chat bots people. And then finally, the fifth idea that I have is a Super Bowl party. If you are a youth group that meets on Sunday nights, you're obligated to do something with the Super Bowl. Now, what I would recommend from a philosophical standpoint is if you're ones in a group, don't add a Super Bowl party to it.

00:12:41:23 - 00:12:55:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But if you're sending a group, you've got to figure out what you're going to do. And so I remember the first year that I was at a church that had converted from Wednesday to Sunday. And so in comes along the Super Bowl and all of a sudden people were like, oh yeah, we got church and don't we? And they're like, where are we going to meet?

00:12:55:29 - 00:13:13:04
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so we had a Super Bowl party at my house and it was averagely attended. It wasn't great. And so, the and everyone was like, well, we got a party with these people every year and we do this this time of year. And so I was like, I'm not doing that. I'm not competing with the Super Bowl anymore.

00:13:13:07 - 00:13:31:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Not to mention, I like sports. I want to watch the Super Bowl. And if I'm running a party, I don't get to watch. I don't get to lock in. I don't get to pay attention to the Super Bowl. And so the mistake, I would say, of, doing the Super Bowl party is actually having one. However, if you're a Sunday night meeting youth ministry, what do you do instead?

00:13:31:28 - 00:14:03:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So, I, I moved up our party, in the next couple of years, and we started doing, like, a pre-game or like a tailgating party. And I know those have negative connotations, but just like a before the Super Bowl party of the Super Bowl party. But we're done by the time Super Bowl parties are so big obstacle course in the middle of our, our space and, some football trivia and, I think we did, like, Nerf wars in a room, actually, and I ended up hiring a DJ, which, another mistake was that deejay was awesome.

00:14:03:17 - 00:14:35:19
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like, he wasn't like some, like, low level DJ. He was so good. And the music was so loud, and the kids, complained. They're like, I couldn't hear myself think. And so I had to go ask him to turn the music down a little bit. That was another mistake. But all in all, super fun. I encourage kids wear jerseys and whatever, but we did it on Super Bowl Sunday, just a few hours before the game started, and then if you are like me and you like sports and you like football, you wrap your event up and you're home in your recliner by 6 p.m. and you're watching the game, you don't have to

00:14:35:19 - 00:14:52:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
worry about commercials. You don't have to worry about halftime shows except for your own stuff. You just get to enjoy the game for itself. So those are five of my favorite theme nights. Comment down below what your favorite youth ministry theme night is, and tab this video here on screen so that you can check out the next one and be sure to give us a subscribe.

00:14:52:29 - 00:14:56:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But until next time, and as always, my friends, don't forget, say habit.