Thousands of students are going to pile into the stands at Shotwell Stadium this evening and hear a clear, articulate and empassioned presentation of the Gospel. Hundreds of students make decisions for Christ every year. Please be praying for this event and especially those students and counselors from our own congregation.
October is such an interesting month, isn’t it? During an election year, it gets even more interesting! October precedes Thanksgiving and Christmas but is not without it’s own holiday tradition. Hundreds of churches in our city, including our own Broadview West will have a “Trunk or Treat” or similar event in order to provide a medium through which people can celebrate Halloween.

There will be lots of candy! In fact, next to Christmas, Halloween is the 2nd highest grossing commercial holiday in America. Costumes, candy and makeup aren’t always cheap. Especially when stores know you’ll be willing to pay. Christian history has had a love/hate relationship with this holiday. Even in my own family, growing up, there were disagreements on how it should be celebrated. My purpose here isn’t to start or settle the debate but instead to leverage this holiday for the sake of the Great Commission.

One of the biggest Halloween celebrations in our city is called “Boo at the Zoo.” If you’ve never heard of it, don’t worry, I hadn’t either until last year. Having a kid teaches you all kinds of things! There will be thousands of people who take their children to the zoo, looking at the animals, showing off their costumes, and picking up free candy. It’s a great opportunity for us to inform our city about our church. So, we booked a booth and are planning to establish a presence at this year’s Boo at the Zoo.

We need your help to pull off both of these outreach events. Concerning Boo at the Zoo, we are going to invest in producing invite cards, getting a great costume, and setting up our booth. But we’d like for you to help by providing us with candy and helping man the booth throughout the day. Concerning Broadview West, one of our small groups is already helping cook burgers and hotdogs. But they will still need lots of candy and vehicles to provide candy stations.

So, next time you’re at the store, if you want to help us in our effort to bless the city, pick up a few bags of candy while you’re there. You can drop off your candy in the church office. By the way, kids will remember who gave the “good stuff” so, if you’re able, get the good candy. It’ll help us make a great first impression.

You can also sign up to serve at Boo at the Zoo. We will need volunteers to hand out candy and invite cards on a rotating basis. There will be a sign up sheet in the Gathering Place for the next few Sundays. You can also just reply to this email if you’re going to be available at all that day. If you want to help with the Trunk or Treat at West Campus then you can take your vehicle along with a bag of candy and park it at Broadview West (6500 Military Dr) on October 26h from 6-8pm.

Here are the details.

Trunk or Treat
October 26th | 6-8pm
Broadview West (directions)

Boo at the Zoo
October 29th | 10am-6pm
Abilene Zoo (directions)

As always, if there’s anything I can pray for you about, please let me know. You can just reply to this email. Please continue praying for our church during this season of transition. We are making every effort to keep our eyes focused on the Lord and his will for our future. Whatever that future is, we know what it is we need to do in the meantime. We need to keep multiplying disciples, blessing our city, planting churches and sending missionaries. Don’t lose sight of that vision! Help us stay on mission!

Blessings,

Pastor Wes