Popcorn Festival Day 1 Wrap-Up

This past week has been a blur trying to get things done for the Popcorn Festival outreach out church does.  We provide a Baby Comfort Area for parents to change diapers and nurse if needed.  There’s no other place in the festival to do this, so it’s a great help to people and gives us the chance to talk to many people and share our faith with them.  It has allowed our church to become an asset to our community instead of a liability.

Today I served for a little while and many others from our church were there all day.  Two big conversations happened in that time with people on the sidewalk outside of our space:

Dean works the lemonade stand in front of our area.  I introduced myself to him early in my time there, but later he came back to me and asked me what the million dollar bill was I was holding (a tract we’re using).  I had the opportunity to ask him the “million dollar question”: where will you spend eternity?  Dean was from China and recently moved to America, so we talked a little about how he said China has no belief and that he doesn’t believe in anything.  I was able to share the plan of salvation with him, although he didn’t really respond to it much.  He thanked me for talking with him and went back to his work.

Ryan was a 9th grader who was sharing a lot of how he is learning in school that all religions view Jesus the same. He, a lady from our church, and I had a long conversation about who Jesus is, homosexuality, the Bible, the church, and lots more.

I hope this event is a reminder for our church people that people are willing to talk about matters of faith, and many times they’ll even listen.  Our responsibility as Christians is to tell We’ll hope there are great conversations in the next two days!

There are a few pictures of our space up at the church’s FaceBook page.

 

 

Recap of the Popcorn Festival Outreach

I realized that I haven’t posted anything recapping the weekend our church served at the Baby Comfort Area of the Marion Popcorn Festival. Last week was so busy making final preparations and then serving, and this week and the next couple are full of more exciting opportunities for our church to reach out to people in our community through Back to Church Weekend and the Awakening 2010 events.  I just didn’t do this yet!

Overall, I consider the Baby Comfort Area and our efforts at the festival a success!  We have areas to improve on for doing it again, but it was a great first run with chances to learn from mistakes and improve it.

Here’s the recap:

Churches: Be An Asset to Your Community, Not a Liability

What I’m writing is coming from frustration after reading about 2 specific situations, from the current situation our church is in, and from a desire to see the glory of God displayed in all churches.

Last week, I saw on the local news and then read about a church around Columbus who is involved in an ongoing battle of protesting with a strip club.  This is a very stupid situation in which the church has been protesting outside the strip club for several years now, even to the extent of photographing club goers and their license plates.  Now, the dancers from that club are protesting outside of the church on Sunday mornings.  It appears that neither party is going to step down either.

This Week’s Focus: The Marion Popcorn Festival

Our church is a day away from having a 30 hour opportunity over 3 days to show the love of Christ to our community.  How?  By simply providing a place for parents to take care of the young children’s needs (diapers & nursing). We’re calling it the Baby Comfort Area, and everything is ready to go!

This week has been buzzing with last minute preparations and excitement.  Here’s what’s been happening:

• Our church people stepped up and filled in every hour-long rotation slot for the entire 30 hour period of service!  I can’t wait to receive the blessing of serving alongside others in the church in this way.
• About 15 people gathered yesterday to label and stuff gift bags that will be given to the first 500 families we serve.  This was a great turn out and made the work only last 45 minutes!
• Yesterday, two of our men drove a total of 1.5 hours to pick up a trailer that has some supplies in we need.
• One lady went out last Thursday to purchase some of the smaller supply items we need.
• One couple has been thinking through the last details of what’s needed for our tent area, and have been making trips to gather necessary things.
• One lady worked many hours to design, print, and have signs laminated that will be posted throughout the festival.
• One couple worked tirelessly to create a great looking banner that will label our entire space.
• One lady created a great looking slideshow of information about and pictures of the church that will running continuously during our time there.
• Today, all of the stuff we need to take is being picked up, then set up begins tomorrow morning.

We will be ready to go by 11am tomorrow, and will be at the end of Oak Street the entire time of the festival.  I probably left out somebody’s effort in that list, but it’s been great to see how the church is coming together to serve in such an effective way!

You can visit the Marion Popcorn Festival website.

You can see our church site’s announcement about this opportunity.

You can come visit us at the end of Oak St. tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday from 11am – 9pm!