Glenn Youth helping to unload the pumpkins and beautify the patch.
The tradition of the Glenn Pumpkin Patch brings so much more than the seasonally festive orange vegetables to the front yard of the Youth & Activities Building (and hopefully to your home!). The thousands of dollars worth of proceeds support youth mission trips - locally and abroad - where our teenagers engage in service and learning together. These youth ministry traditions help our teens experience life outside our little corner of the world - where differences in culture, socioeconomic status, and more help Glenn youth grow in their relationships with one another, in their faith development, and in their Christian understanding of God's creation and care for all peoples. But that's all AFTER the last pumpkin is sold, the sticker-covered-money-box is emptied, and the tent and lights come down in November.
In the meantime, we have pumpkins to sell! We have visitors to the pumpkin patch to meet and share about the Glenn community - our wonderful church, the amazing Glenn School for Young Children, our fabulous Glenn After School Program, and all of the missions and ministries that make us the Glenn family. Folks who pull into the YAAB beckoned by the sea of orange, thinking they will be leaving only with a gourd or two, but instead leave with a story about what Glenn means to the volunteer taking their cash/check/card.
Cynthia Shepherd with baby Bess in 2015 & 2016.
There are photo sessions to be had - where individuals, couples, and families return year after year - noting how the size of children grows in comparison from the smallest pumpkins to the largest. Parents sign up for a shift with their child along to help - from toddlers learning to pull up on the pumpkin stems to stand for the first time to high schoolers sitting under the tent working on calculus homework on the cash box calculator! Parent/child quality time together in the pumpkin patch where we are able to enjoy beautiful Fall weather in the "great outdoors" (even on the side of North Decatur Road!). First-time and longtime volunteers who return year after year each meet customers from the community and the church family whom they would have never otherwise met. Mysteriously, community life happens in the pumpkin patch so much more than on Facebook or e-mail!
Every hour volunteered in the patch...every dollar spent...a pumpkin is more than a pumpkin. One might just say that as we explore our Wesleyan/Methodist heritage of prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace during this stewardship season here at Glenn Church, perhaps a pumpkin is itself a gift of grace.
Susan & Blair
Come on over and buy your pumpkins, cornstalks & gourds!
Mon-Fri: 12-2pm and 4-8pm
Saturday: 10am-8pm
Sunday: 12-8pm
Sign up for a shift in the patch here.