Pastor Walton spoke with Jared Ball and Kelly Nupson this week about their involvement in our Festival of Lights & Living Bethlehem on December 2-3, 2023.
Download the Festival of Lights 2023 Harvest Time
Episode Transcipt
Chris Harper: Welcome to Harvest Time. My name is Chris Harper, and our host on this program is Pastor Gary Walton, the lead pastor at Harvest Baptist Church. Every week, we spend these twenty five minutes together telling you the stories of our church, interviewing our members and other friends of the ministry. We’d invite you to join us at Harvest Baptist Church this week. We have two services on Sunday, 08:45AM and 10:45AM.
We offer Japanese and Korean translation during the 10:45AM service, and that’s also when we livestream at h b c guam dot org. Hbcguam.org. This week, we continue our series, 10 foolish things people do to mess up their lives, this time in Exodus twenty fourteen, ignoring sensual warning signs. Let’s begin today’s Harvest Time by welcoming Pastor Gary Walton. Hi, Pastor.
Gary Walton: Hey, hafa adai, Chris. You know, we’ve been work going in this series now throughout the fall, and we’re coming up on the seventh commandment. We mentioned last week that we’re going to do one more of these commandments in December. I know we’re kind of starting into the Christmas season, but that’s going to help us in our timing. We’re going go one more of these commandments, and then we’ll take a little break for a couple
of weeks of Christmas, you know, sort of themed messages, and then we’ll come back to this. It is a serious topic. The Seventh Commandment, we’ve titled this Ignoring Sensual Warning Signs, and, you know, it brings some solemnity to the conversation. I kind of see it as, know, when you’re driving down the highway and you come up to an intersection and you see a yellow light, some people, you know, say that means go faster, get through it. Other people see, I think, what the warning light is, which is slow down, consider, think carefully, you know, before you enter, this intersection.
Well, the 10 Commandments really are very significant in that way, and this one in particular. And, so we’re gonna come to this Seventh Commandment, we’re gonna talk about it in light of the Scriptures, hopefully some clear teaching that will help you in your life to avoid a lot of pain in the future. And so I hope that you’ll come and you’ll open up your hearts to what the Word has to say as we study it together here at Harvest. You are always welcome, and we know that you’d feel right at home when you come. Well, today we actually have the chance to talk about the Christmas season because we’re coming up to a celebration that Harvest has had now for a few years.
We call it Festival of Lights. And to talk about that with me today, we’ve got two people that are pretty vital to what’s going on with the Festival of Lights. One is Jared Ball, and the other is Kelly Nupson. Both of them are involved, you know, with, our, event this year. So first of I want to welcome you guys to Harvest Time.
Kelly Nupson: Thank you, Pastor.
Jared Ball: Good to be here.
Gary Walton: Thanks for coming and thank you for your ministry and your service in regard to this. Jared is the Director of Communications. That’s his role here at Harvest. Kelly has been here for seven? Seven years.
Yeah, teaches in the academy in the English department, the high school English department. And
they both have a very different but connecting role together. Kelly is leading the drama. We’re gonna come back to that in a minute. She actually wrote the drama that we’re gonna be doing, putting it all together. It’s gonna be fantastic.
I’ll tell you about that in a minute. And then Jared’s responsibilities for kind of the first year is to oversee the organization of Festival of Lights. So we put a lot of things on his plate. So both of you are very much involved and I want to just get a chance to ask you some questions and find out what’s in store Oh, and really to invite our community, our island to come along. So, Jared, maybe we can start with you.
Tell us a little bit about Festival of Lights. Where did it come from? How long we’ve been doing this? What’s it mean?
Jared Ball: Yeah. Well, this year is our fourteenth annual Festival of Lights. So we’ve been doing this since 2009, if I’ve done my math right. It was started back in the day for really what the title says, a Festival of Lights, where we would put up many, many lights around campus to kind of deck it out for families all around Guam to come and kick off their Christmas season here on our campus. And over the years, it’s kind of it’s morphed into what it is now, which is essentially broken up into three different parts.
