Every year on Halloween, rather than go down to a local church for a “Hallelujah Party” or hide out in our house with our lights turned off, we host a big Halloween party for our entire neighborhood. This is another practical way we have shared the love of Jesus with our neighbors. (To get more outreach ideas by email, enter your email address at the bottom of the post.)
The day before Halloween we hand out quarter sheets of orange paper in the neighborhood, inviting neighbors to join us at dusk.
Here are some of the things we do:
Build A Fire In The Driveway
On Halloween night, we take our iron chiminea and put it on the driveway. Then we build a fire, put a circle of chairs around it, and hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters on the driveway.
We have also started to invite the neighbors to join us.
Last year, we put out a big pot of chili. And of course, chili needs cornbread to go with it. And since the night can be chilly, we put out hot cider and hot chocolate. While we’re at it, we make a few batches of our Secret Recipe Cookies.
Pumpkins, Cats, and Candy
We fill a large bowl with candy bars. Sometimes there is a neighbor who will not get home from work until later in the evening, and she gives us a package of candy to hand out for her. In addition to the circle of chairs, we set up tables to hold the food and carved pumpkins, fiber-optic pumpkin heads, and cats.
People start showing up just after dusk. We light the fire and people gravitate to the food tables and the chairs around the fire. Several neighbors bring their bowls of candy to hand out to trick-or-treaters on our driveway instead of at their houses. A few also bring food and drinks to share.
Some people stay all evening. Some only stay for a short while, eating a bowl of chili, and chatting with friends and neighbors. Others came by with their children, greet a neighbor or two, grab a cookie or cup of hot cider, and continue accompanying their children on their trick-or-treating rounds.
Tricking Our Neighbors?
Did we do this so we could invite people to a Bible study, church service, or give them Christian literature? – Never! People can smell this sort of fake evangelism a mile off. Don’t befriend people just to invite them to church.
We do this so we can get to know our neighbors better, and so they can get to know each other better. We’re learning to love our neighbors like Jesus, and before we can do that, we have to get to know them.
And we do! Simply by spending time with, eating with them, and sharing life with them, we get to know them. Inevitably, we have conversations about life – including the meaning of life and its problems and where God is in all of that, hopes, needs and a variety of other issues. These all take place before, during, and after these events.
What A Great Neighborhood!
Do people want community? In our experience most people definitely do.
After last year’s Halloween party, several people at the Halloween party commented that their friends and relatives have said they wish they lived in our neighborhood, a neighborhood where people know each other and have neighborhood parties. One of our friends who does not live in the neighborhood commented this week “What a great neighborhood!”
People often say, “You need to go to church to be in community.” I say, “We are the church, in our community!”
We are the church as we get to know our neighbors, live in community with them, and show them the love of Jesus.
We’re learning to love our neighbors and help them in places where they need help, in places where we are able to help. We’re helping build community, a community where people know each other and care about each other, a community where people talk about inconsequential things as well as about really important things, including Jesus.
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I thought Halloween was a very bad party? Of course like X-mas it is heavy commercialized, but still. Any thoughts on the origin of this party?
Christmas and other holidays can be used by some people for their own purposes. In our neighborhood, however, Halloween is centered around children, their costumes and their families. We don’t buy into the very conservative religious opinion that sees Halloween as an evil holiday. For a good response to that idea, see Michael Spencer’s “annual Halloween rant” from a few years ago (Michael passed away about three years ago): http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/the-internet-monk-annual-halloween-rant-2
We understand following Jesus as primarily relationship – relationship with both Jesus and others. The “others” includes everyone, not just other believers. The Gospels show us a Jesus who spent vast amounts of time with people of all sorts. If he is our rabbi, should we not also follow in his steps?
We do exactly what the article states. We enjoy a wonderful get together of family, friends, and neighbors. Some old neighbors and each year, a few new join in.
Gathering together with family, friends and neighbors is one of our favorite things to do. Holidays are only the occasion for the get together. The real reason is being together.
I just this evening told my husband that after living on our street for the past 13 years, we truly know none of our neighbors. How sad! We were too wrapped up in our controlling church.
Needless to say, I’m throwing a block party very soon – and am knocking on each of our neighbor’s doors to invite them over for a bonfire, food, drinks, and conversation. I am hoping the chats turn nowhere toward who, what, how, when —- or anything about God, church, or what that might mean to us or them. I just want to love them for who they are, enjoy their company, and hopefully (without words) assure them that we do not want to be who we once were; untouchable and unloving. I’m excited!
Please let me know how it goes!
Viki, this is a great idea! We’ve been doing this for several years and we usually get fifty to seventy people attending. Almost everyone likes them. People have gotten to know each other. This has resulted in less neighborhood tension and neighbors helping neighbors. You might find a few ideas in the post https://redeeminggod.com/how-to-host-a-block-party/ If you have more questions, send Jeremy your e-mail address to forward to me and I’ll answer you by e-mail. (I don’t do Facebook.)
Build a Sukkot and then had dinner…then explain the Sokkot when asked, forget using a pagan celebration…
Another excellent suggestion. I hope you’ll be hosting something when I arrive in town.
Did you know that ‘trick or treat’ started as a Christmas tradition ?
I did not know that. How is that?
The idea was that poor people would go to rich people’s homes and demand to be fed (treat). If they were turned away they would vandalize the rich person’s home (trick).
This will be our fifth year hosting a neighborhood party on our driveway. We live in a neighborhood full of kids. They love to dress up as heroes, princesses and similar things. We almost never see scary costumes. This is a kid-centered family event, not a pagan celebration. It can be what you want it to be. We’ve changed the menu a bit to steak soup, cheese nachos, pumpkin pie cake, pumpkin bread, small bottles of water, and of course candy bars for the kids. The last couple of years we’ve had about one hundred people show up.
This is just one of several neighborhood events we do every year. We have New Year’s Eve parties, St. Patrick’s Day parties, Cinco de Mayo parties, block parties, back-to-school smores parties and more. If you want to know why we do this, read the “Getting To Know Our Neighbors” series, and “Being the Church in the Community” series. If want want the steak soup recipe (even kids like it) or the pumpkin pie cake recipe, leave a comment asking for whichever recipe(s) you’d like.
Now it’s time to make the soup and cake and set up the driveway. The party begins in just six hours!