Church Halloween Outreach: Bless Your Neighbors!

Different View Points of Halloween:

We are aware that in the Christian circle there are VASTLY different opinions on how Christians should treat Halloween. Some Christians ignore it all together because of its pagan and evil roots. Other Christians embrace the fun side of it and allow their kids to trick or treat and share with them how Christ came to save us and defeat the evil in the world. Churches also handle things differently. Some churches condemn it and tell their parishioners that they need to turn out their lights and not hand out candy to their kids. Other churches see it as an opportunity to bring people in their doors and so they do their own candy outreach events (Harvest festivals, Candy Corn Handouts, Etc).

CrossWay Wants To Redeem Halloween and use it to build deeper relationships! Here is what we are trying to do this year!

At CrossWay Church, we want to redeem Halloween and use it to help build a better sense of community in our neighborhoods. We want to do this via a campaign we are calling NO TRICKS JUST TREATS. LET’S FORM RELATIONSHIPS WITH YOUR NEIGHBORS DOWN THE STREET!

Our Main Idea: Create an environment that invites people to hang out a little longer at your home during trick or treating so that neighbors can form deeper relationships with you and others in the community.

Halloween is one of the few times a year when your neighbors and their kids will make a point to visit you at your house. We think that this gives you a great opportunity to bless them and try to deepen relationships with them. You can do this in a variety of different ways.

1) You could provide hot drinks to tricker treaters and their chaperones.

Trick or treating in the Pacific NW is usually done in the rain. You could set up a table and provide hot water and hot chocolate or hot apple cider for your trick or treaters and their chaperones. This will be a blessing to them and help warm them up. It would also provide you an opportunity to talk to them more than normal which will allow you to get to know your neighbors better.

2) Provide a warm seating area for chaperones.

It is usually a little cold on Halloween. Provide a warm place for chaperones to hang out. You could set up a canopy in your drive way to keep people out of the rain or set up a fire pit with a circle of chairs around it to help warm them up. If you don’t have any of that, open up your garage door Serve your drinks there, and set up chairs in there around a space heater.

3) Hand out CrossWay Invite Postcards

We have created some postcards that use the No Trick Just Treats theme to invite people to our church. Grab some from the welcome table. Set them on the refreshment table or hand them out to people you meet.