Evaluate and Adjust, Evaluate and Adjust

Seven years ago NHC had a "Harvest Party" at the church for the children.  The children would come in their costumes eat some junk food, hear a Bible story, and play some games.  The only children that attended were our usual crowd of 15 or so from Sunday morning.  Six years ago was my second year at NHC and we did the Harvest Party again and I quickly realized the event did not fit with the purpose of our church.   We did some evaluation and made an adjustment.

The next year we started Trunk or Treat at NHC.  We put up a few posters and had around 100 show up for Trunk or Treat.  The Harvest Party was typical of a small church with no desire to grow.  Trunk or Treat screamed "reach the community".  The Harvest Party was not a quality event that would draw people in.   We evaluated Trunk or Treat and made adjustments.

Each year Trunk or Treat has grown and each year we made adjustments.  Last year we made the adjustment of really promoting the event, we were even able to send TOT cards home with kids in our local schools.  We added hot dogs, popcorn, cotton candy and hot chocolate and games with prizes and made the event more of a fair atmosphere.  Over 1,000 attended!  Each child got a gospel tract in their candy bag and each parent went home with the Purpose Driven life booklet.  We evaluated because with that many people traffic flow was tricky to say the least since our parking lot is no where big enough for that size of crowd.  We have also added more inflatable games.  Our auditorium has been cleared out and will be set up with lots of games and prizes, the goal, besides giving the kids a fun time, is to get people to simply walk through the doors of the church.  We will have Kidmo playing on the big screen and music in the background.

Tonight is Trunk Or Treat. I'm about to head out the door and spend my day with volunteers who will be dropping in setting up for this now huge event.  It's going to be a fun day and I look forward to watching Trunk or Treat unfold tonight and see what sort of crowd we attract.  I hear that Elvis may even be spotted in the crowd.  After ToT is all cleaned up and packed up we will evaluate and adjust again.  Anything we do in the church should be evaluated often to make sure we are hitting our target, accomplishing our goal, carrying out our purpose.  This may mean killing off some sacred cow programs.  Have a safe night!