HARVEST PARTY this year?

HARVEST PARTY 2017

Really quick, we’re taking a poll to see if we have volunteers to pull off an event. What event? THE HARVEST PARTY!!!  If you have been a part of Del Rey Church for a few years, you have seen us do a Harvest Party.  The annual Harvest Party at DRC has not happened for a couple years because it landed on a weekend and we were short volunteers, but this year we want to see about getting it going again. If we have enough help, we want to do it.

Can you Help?

We want to have a Harvest Party this year in October and we need volunteers to make it happen. Rather than doing an announcement on Sunday and having a clipboard for signups, we’re going to start online with volunteer interest. So if you are interested in volunteering to serve, please comment on our Facebook Post and let us know.

More Logistics…

On October 31st from like 4pm-8pm we have a big Carnival Style party in the church parking with candy, game booths, jumpy houses, maybe a dunk tank, taco cart, popcorn machine, etc. Music is bumping, kids are playing, bouncy houses are jumping and the food is delicious! It takes about 30-40 volunteers over two shifts: an opening shift and closing one, which allows people who serve to also have time to play and hang. People dress up in appropriate and fun costumes. It’s a blast.

 

Del Rey Family 080  Del Rey Family 077  disk2 139Oct 31 015  Oct 31 044Harvest 07 001John Schlot fatty

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some History…

As you know, October 31st is a holiday in our culture Halloween where people go Trick-or-Treating and dress up. It’s really a cool moment for California culture, which is otherwise not to neighborly, for we typically don’t talk to neighbors, let alone do we knock on their doors and ask them for candy. It is the one night of the year where it is cultural appropriate and even expected that people will be neighborly and giving, so it’s a visible evening of community. Since we are in a residential neighborhood, kids and families walk by our church and seeing a fun gathering of people is a way to be neighborly and welcoming, as well, to be present, engage in small talk and share with people about church. As well, our church preschool families and most of them are not attenders/members of our church, so it is a time for our church families to be social, say hello and welcome them. Another thing to do is to use the event to invite friends from work with kids or in your social networks and if they come, hang out, eat tacos, talk, introduce them to your church family and prayerfully gospel conversations and more. In summary, it is an “in-reach event” to people living in the area and preschool families, for us to be neighborly and also an “outreach event” for you to invite people in your sphere of influence to come. Overall, it is also a time of fellowship and celebration – we dress up in family friendly costumes, we eat tasty food and treats, our kids run around in a safe environment, etc. It’s a blast, BUT it takes volunteers, so we offer the night not just as inreach, outreach or fellowship, but also as a time of service. Let us know if you can serve and if we get enough volunteers we’ll do the event.  

More Reflections on Halloween, Harvest and Navigating Culture…

It is a fun celebration of God’s Harvest during the end of October and also an alternative for families to some expressions of Halloween that might be scary for kids or that conflict the conscience of Christians because of possible occult connections with paganism (e.g. Samhain, Pomona, etc.). Some Christians feel this tension around things like Christmas trees which they take to be pagan or music on the radio, etc. and so it’s worth some reflection to maintain unity and togetherness in the midst of some seeing some things differently. That said, while differences are natural to have in a community, some things we should be unified on. Hence, at Del Rey Church Halloween expression is something we want individual consciences to wrestle with, acknowledging that paganism is totally off grounds for us, along with the oversexualized costumes that are common in our culture that are biblical immodest and objectify women made in God’s image.  So then, while some cultural things in Halloween involve matters that are at least matters of Christian freedom (after all there’s lots of Christian history in this) and good believers can disagree in some areas of things, there are things we can come together on in saying “that’s not okay.” As well, it is good to come together and say “since this offends some, I will give up my freedom so we can be together and celebrate.” Since scary and immodest costumes get us into possible offense with God and our neighbor, we refrain from those and instead focus on what unites us. In this case, God’s provision of Harvest and we also think of the Reformation in the church sparked on October 31 some five hundred years ago by Martin Luther. Any ways, here’s an article to reflect some more on it.

 

In sum, we’d like to eat candy, have food, and let our kids play in a safe environment, so if we have volunteers – let’s do this. Please comment on the Facebook page. BLESSINGS!