Oklahoma churches provide safe, family friendly alternatives for kids
Halloween

BY CARLA HINTON Comments 1
Published: October 31, 2009

Cornerstone Church’s annual Trunk or Treat event initially began with numerous church members offering candy from the trunks of their decorated cars.

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Halloween alternatives

→Family Fall Festival and Chili Cook Off, noon to 2 p.m. today, St. Mark Lutheran Church, 1501 N Bryant, 340-0192.

→Trunk or Treat, 6:30 to 8:30 tonight, Cornerstone Church, 9900 SE 15, Midwest City, 737-5599.

→Fall Fun Night, 6:30 to 8 tonight, St. Mark’s United Methodist Church, 8140 NW 36, Bethany, 789-9033.

→Fall Festival, 5 to 7 tonight, First Baptist Church of Edmond, downtown Edmond, www.fbcedmond.org.

For more church-sponsored Halloween alternatives and related activites, go online. www.wimgo.com

Tonight, visitors to the Midwest City church’s Halloween alternative will see that the event has grown in more ways than one.

Sure, youths may still find treats in car trunks, but there will be many more stations with fun themes that have nothing to do with automobiles. Think 1950s diner or a pirate ship.

"It’s just a huge hoedown of a party,” Joe McAlpine, the church’s elementary pastor, said as he laughed.

"Halloween has turned into such a dark, scary, bloody, gory time in our society. We wanted to provide a safe, family friendly alternative where you can take your kids and you know they’re going to be safe and also get candy.”

Churches such as Cornerstone are leading the way when it comes to offering safe alternatives to the traditional Halloween pastime of neighborhood trick-or-treating.

McAlpine said the events fill a need judging from the large number of individuals and families who have attended Cornerstone’s Trunk or Treat in years past. He said last year’s outdoor event drew about 3,000 participants to the church, 9900 SE 15.

Traci Morgan, a youth sponsor at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church, said between 150 and 200 families attended her ministry’s annual Fall Fun Night last year.

Morgan said the event includes many activities, including a cake walk, Trunk or Treat and games. However, she said a highlight of the special evening is the Bible Walk, which has proved to be educational and entertaining.

Morgan said church volunteers dressed as biblical characters man each station of the walk, sharing a brief Bible story and passing out candy related to their specific tale. For instance, "Queen Esther” hands out Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup candies wrapped in gold-colored foil crown miniatures. The characters "Mary and Martha” pass M&M candies to youths and "Daniel” in the lion’s den gives out Kit Kat bars.

"It’s a good outreach for the church,” Morgan said. "You don’t have to worry about crossing streets or traffic, and it’s something fun for our church members.”

In Edmond, Pat Murphy is helping to coordinate the Fall Festival sponsored by First Baptist Church of Edmond.

Murphy, the church’s director of preschool ministries, said about 5,000 attended the festival last year. She said several blocks of downtown Edmond are closed off to traffic to allow families to visit merchants for trick-or-treat goodies, then the church has an area all its own where carnival games, a moon bounce, inflatables and other activities are offered.

Free popcorn and cotton candy also will be available to festivalgoers, she said. Also, volunteers are expected to give away more than 3,000 bags of candy tonight.

Murphy said the festival is an outreach opportunity that allows the church to show its support and love for the surrounding community. She said it’s one of the church’s community projects that isn’t on church property, which is important because not everyone is going to show up at the church for a service or event.

"We would love for them all to attend our church, but we realize that not everyone is going to,” she said. "This is a way for us to show people that we love them and we love this community.”

Response has always been great, Murphy said.

"Interest seems to be growing every year and I think it’s going to be even bigger,” she said.

At St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in east Edmond, church members combined a chili cook-off with their annual Family Fall Festival two years ago.

The combo event was a success and will return this year at noon today at 1501 N Bryant.

Julia Wantland, one of the festival’s coordinators, said the event will include games, cakewalks, a moon bounce, trunk-or-treat, plus some activities especially geared for middle school children.

She said visitors to the free festival can sample an assortment of chili supplied by church members participating in the cook-off.

Wantland said each year 10 to 15 different types of chili are offered, including white chili and chicken chili.

Like most churches offering the Halloween alternatives, St. Mark’s Lutheran sees the event as a way to reach out to community members.

"It’s part of our outreach program, to let people know that Christians can have fun,” Wantland said.