How Can You Help?

• Come to the event! Check out how awesome they are.
• Volunteer at an event!
• Donate food or money.
• Sponsor or seek a sponsor. Sponsors reduce our need for member contributions and help us make the events even more fantastic! Plus they get exposure & publicity!

Contact Deanna Rivera if you can help! Volunteer for our next event by clicking here.

Neighborhood Gathering Events

Join us at Bethesda for special dinners followed by family fun! We open our church in a fun and family-oriented way to everyone who lives around us to join us for fellowship, food and fun! Each Neighborhood Gathering features a meal (don’t eat before!), a fun family activity, and other activities for kids and adults, plus lots of new friends to meet and get to know!

In the past, we have had a family movie night with icy summer treats, a Halloween Harvest Party with spooky finger foods, a chili cook-off with prizes, and a huge Thanksgiving feast for the whole neighborhood! We try to bring the Bethesda community something new and fun to enjoy with their loved ones! So many memories are made at these events, and we would really love if you could join us.

We’re sending out an invitation to everyone we can in the surrounding area. We aren’t targeting anyone of a certain income level, just ANYONE who thinks it might be nice to have dinner and fun activities for their family in a safe and welcoming environment. If you want to bring your creative juices and contribute ideas, we would love it! We want this to be all inclusive. We want this church to be a beacon to our Bethel community…a place where all feel welcome even if they don’t show up on Sundays.

Trunk-or-Treat Was a Massive Success!

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m still recovering! What a fantastic event. In case you didn’t hear, we think we had over 1000 people. We gave 720 slices of pizza away in an hour, and several hundred people
were still coming through after that.

The Parish Hall was PACKED with people. It was crazy. We gave away nearly all the prizes we purchased (thousands), and we gave out all the candy. We had SO much candy. One person donated 3000 suckers, and that was a tiny fraction of what we had. And many of you brought your own!

This is why we want to do more of these events. As one person said, no one is doing things like this anymore. It’s true that far fewer community events exist that are good for families than existed pre- COVID, and as you know, our neighbors are, by and large, low-income and food insecure. If you would like to be a part of planning more events like this in 2024, please let Deanna or Sarah Peterson know.

Thanks to Pastor Tom, I mean Martin Luther, hundreds of people walked away with a lovely, faithfilled, and welcoming message. Many more took our flyers about upcoming events or filled out a survey.

Our neighbors say they come to our church because it is inviting, welcoming, and safe. Even if not even one person who came to this event ends up becoming a member, how awesome is that?

Thank you also to some sponsors. Premier Construction, Buchholz and Garber, LLC, Putters Pizza, Felicia Mondragon Real Estate, and the Detels who got a Thrivent grant for us. All of these contributed financially. Thanks also to Moore Sugar and SweetBay Shave Ice for contributing a portion of sales.

Thank you again, everyone.
Deanna, Sarah, and Pastor Tom