He's not saying these events are bad. From where I stand, that seems to be your critique of Vince. Though, I don't believe that's what he's suggesting at all.

What I believe he's saying, and the point I think you're missing, is that any attempt to "Christianize" a cultural event will, ultimately fail. Mainly because it's not the method Jesus used.

Does good come out of these "harvest parties" that churches like yours hold? Absolutely. But that's not the point. The point is that we, as believers, want to have our cultural cake and eat it too. We want to be able to dictate to culture what is and is not acceptable, yet are unwilling to enter into that world and be with culture.

I also totally agree that they are a great opportunity to invite people to be a part of a church community. But they can become a crutch too. The average ‘show up on Sunday’ Christian is having the work done for them and maybe not being as effective as they could be on a day to day basis.

At Impact Church we are trying to ‘decentralize’ events and empower small groups to take over this type of ministry…we’ll see.

great discussion so far

I see your point but, on the other hand I know that my church out here in Nashville also runs a similiar event and we invited our unchurched neighbors and their two kids and they ended up returning the following sunday and eventually accepted the Lord and became members.

I think you’re missing the point of these events (or maybe the churches in your area are). The idea is to provide an opportunity for a church member to invite an unchurched friend to a non-threatening event and allow them to see that christianity isn’t what they might think. It’s alot easier to say, “Hey neighbor, load up the kids in the car lets go let em’ run amuck while we visit.” than to ask them to wake up early on a sunday morning and sit in a sanctuary for a couple of hours with a bunch of strangers after they just traumatized their three year old by leaving him with a class full of kids staring at the new kid.
Our pastor David Landrith’s motto about all these “events” is we will never change the message but our methods need to change to reach the lost. Does that mean we rely soley on these events? Absolutely not! Our strongest witnessing is done by living in the community with the non-believers. For example last May my son’s fellow classmate died suddenly at the age of 8yrs of septic shock. We called all our friends from church and provided meals for this family and combined our money to help pay for funeral expenses. That is definately a more powerful message and I believe we must try everything to reach these people.
Don’t be a hater.

Also, check this out: http://www.chrismoncus.com/halloween-important/