Movement Church, a Charis Fellowship congregation in Hilliard, Ohio (Mark Artrip, lead pastor), is only six years old, but this Halloween, a few thousand people from the community will be united through its outreach.
The church will hold its annual Trunk or Treat, which has become a very popular event for Hilliard community residents to attend. Trunk or Treat involves cars backing into parking spots and passing out candy from their trunks. Approximately 50 trunks will be opened to welcome families to experience a fun-filled night of trick-or-treating, food trucks, and pictures with Norwich Fire and Hilliard Police.
Movement Church launched in 2012 as a small team of 21 mission-minded people and has already grown this past fall to fill two services, reaching an average of 290 attendees each week.
“The decision to go to two services has been a faith walk that felt similar to when we started six years ago,” shares Mark Artrip. “Trusting that God would provide people and volunteers for ministry teams was a step of faith for our church and leaders.”
Movement Church now has more adults volunteering in the church than they had attending a year ago at this time (after they sent a launch team to plant Three Creeks Church).
Since the start, the church made it their goal to serve the community, because that’s what they want to be known for.
“We are a portable church, so we every time we gather and serve we are out in the community by default. We meet at the YMCA – they had actually approached us and asked us to start meeting there after our Movement (small) groups had volunteered and served with them,” Artrip says.
Involvement with the YMCA alone has given them a platform from which to reach the community. Attendees of Movement Church do not take this lightly, especially around Halloween. Every person at Movement is given 10 postcards to distribute to make the community aware of Trunk or Treat.
“The heart of the event is for each person to be on mission,” says Artrip.
Trunk or Treat not only allows each Movement attendee to be on mission, but also gives to the community in a way traditional trick-or-treating does not. It provides a positive, safe environment for kids of all ages that doesn’t require as much walking outdoors.
“We live in a community that loves family activities, so we wanted to get behind that momentum,” shares Artrip. “This event gives our church an event to be known for. We don’t care to be known for passing out candy, but if that’s what we have to do to know we love our community, love families, and want to care for people, it’s a win.”
[Connect:] To send a note of encouragement to Mark Artrip and Movement Church, click here.
This story first appeared in GraceConnect eNews. To subscribe to the weekly e-newsletter that includes news and information from congregations in the Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches, click here.
