What we've done with Harvest Party

by Matt & Tammy Gollaher. Note: Matt Gollaher is the pastor to college & young adults at NCCC; he and Tammy have two daughters.
The Harvest Party and Halloween are two great outreach opportunities. We like the fact that NCCC does the Harvest Party on a different night than Halloween. We see the Harvest Party as a great opportunity to invite our neighbors to our church community.

Harvest Party is a great event that is free (except for the food and those booths are fairly cheap). There is a variety of games, rides and shows that are age and theme appropriate and safe.  The campus has a security staff that seeks to ensure families' safety and enjoyment. Having two separate times is helpful in cutting down the crowds and allowing for an earlier time for younger children.

Our girls love it because it's another opportunity to get dressed up and play with their friends. So this outreach event is one where we invite our friends and neighbors in our community to join us. I always bring home a stack of fliers for our girls (four and six years old) to pass out to their neighborhood friends. They take them to their doors as an invite. The majority of invites are for those in our neighborhood that we are already in relationship with and occasionally we invite a new family as an entry point into relationship. We then make plans to meet up with the families we've invited on that night. The kids from a lot of these same families have been involved in Kids Games or Max Sports Camps, and their families have even joined us for Christmas, Easter Sunrise and Freedom Fest services and events.

Halloween is another great - if not greater - outreach opportunity. Just like our Superbowl Sunday night focus at NCCC, where Mark Foreman challenges us to join in our communities outside of church and be “Salt & Light” at Superbowl parties, Halloween can give you that same opportunity.  Your neighborhood and neighbors are alive on this day and night, interacting with one another. On Halloween we usually plan with our neighbors to meet and eat together potluck style before we trick or treat. Then we as families walk the neighborhood together, watching our children and chatting about life. Then we spend more time on our driveway passing out candy to our neighbors and many more visitors. This outreach event is us seeking to use current pathways or opportunities to be Christ.

Be intentional in community in both of these outreach events and seek what God does. In our experience over the last ten years of going to NCCC, He has only blessed our neighborhood relationships.