Exploring the Church


by Carole Asselin

Theme: what do we know about our parish and our church building? Activity: rally around the church

This idea is a mix between an observation rally and a treasure hunt.

First, the group divided into teams. These could be random groups or family teams. Either way would be fun.

At the start, one question was given to each team, with three choices of answers.

Here is an example:
Question 1: How many person can sit in the church?
a) 745 ..... go to the door behind the church
b) 832 ..... go look behind the golden statue in front of the church
c) 913 ..... go to the bathroom door.

Then, for each wrong answer, there was a card like "Sorry, there was more than that." or "Too bad, go back where you came from".

Each team had a little answer card to write the right answers when they found them. When a good answer was found, it directed you to another location where you would find another question. I had 9 questions (making a total of 36 cards to be "hidden" around the church, in the basement and around the presbytery.

The teams took about a half hour to complete the circuit (one team had one mistake in the answer card so they had to do it a second time!) They all learned a lot about the heritage of our church and our community. We sometimes forget that our churches were built by real people in the community and that they represent a lot of faith and sacrifice.

Again, it is not an activity specifically for that purpose and I certainly intend to use it again for another theme.

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