Oh how I love Halloween. It’s so much fun to dress up and as an adult you can dress up without being considered totally cray cray. I have a Nun costume and was dared by our outreach ministry team to wear it and make an announcement for our upcoming outreach on Halloween night but I declined. As much as I love to dress up I just am not feeling the costume on Sunday morning for some reason. Apparently I’m getting old because since when have I ever turned down a dress-up opportunity. Ha!
The outreach we’re doing Halloween night is awesome. It’s your basic Trunk or Treat but with tables instead of car trunks and it takes place at the community park instead of our church parking lot. Why do we do this? Because we want to punch holes in the darkness and this particular park carries darkness with it even in the day time. So we’ll set up 8′ tables in the park, decorate them and hand out tons of candy. We turn the small playground area into an obstacle course and have luminaries decorating the pathway. This year we’re setting up a photo booth for families/kids to have their picture taken and then will email the picture to them right then (if the logistics work). At the end of the trail of treats there will be a “dark room” and this is where groups of about 15-20 people will listen to a 3 minute presentation of how were were all born into darkness but that a way was provided for us to enter into light. We use dark lights and special effects to help tell the good news. At the end we give all the kids a glow necklace. It’s a fast and furious night but we feel it’s worth the chaos and the effort.
Our first year doing this was last year and we had no idea how many people would come. We gave out 500 necklaces to children only even though the adults wanted them too. We just didn’t have enough to go around. This year we’ve ordered double the amount of everything. We’re also doubling the dark room so the line will move quickly. People waited over an hour last year and we want to help things go quicker if they come back. We’ll see. You just never know with outreach. We just have to do what God calls us to and leave the results up to Him.
So whether you’re punching holes in the darkness on your church property or in your community park know that God will light the way for us!
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