Screen On The Green -- Elizabeths Landing -- What Happened

Friday night we had a great group of volunteers that came out to the Elizabeth's Landing community, and put on Screen On The Green, a fantastic outreach that we started over the summer. We have only done it three times, but already we are finding it a great outreach because it is meeting the needs of our community -- families looking for affordable activities to do together -- and because it isn't hard on our volunteers. It's very enjoyable and really gives a sense of fulfillment, because we've served the community in Jesus' name. We've established relationships that are now on a first name basis in some cases.

In addition to the movie we offer free children's games, and sell concessions (i.e. popcorn, candy, drinks, etc.). Originally we were looking to go to four or five communities, but shortly after our first one we realized the better option was to focus on two communities and repeat them. Friday was the first time we repeated, and it didn't take long to see that we were right to repeat, because many people that had been in July were back again. There was definitely a spirit of friendship in the residents as we stopped together and had conversations. I know many invitation cards to our current financial series were given out, and one guy I gave one to sincerely thanked me and shook my hand in a genuine way. Another person said in conversation, "I love when you guys do this, I wish you would come every week."

Funny isn't it, we do meet weekly (Sunday) and we wish they'd come every week. :-)

We're looking forward to getting back to this community in the Spring.

I heard one girl say to another, "And (name) is here, and (name) is here, and (name) is here..." Apparently all their friends from school had come out. We had 84 people there.

About 40 minutes into the movie we ran out of popcorn, so I ran across the street to the Supermarket and picked up more. As I threw 10 bags of popcorn kernels up on the conveyor the women in front of me looked puzzled, because that's a lot of popcorn. Then one woman said, "Oh are you putting on the outdoor movie tonight?" Cool! It turns out that her daughter was attending.

I opened the night by sharing that we follow Jesus' teaching and that he had shared the parable of the Good Samaritan. The bottom line is that our neighbors are beat down by frustrating commutes that rob them of time with their families. That beats them down with guilt, and finding affordable activity with their kids is so difficult they get beat down with stress. We wanted to be Samaritans, meeting their needs at our expense. It is a pleasure to serve them, and I'm thankful that our ministry is resonating with them.

--Ben