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Is/did your church have a Halloween party?

Acts Mod Posts: 25305 **10/31/16 12:23 pm**

Or did you soften it up a bit by calling it something else Laughing

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Friendly Face Posts: 468 **10/31/16 1:53 pm**

duh. HallELUJAH Party!!!!

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12817 **10/31/16 2:00 pm**

We had a Harvest Festival last Wednesday, basically a party where kids can dress up in (non-gory, non-witchcraft, non-demonic) costumes, play games, eat hot dogs, nachos, and cookies, and get lots of candy. We have done this for many years now, on the Wednesday prior to or on Oct. 31st.

We had a Pumpkin Festival

Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **10/31/16 2:21 pm**

on Friday & Saturday from 6-9 PM each night. We had games, bounce houses, prayer tent, face painting, concessions and free pumpkins to every child who played at least 6 games and listened to the drama we did with Superheroes and Toy Story characters segue into the story of salvation thru Jesus.

We are not in a large city and this is now the 3rd year we did it. Last year we gave away over 300 pumpkins and had about 800 people overall counting both nights. This year we heavily advertised it on Facebook and had DOUBLE the people and gave away more than 700 pumpkins. PRaise the Lord. Our weather was warm and that helped but people were thrilled to come for simple games, bounces houses and the story of Jesus in a family friendly atmosphere. It was awesome! Oh, free candy for each game and a packet for each child at the play including candy and a flyer about the church and a invitation to a special costume themed kids church on Sunday. We had many new people show up for church as a result.

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Golf Cart Mafia Consigliere Posts: 3147 **10/31/16 2:28 pm**

We had a Reformation Sunday party where you got to dress up as your favorite reformer or one of their burned-at-the-stake victims.

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12817 **10/31/16 2:58 pm**

Golf Cart Mafia Consigliere Posts: 3147 **10/31/16 3:24 pm**

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12817 **10/31/16 3:39 pm**

Hon. Dr. in Acts-celeratology Posts: 5923 **11/3/16 6:32 pm**

Many years ago when my husband & I were still active in Children's Ministry, we did a crusade and the church did an alternative/Biblical costume kinda thing. I saw my favorite costume of all time. There was an infant there and someone written on his diaper, "Surely by now he stinketh!"
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01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011 Posts: 24285 **11/3/16 9:19 pm**

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15570 **11/4/16 8:32 am**

We had a egg & cheese party. We got a bunch a ole cheese, wrapped it around eggs (about 200 of em) an then went out throwin eggs at houses what had Hillary posters in the yard.

Acts Enthusiast Posts: 1449 **11/4/16 11:15 am**

We had a church service and dressed up like the walking dead. Might have been some truth in that crowd.

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15570 **11/4/16 11:49 am**

Acts Mod Posts: 25305 **11/7/16 8:34 am**

Golf Cart Mafia Capo Famiglia Posts: 4682 **11/7/16 5:56 pm**

We used to have them every year while we tried to net as many of the the hundreds of people who came & attended our spectacular event.

We had the typical bouncy houses, games, carnival attractions, cake walks, nachos, hot dogs, soft drinks & tons of giveaway prizes.
We even had the rep from the hershey distributor who changes out the full size candy bars at Costco as a member of our church. Every year we made up lunch bags full of full size candy bars that we would hand out at the end of the evening.
We did this for years.

Not one single family came & attended the following service.

We finally dropped it after several exhausting years & no return on the event Sad

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Acts-pert Poster Posts: 16646 **11/7/16 6:43 pm**

Might i humbly Disagree

Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **11/10/16 3:36 pm**

The 2 churches I have pastored over the past 30 plus years have done more outreach evangelism than you can imagine and more than our fellow churches in our cities - not in competition just noting the situation - and while those outreaches have NOT succeeded in bringing hundreds of new families into our church each year or over several years, I admit, I have never believed that was our main goal.

We do not just do games, food and fun, we ALWAYS preach the Gospel, even to little children and their parents who come to our Pumpkin Festival or Easter Eggstravaganza. We have had thousands of decisions or rededications for Christ over these many years. This is our main goal. If we get new growth into our Body that is a plus. These Outreaches teach and motivate our members to become evangelistic and have a concern for souls. They in turn, will be more able to witness to their friends, neighbors, families and co-workers about Chirst and invite them to church. THis is where most good church growth takes place anyway. But Jesus told us to Go and preach the Gospel. He didn't indicate only if we got new members as a result of it were we to go. We sow seed, others may reap the harvest. Who knows?

I will leave you with a short story. 25 years ago we did Heaven's Gates and HEll's Flames at our church. Hundreds of people got saved over the 4-5 nights we did it. One of my Deacons complained prior to the event about the huge cost that we were paying and wondered if it was really worth it. Well, first of all a hundred of our church family were intimately involved in the production and they became more outreach oriented and concerned about souls, hundreds of people got saved but we didn't really see much growth ourselves. But 2 things also happened. One) one day as I was shopping in a local store, a man approached me and asked me if I was the Pastor of the AG church. I assured him I was and he told me he wanted to thank me and our church for producing the play of Heavens Gates. He said someone invited him and he came and got saved and ever since he had been attending the local First Baptist church with his whole family. He didn't come to our church but he was going to church now and his family had gotten saved as a result of his salvation. Two) One of the people that got saved one night was the backslidden son of the Deacon who was complaining about the huge cost of the production. He later stood in the pulpit and repented and said if he had known his son would get saved he would have paid the whole cost himself. As he said, "What after all, is the price of a soul?" What is the price? Extra work for us and no visible gain or is that what we're called to do?

So, we do outreach. It's the least we can do. Freely we have received, we freely pay it forward.

Blessings