We’ve got the drama in the auditorium, and then a Christmas message to really center people around what is this season all about. We’ve got a living Bethlehem, where you can come and see what Bethlehem was like back during the time where Christ would have been born. And also, we’ve got a festival part of campus, where we’ve really got it broken down to food trucks, we’ve got the hub open for drinks, we’ve got children’s games down on the lower portion of campus where you can get the whole family involved. This year, we’ve incorporated some ornament decorating and then another game we’ve added on the lower portion of campus. So it’s really become something that if you miss kicking off the Christmas season with Festival of Lights, I mean, this is the spot to start your Christmas season here on campus with us.
Gary Walton: It really is something from the beginning that was designed in that way. And it does sort of kick off the Christmas season on island. There’s some other things that are happening along now, but for a lot of people it’s become a tradition. They’re going to show up on campus, be able to enjoy all of the events. Tell us a little bit about the games and the food truck. Let me ask you about that stuff first.
Jared Ball: Yeah, absolutely. I believe this year we’ve got seven different food trucks from around island that are going to be coming and setting up shop in our upper campus our Carline area. So many of the school families and church families and people from around island are familiar with this area. And we allow them to come onto campus. It’s actually a great opportunity for us to build some relationship with some of our local businesses, which they give to us all throughout during the year.
They we are able to eat on island some amazing food. Why not bring it onto campus and have it for the families that are gonna be visiting? And we’ve also got some games set up on the lower portion of campus where typically on island, you don’t get a snowball fight. Right. Very often.
So what we’ve done is we facilitated a snowball fight for the kids to be able to have some fun down there. This year, we’ve got something called the snowdrift, which is we’ve got some drifting trikes that we’re setting up a little race course for. So if you want to race your parents on a slick track, you can come out and have fun with that. But really, I think that it’s comprehensive way for the whole family to have some good old fashioned Christmas fun.
Gary Walton: It’s going to be a great time and we would invite you to bring your family, invite the neighbors, have everybody that would, you know, invite people to come along with you. It’s really going to be a great time. Kelly, let go to you and let’s talk next about the drama that’s gonna happen in the auditorium. Sure. We’ve done this for a few years.
You’ve written a couple of these plays, these dramas. Tell us about this one. What’s the theme? What’s the story?
Kelly Nupson: Sure. So the theme of this story is the Lamb of God, and it focuses on how Jesus is the Lamb of God and what the whole sacrificial system meant to the Jewish community and Jewish families at that time from the perspective of a couple of shepherds, particularly a father and his son. And it’s his son’s first time going out into the fields with his father, and the son is unsure because his friends have been making fun of him for being a shepherd and that kind of a dirty type of job that that really is at the time. Mhmm. And so when the son goes out with his father, he does not wanna go.
But his father starts to tell him why this is so important and how God has commanded at the time for the sacrificial system as a foretelling of the Messiah’s coming. And so as they’re having this discussion, a couple other shepherds join them. There’s some hijinks that go on that are entertaining. But in the end, of course, the angels appear and tell them that the Messiah has arrived in Bethlehem, and they need to go and find him. And they race off and find Mary and Joseph and the baby in a stable, and they fall down and worship the Lamb of God, the Messiah who has come to save his people.
So that’s the theme of the story is how Christ is the Lamb of God and the end to that sacrificial system.
Gary Walton: I maybe should have asked about Bethlehem first. We’ll come back to that in a minute. But I really love that picture because, you know, our families that are here will have the opportunity to walk through this living Bethlehem. And we’ve got, you know, characters in costume, got some animals, we’ve got some of the stalls and other things that would be part of that living Bethlehem. And then we go from that really to the manger.
I mean, that’s sort of the idea from walking the streets that would have been there in the first century. Then we have the chance to enter in and see what this whole season is about. That’s a really powerful, I guess, conclusion to kind of a fun evening, right?
Kelly Nupson: Yeah, and it’s super important that people understand that this whole community, the whole Jewish community of the time period, is so focused around that, again, that sacrificial system, that idea, and how we are as human beings sinners, and we need something to come in and take that penalty for our sin, and how Christ comes and takes that for us. And even as an infant in the stable, that’s not the end of the story. Mhmm. The story really goes on to the cross and then his resurrection and how we can have that forgiveness through him. And that’s really what I want this whole story and all of the Bethlehem thing to point to this, the truth of the gospel.
Gary Walton: How many people are involved in the drama part of it?
Kelly Nupson: Sure, we have seven characters in the play. So we’ve got seven of some of our staff members and some of our church members participating in bringing this drama to life.
