This month’s set design was inspired by the 252 Basics theme of the month: Conflict Kitchen. I went with a cooking show/grocery store approach to the theme, and I think it turned out great.

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Full Stage

Above you can see a picture of the full set. You can’t see them very well in the picture, but there are various kitchen utensils hanging from the front trussing and from 12 hooks on the ceiling around the room. I simply ran to the Dollar Tree and picked up a smattering of large and colorful utensils, strainers, measuring cups, and pretty much anything that had a hole for me to string through. We tied some fishing line (extremely cheap at Walmart) to the end of the utensil and tied the utensil to the trussing or hook. Easy peasy.

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Left Side Banner

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Right Side Banner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For our side banners, we decided to make it feel like we are in a grocery store aisle. There’s even a lady shopping in one of the pictures! We also hung more kitchen utensils and some aprons I ordered on Amazon from the banners to add to the theme feel.

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Stage Left

On the left side of the stage, we wanted to create a giant pantry. I used a shelf from my office and asked people in the church to let us borrow non-perishable food items and kitchen appliances for our set, and brought a few items from my own kitchen (I might own way too many kitchen items). I added a couple aprons to the side trussing, and my state of Texas cutting board to add a little Texas flair!

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Stage Right

On the right side of the stage you will see the awesome chalkboard sign one of my leaders painstakingly drew for the set. We used a chalkboard sign we already had on hand from Walmart, and some chalk markers from Hobby Lobby to recreate the logo from the curriculum. We hung some more aprons and utensils from the keyboard and scattered some chef hats from Amazon around the stage piece.

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Center Stage

For our centerpiece on the stage, I donated my kitchen cart for the month. You can probably find someone in your church who would be willing to loan you something similar, or check garage sales and craigslist. The giant spoon and fork on the front of the kitchen cart are from Target. These were definitely my biggest purchases for the set at $24.99 each, but they are pretty awesome. The tiny shopping carts you see all around the stage were a great find from Kroger for $5.99 each. The carts were originally purple and green and filled with fake food (which I will be using for a verse game). I didn’t like the color of them because it clashed with the rest of the set, so I bought cans of red, silver, and black spray paint from Walmart and re-painted them to match the colors in my set. These carts are great for so many things and we are using them for decor, to hold offering buckets for “offering races”, and for any number of games.

We are having so much fun with this theme and the fun isn’t just limited to our staff. Every week, we choose two kids to take a food challenge. We bring them up on stage, have the food all set up on the kitchen cart, give them a chef’s hat and an apron, and they have one minute to complete the challenge. So far, challenges have included trail mix and cake mix, and at the end of the challenge we pass out the snack to all the kids. They are loving the grocery cart offering races as a change up to the way we usually collect offering. We even bought some fake fruit and veggies on Amazon for grocery cart relay races.

What are some ways you would use this theme in your kid’s ministry?  I’d love to hear your ideas!