Of all the things God could use to draw someone into fulltime ministry, pizza probably wouldn’t top the list as the most likely candidate. I mean, when you top it with bacon, sausage, and pineapple; it is pretty fantastic, but not exactly life-changing. Yet God used pizza in some pretty cool ways to teach me the importance of showing the love of Jesus to all kinds of people and help prepare me to creatively share the gospel with kids on the other side of the world. Pizza isn’t life-changing, but it is packed with potential in God’s hands!
I want to share some ideas to help your family or church plan a pizza party that can point kids to Christ. You can use a pizza party to kickoff the back-to-school season, celebrate a group achievement, or just for fun! We’ve got a free kit that has all the ideas you’ll need. Just add pizza! (I couldn’t figure out a way to make pizza available as a digital download, so you’ll have to provide that bit for yourself.)
I first started using pizza to point kids and families to Jesus when I was just a kid. My family would invite pretty much every member or visitor at our little country church, plus random people they connected with in grocery stores, over for pizza on Friday nights. It wasn’t uncommon to have 70+ people join in for fun and fellowship – in fact, the number of people regularly crowding into our kitchen actually broke our floor! As an adult, I told my own kids about my childhood memories of making pizza for Jesus on Friday nights. They liked the story so much I decided to draw some pictures and create a lesson plan that others could use to share the story, and the gospel, with their own kids at home or in the church. Here’s a picture I drew of me from the days when my family used to make pizza for Jesus every Friday night. (Wasn’t I cute!?)
As you can see, it wasn’t always a very easy undertaking and sometimes it even made me nervous, but watching and helping my family serve pizza to friends from church, neighbors, obscure acquaintances, and even many complete strangers had a big impact on me.
Not only did I eventually learn how to make really fantastic whole wheat pizza dough from my mom’s world famous recipe. (Which is ironic cause I’m now gluten intolerant, so I can’t even eat the most impressive thing I’ve ever learned to cook!) I also learned super valuable lessons about serving, loving, giving, and creatively showing God’s grace to all kinds of people.
Of course it wasn’t actually the pizza, it was God working through the example of my family and through my own experience to challenge, teach, and guide me into the path He planned for me…a path that would eventually lead to creatively sharing the Gospel with millions of kids. That’s something worth celebrating….oh look, it’s a picture of me celebrating!
As you can see I’ve aged well and have grown some freakishly long arms and enormous feet. I’ve also had the chance to use what I learned from making pizza for Jesus as a kid to encourage and equip thousands of Christians, churches, and missionaries around the world to have pizza parties, Easter parties, Christmas parties, and even dinosaur parties to share the love and joy of Jesus with millions of kids.
So, just how did pizza play a role in all of this? I’m so glad you asked, because I’d love to give you a free copy of our downloadable Pizza Party Kit, Pizza for Jesus!, that tells the rest of the story. And it doesn’t just tell the story, (where’s the fun in that?) It provides everything you need to plan a life-changing, grace-giving, fun-filled pizza party for kids!
Pizza for Jesus is just one cheesy story among many that God used to shape my life. (It also happens to be one of my favorites because it has bacon!) If you want to know the rest of the story, you can download this FREE lesson with its pizza shaped visual, memory verse, game ideas, coloring page, and tons more ideas on our resource page by following this link! (Did I mention it’s FREE? I’ll bet you never sausage a thing before!)
You can use this pizza party kit to help you turn an ordinary pizza party into a gospel-centered event that shares Christ with kids. Here’s some ideas to help you get started with planning your own pizza party for Jesus!
How to Plan a Pizza Party for Jesus!
Plan the Location
You can host a party in your home, church, or any facility where kids are welcome. Celebrations are an effective way to connect with your community and share the joy of knowing Jesus! If desired, use red checkered tablecloths and play Italian music to create a pizzeria atmosphere. Large child-safe bowls, spoons, and whisks can be added as props for young children who wish to make imaginary pizza or simply for decoration.
Plan the Menu
Obviously you should serve pizza. If desired, you can even make pizza with the kids! To do this you can use your own recipe, purchase pizza kits at the grocery store, or give each child a tortilla on a piece of parchment paper and let them add whatever toppings they choose to their personal pizza. (Make sure an adult is in charge of using the oven and pizza cutter!) You could also make dessert pizzas with cookies as crust, frosting sauce, and fruit toppings.