Gary Walton: I’ve felt the last few years that we’ve done this, it really does seem like such a powerful story and actually sort of the process of being here on campus. We want the people to come to have a great time and we want kids to enjoy all the things that you talked about, Jared, down on the Lower Campus. And then to have this opportunity to kind of move our thoughts from this Christmas joyous celebration season to the you know, old little town of Bethlehem and to kind of put us back in that sense and then to walk into the auditorium where everything really does come to the manger and then ultimately, as you said, Kelly, to the cross. But I think it’s such an important reminder for our children, but not just our children, for adults as well, to set the stage for the Christmas season. You know, it fills up with toys and presents and parties and family.
And all those things are awesome. You know, we’ll celebrate all those things together. But to be able to begin the year saying to our families, hey, this is what it’s about. It really is about the birth of Jesus, the Messiah, the one who came to be the Lamb of the world.
Jared Ball: Yeah, the campus is very intentionally set up so that people can they can enjoy all of the festivities. So it’s Festival of Lights. We’ve got all the fun elements. We We want people to be able to take home ornaments. We want people to be able to take home some food leftover from the food trucks.
We want them to take home memories for sure. But we want them to take home the purpose of Christmas, the meaning of Christmas in their hearts, which happens in the auditorium. So we’ve really specifically structured the campus so that people can enjoy the Christmas season and all of its fun, but mainly land finally on the whole reason why we celebrate Christmas to begin with, which if you go into the Living Bethlehem, you’ll see that even the Living Bethlehem is structured to prep you to go into the drama that’s happening inside in the auditorium, where, hopefully, people get to see and connect those dots. And that’s why Kelly’s worked so diligently on piecing this story together and structuring it so that the message is very clear. And people can come away with all the Christmas fun, but they come away more importantly with the understanding of what this Christmas season’s about.
That’s how you kick off Christmas the right way, is understanding why do we celebrate it celebrate this to begin with.
Gary Walton: We’re really talking about this, but maybe I can ask in a little bit more pointed, specific way. Why do we do this? Maybe I’ll ask it to both of you. I mean, there’s a lot of effort and energy and time and a lot going into this weekend. Why all the energy?
Jared Ball: Well, we ask ourselves this at the beginning of the planning for Festival of Lights, which, depending on how you weigh it, it either starts in January or December 4, or it starts around September is when we really start putting pen to paper prepping Festival of Lights for the Island. And the the reasons why we do this come down come down to, one, we want to provide something valuable to our island. We want to bring the community in and provide something of value to them. And we also want to introduce people to Harvest and say, hey. We’re here for you guys.
We’re not just here during Christmas. We’re here for you all year round. That’s what the church is here for. And this local church is instituted so that we can minister to our island. But what do we minister?
We minister the gospel of Christ. And that’s ultimately the three reasons for why we do Festival of Lights. We wanna share the gospel with people. We wanna show them that we love them and we’re here for them, and we want to provide something for them during the Christmas season that will carry on through their lives.
Gary Walton: Kelly, as you think about the drama part of it, all those actors that are, you know, kind of being part of it, what what do you tell them as you sort of lead this? Why are we doing this?
Kelly Nupson: I think drama particularly is an excellent way to bring the stories of the Bible to life and to show people that the people involved in scripture, especially for, regular churchgoers, Christians, the people involved in scripture were not some magical beings or, people who God and you know, God only picks these special people, but they were regular Mhmm. Ordinary people with regular ordinary everyday problems. And it’s through their weakness that we get to see God’s strength and God’s power. And I think drama does a really excellent job of demonstrating that to people and showing them that. It also is a good way to show scripture to maybe those who aren’t as familiar with it.
Gary Walton: Mhmm.
Kelly Nupson: It’s a good entry point as a way to say, here here are some of the the true histories of the world, and this is a way that, you know, we can gather people’s interest and then point them towards the truth. And, you know, of course, when the play ends, the really the most important part in my mind is that then you get up to speak and are able to share the truth with people once we’ve captured their attention. So we gather their attention, we point them at the truth, and then you get to share with them more deeply about it.
Gary Walton: Yeah, just try to communicate what’s the Bible say about this in practical ways. I don’t know exactly how, you know, the drama will go this year. Of course, we we have a general idea. You’re you’re kind of the mastermind of all this. But I do remember very specifically last year that so we’ll do this three times each night.
