Halloween — a time for candy, costumes, and … outreach? As an alternative to traditional observances of the Oct. 31 holiday, many Alabama Baptist churches have found positive alternatives that redirect the intent of the centuries-old celebration.
Instead of encouraging children to focus on Halloween ghosts, goblins and witches, many churches are utilizing the popular holiday as a community outreach and evangelistic opportunity for unchurched people.
Church-sponsored fall festivals, Judgement Houses and “Trunk or Treat” events have become pleasing alternatives for families looking for positive Halloween activities that do not emphasize the occult.
For instance, Hilldale Baptist Church, Birmingham, has been offering the popular “Trunk or Treat” as a Halloween alternative for more than a decade. The annual event draws a crowd of more than 3,000 people.
“Trunk or Treat” is a spin-off of door-to-door trick-or-treating with a slightly different twist. Instead of children going to unfamiliar homes, they gather at the church, and under supervised conditions, visit cars of church members who festively decorate their vehicles’ trunks and hand out candy and treats.
With attendance growing every year, the church now incorporates a fall festival with their “Trunk or Treat” event, which they now promote as a “trail of trunks” because of the 30-plus cars that participate.
One of the outreach opportunities for Hilldale has come in the way of co-sponsoring the event with two other groups, Agape Baptist Church in Pinson and the local Sun Valley Neighborhood Association, which underwrites the cost of the fall festival rides and games.
“This is a big outreach ministry for our church,” said Marie Harbison, minister to children at Hilldale. “We have around 100 volunteers, many of whom are teenagers,” she said. “Lots of our adults really enjoy decorating their cars and having a theme where they wear costumes,” she said, mentioning last year’s big hit — a stand-up barn with an adult dressed as a cow handing out candy. Another car was designed to look like Noah’s Ark with large cut out animals surrounding it, she added.
Harbison said along with treats, the church distributes a plan of salvation geared toward children and literature about the church. “We’ve had people who have joined our church whose first encounter was attending the ‘trunk or treat’ night with their children.”
Other churches take a different approach toward the Halloween holiday by focusing on the consequences of not knowing Jesus Christ. The popular Judgement House has become a
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favorite alternative for many churches who gear the message of life, death and salvation toward teenagers and adults.
Two such churches are Jemison’s Union Grove Baptist Church, Chilton Association, and Dutton Baptist Church, Sand Mountain Association.
One of the unique aspects of Judgement Houses is the individualizing of the mock disaster that participants encounter as they begin their visit into the “house.” A strong emphasis is placed on the encounter being as believable as possible for participants.
Each church develops its own introduction to a mock disaster with the end result leading the “pretend” victims to a heaven or hell decision.
This year Union Grove Baptist created a mock tornado disaster. The tornado hit the church while a youth function was in session. Birmingham television personality and meteorologist James Spann taped a mock video, complete with a Doppler radar sighting of the tornado heading toward the community and hitting the church.
According to pastor Randy Gothard, the realism of the mock disaster was an attention-getter that included a giant fan blowing forceful winds on participants as they watched the acting of the pretend youth casualties encountering God’s judgment.
“Every year we have a tremendous result from our Judgement House,” he said, adding that last year 1,239 people attended and 270 decisions were made. The first night of this year’s event had 134 people attending with 10 salvation decisions and 13 rededications being made.
Dutton Baptist Church’s mock disaster included the participation of local paramedics, police and fire personnel and the landing of a medical helicopter to airlift “survivors” out for treatment.
Pastor Michael Rogers said the church’s youth director, Chris Griggs, had a vision for this year’s event and he wanted it to look as realistic as possible. “Chris and his volunteers have gone all out to give the people going through our Judgement House a serious reality check.
“Our heaven scene is unbelievable. Our entire altar looks like heaven,” he said, adding that 317 people attended the Sunday night performances with 61 people being led to Christ and 73 rededication decisions being made.
Along with the “Trunk or Treat” and the Judgement House events, church fall festivals remain popular events.
First Baptist Church, Pelham, has conducted its fall festival for more than 20 years, said Pastor Mike Shaw. “Our community has come to expect it,” he said.
Shaw said children come by a booth to get a bag of candy for reciting a Bible verse. “Most of [them] just say, ‘Jesus wept.’ But one little boy got confused and said, ‘Moses swept.’”
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