Trunk or Treat Update

Saturday night our church hosted a Trunk or Treat, we have been doing this for about 7 years now. NHC used to have a "Fall Festival" on Halloween night and children would come to the church in their costumes, play some games, eat some cupcakes and hear a Bible story. It was a good event for our church kids but was in no way reaching our community and wasn't growing. Our purpose as a church is to reach our community. So "Fall Festival" was scrapped and replaced with Trunk or Treat. The first year we had several cars set up with decorated trunks and had less than a hundred kids come through and each child received a gospel tract in their candy bag.

Trunk or Treat has grown from a dozen or so church partners involved in this out reach to around 100 partners participating on the trunk, traffic, food, set up, clean up and game teams. We went from just having a dozen trunks to 25 trunks, 4 big inflatable games, carnival type games, hot dogs, cotton candy, popcorn and drinks. The community can attend and there is no charge, not even for the food. Each child still receives a gospel tract in their candy bag.

This year we gave out about 1200 pounds of candy! We had around 2000 people from our community attend. Trunk or Treat is a way our church tells our community that we care for them. This is a great and fun event that NHC partners look forward to working together on each year.

Now it's time to evaluate and plan for TOT 2010!

Anti-Trunk or Treat

While looking for our Trunk or Treat group on Facebook I stumbled across a "Stop Trunk or Treat" facebook group.  While reading their group description it became very obvious to me that the founder of this group had apparently been to a lame Trunk or Treat.  One of his major complaints was the people were dressed like "Moses" and Bible characters and it just wasn't fun going from trunk to trunk.  

If the church is going to use an event as a bridging event the church needs to make sure it is not lame.  Followers of Christ need to think of how the event will impact the un-churched.  I'll admit I think if I went to the Trunk or Treat this group was describing I may have the same feelings.

Please let's not do "lame" events, they don't work in reaching people.  If we are going to do an event to reach the community we need to strive for excellence.  If we can't do it with excellence we should probably not do it at all.

I'm glad that NHC's Trunk or Treat wasn't lame.  On a side note to the Anti-Trunk or Treat group there was not one Bible character at our Trunk or Treat.  You won't see me dressed up as Baalam, I'm Elvis, "thank you, thank you very much".    

ToT 08 How did we do?

How did we do?

I have already received an e-mail from a family in the community who is not from our church.  They had a great time and look forward to future Trunk Or Treats.

I quickly cruised through the drawing cards this afternoon and 30 parents checked off that they would like more information about NHC and our children's and youth ministries.  It will be cool to see the results of this year's event.  

The biggest accomplishment is that every family received the gospel as well as noticed that NHC is a church that loves families and where children are a priority.

Thanks to the great team of around 80 for helping make a successful bridging event.

Trunk Or Treat Commercial

Hey man, check this video out.

Great Friday Night

Tonight was a wet night for the Manteo Redskins homecoming game.  I got to ride in the homecoming parade which I'm sure was a highlight for everyone that attended the parade.  Thanks Coach for taking me along for the ride.

After the parade we had the team supper and it was some kinda good.  Prime rib sandwiches and mac and cheese.  It is an interesting experience because the whole meal is eaten in total silence as the team focuses on the game.

After the meal I led the devotion time for the players who choose to participate.  Tonight I shared the event from the life of Peter as he walked on water and talked about focus in life and how we should focus on our relationship with Jesus Christ.

Then I chilled in the coaches office for a while and then sat in the stands in my poncho (which I am very glad was behind the seat of my truck).  I was quite dry during the downpour.  The shame of it was that the rain hit as they were crowning the king and queen.  

Redskins won 43 to 12!

Then I come home to find out that our Trunk or Treat got some national attention.  That was a crazy surprise!