Plan the Team
It’s helpful to have multiple adults and teens working together to pull off a perfect pizza party. Rather than one person being in charge of everything, you can divide and conquer. When I’ve led pizza parties in churches, I would have a kitchen crew in charge of prepping and serving the food and cleaning up afterward. I would teach the main lesson and lead the games with the assistance of a teen helper. I’d also have several adults who basically served as crowd control as they hung out with the kids and participated along with them to build relationships and help the event go smoothly.
Plan the Lesson
The pizza-shaped lesson in this free kit uses visuals shaped like pizza slices to illustrate a true story about pizza and Jesus from my own childhood. The truths of the gospel are woven into the story so that you can easily and smoothly share the good news of Jesus as you tell the story. You will need to print and prepare the visuals ahead of time. I recommend using a piece of tape or sticky tack to hold the pieces of pizza on a pizza pan so that you can hold it up for all the kids to see as you tell the story. There are also PPT slides available as visuals for larger groups. Here’s a video that shows a bit more about how it works. (I made this video years ago. The cute little boy telling you about the story is now driving and working his first job!)
Plan the Games
What’s a party without some fun games! The Pizza for Jesus! party kit has a dozen fun game and activity ideas to hype up the fun. It also includes printable pizza toppings and pizza slices to use as game pieces wherever needed. Here are a few ideas from the kit. You can use these or make up your own! The games don’t even have to be pizza themed. At our pizza parties growing up we played touch football, hide-n-seek, UNO, 20 Questions, tag, and many others. Just have fun.
- Build a Pizza – Put the pizza toppings into a bag and divide the kids into teams. Give each team a paper plate to serve as their “pizza” and have them take turns pulling toppings from the bag and adding them to their pizza. The first team to collect all 5 different toppings wins!
- Pizza Topping Scramble – Tell the kids they are going to pretend to build a pizza by choosing toppings one at a time. Give the kids options of two different pizza toppings and have them show you which one they prefer by going to different areas of the room. For example, you may say, “Would you choose pepperoni (point to the left) or bacon (point to the right) on your pizza?” Kids who would choose pepperoni should go to the right side and kids who would choose bacon should go to the left. Once all the children have made their choice, name two more pizza toppings as you point to different sides of the room, and have the kids move to indicate which of the new toppings they would choose.
- Trading Toppings – Give each child a pizza topping [make extra copies if needed] and have them stand up and find someone else to trade toppings with while you play music or quietly count to ten. After they have traded, randomly pick one pizza topping. Every child holding that topping must freeze in place until the next round is over. During the next round of the game, choose a different topping to freeze a different group of kids and set the previous group free.
- Mystery Menu – Write secret point values for several kinds of pizza topping ahead of time. [i.e. Pineapple=500, Ham=400, Pepperoni=300, Sausage=200, and Mushrooms=100.] Show the kids pictures of pizza toppings and tell them you have a “mystery menu” with the secret point value of each kind of topping, but they won’t get to see it until the end of the game. Have them take turns choosing the topping they think is worth the most points until all the toppings are gone. Then reveal the mystery menu and tally up the points to see who wins.
There are even more pizza themed game ideas in this FREE party kit–it’s hard to TOP that! (So what are you waiting for? It won’t even cost you any dough cause it’s free…so are my bad puns by the way.)
Plan Your Follow-Up
If you’re planning a pizza party event and inviting the community, think about ways you can encourage them to keep coming back to your church or home for more of Jesus’ love. Send home party favor bags with invitations and information about your upcoming events. Also, be sure to personally invite them to come back. Tell them about your Sunday School class or other ministry programs. Tell them precisely where you usually sit during your church service and welcome them to join you. Be intentional about welcoming and loving your guests. Maybe you could even invite them back next month for a fun trivia night! (Curious how to pull that off? Here’s a free trivia kit to help you get started.)
Have Fun!
Your pizza party doesn’t have to be fancy and it doesn’t have to be large. You can plan a big party at your church or have a small pizza party for your grandchildren where you make pizza together and then read the Pizza for Jesus! story while the kids take turns flipping over the pizza slice visuals to reveal each picture. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. Take the tools in the free kit and make them work for you.
Pizza has always been one of my favorite foods and I’ve enjoyed using it as a tool to help kids learn about Jesus. I used to lead monthly pizza parties for military kids in the Ft. Knox community and had the joy of seeing several children choose to follow Jesus during that time. My prayer is that you’ll use some of the ideas in this article and the free kit to help you use pizza to point kids to Christ too.
While we’re on the subject of pizza. How do you feel about pineapple on pizza? (If you want to know my vote on pineapple as a pizza topping, I guess you’ll have to read “Pizza for Jesus!”)
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