Making your Super Bowl Halftime Show a hit

Ever since the Wardrobe malfunction happened between Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson, I’ve been doing Super Bowl Halftime show of our own…no matter what Student Ministry program I’ve been apart of.  In fact, I don’t know why I waited to the wardrobe malfunction to happen for us to do our own halftime show.

Why do we do our own halftime show? For a variety of reasons, but the reality is that we see the Super Bowl as a HUGE outreach opportunity for our student ministry program. So if we are going to throw a party, we want to be able to do a few things so that people can hear about Christ..maybe for the 1st time.

That is why at halftime of the Super Bowl we do our own show.  And over the past decade our student ministry has been doing our own halftime show and they have been great.

So, here are 3 things you should do to make YOUR halftime show a winner so the students don’t miss the OTHER halftime show:

1. Make it fun and interactive.  Depending on the year, students are going to want to watch their favorite singers perform live at the Super Bowl.  So you have to make your event something just as cool.  That is why we’ve done games (group games and invidigual games) as well as some really gross and crazy things (food eating competitions, egg roulette or water war (thanks Jimmy Fallon) or even blender games).  We’ve pulled out all the stops to include some games and fun activities for everyone to be excited about.
2. Give away something(s).  This is a BIG deal for us.  In fact, for some people it’s the main draw.  We’ve given away some smaller items such as a gift card to a store or iTunes.  But we’ve also had a big ticket item like an iPad or iPods before (back when iPods were more popular than they are now). There is not many more ways you can draw students to your Super Bowl party than to give away some really cool stuff!
3. Share Christ.  You have a golden opportunity here for a ton of people, more than you can get at other outreach events, to share about Christ.  This is the most important action you have. We’ve always tried to have 1 leader share about the group and then 1 student share about how Christ has made an impact on their life.

When you do these 3 things, students are going to want to come back to the next thing you are doing.  You’ve created that “WOW” factor that gets students say, “I can’t wait to come back”.

So make sure you have a clear invite to what is happening next with your group.  If you don’t have something for students to come back to, this big event that you just put on will go for naught as you won’t get a big return rate.

The Super Bowl party and in particular your Halftime show can be a catalyst for your student ministry.  If you haven’t started working on doing one, the great thing is that because of social media you still have plenty of time to put one together that will draw students and hopefully introduce them to Christ.

So what you think? Do you do your own halftime show during the Super Bowl? If so, what do you do to make it a win? Share your stories below or on social media using #ymsidekick so we can be encouraging each other in the new year!

Also, make sure you sign up for the Sidekick Scoop below to stay current on all other great Student and Family Ministry as well as Church Communication and Social Media content and trends.