We’ll come back to that in a minute. And each time I you know, I had a chance to be in there each time. Each time we came to that place where the the baby Jesus was introduced, the the whole, you know, auditorium, you’d hear children and parents, and it’s almost like a, you know Yeah. Expectation that the baby is here. And there really was a sense that this whole evening together had been brought to this point and now we see the point, the baby is here.
And really is a powerful, I’ve just felt it each time, a really powerful statement why we’re doing this.
Kelly Nupson: Yeah. Thank you. That is the goal is that you have a moment where everyone’s attention is in the place you want it to be, on Christ, on what he has said.
Gary Walton: Yeah. It’s very real. I mean, if you haven’t been here before, you’re gonna sense that, that all of a sudden the light is there and the baby Jesus, the Messiah, has been born. You can just feel the whole sense of everybody coming together like, Wow, this is the point.
Jared Ball: It’s kind of a busy world and it’s really easy to get lost in the confusion and the noise, but the Nativity is such a powerful image. And so many people are familiar with it that I think it does a really good job of cutting through the noise Mhmm. And then reminding people very intentionally and quickly, oh, this, it’s the savior, the lamb of God, born to take the penalty for our sins. And so I think the nativity scene, that’s why we get a lot of good reaction that you can actually palpably feel in the room is because it it cuts through the noise so quick. Yeah.
Kelly Nupson: Those quiet moments around the manger are so different than the hustle and bustle that we feel at other moments of the Christmas season.
Gary Walton: Yeah. No, that’s exactly right. Tell us details: time, directions, where to go, how do people park. A lot of people will be on there. Maybe 2,000, 3,000 people between the course of these two nights.
Jared Ball: That’s right. We get a lot of people onto campus and unfortunately, if we could expand and have more parking, that would be awesome, but we’ve got a limited space on campus. So we have intentionally placed out a couple parking areas. We’ve got our traditional parking spaces that are in the lots by the FLC. We can facilitate a lot of people there.
We’ve also opened up our upper soccer field campus, so not on the soccer field. If you’re on the soccer field, you’ve gone too far. But we’ve got a grassy area that we’ve opened up so that we can facilitate, hopefully, everybody who wants to be there at a certain time. It’s
Gary Walton: And when people come on campus, we’ll have security and parking attendants. You don’t have to think about that. We’ll direct you to the right spots, but we do have parking once you get here.
Jared Ball: Absolutely. We’ve got a great team working with us. Our security personnel and parking staff, they’re gonna do a great job helping you find the spots that you can get on, enjoy the festivities. But it’s going to be December second and third, so Saturday and Sunday of this weekend, and it’s going to be from 6PM to 9PM.
So we’ve got three hours. That’s plenty of time for you to enjoy everything that we have here on campus. Those two nights are specifically set aside so that we can have the most fun, most activities packed into the night, give you the best experience possible.
Gary Walton: And you can come anytime in that, six pm To nine, we’ll start closing things down at nine p. M. And then there actually are three showings of the drama.
What’s the timing on those, and how does all that work?
Jared Ball: Yeah, so you can come rolling through at whatever time. If you need to leave early, we’re not gonna hold you down for anything. Come and enjoy as much time as you’d like. But the productions, we’ve got three of those per night, one at 06:30, one at 07:30, and one at 08:30. So we place them at the half hour markers, gives us enough time to prep, gets everybody who’s visiting enough time to enjoy some stuff outside.
We do two announcements too, so don’t worry about missing a showing. We’ve got plenty of posters around campus. But also, we’ll give you a fifteen minute warning and then a five minute warning. Just giving you enough time to mosey your way on up into the auditorium, get seated, get settled, and ready for the production.
Gary Walton: We’ve been talking about this all along. Maybe it’s been a theme of this conversation. But is it about the manger scene? Why the hope? We’ve talked about, you know, it’s almost like a gasp that comes, you know, across the audience, you know, when we see Jesus.
So what is it? Why the hope is connected?
Jared Ball: I think that with the manger scene, one thing that Kelly mentioned, and I think she’s done a very good job incorporating into this year’s script, is showing us that the characters of Bible stories didn’t understand fully the stories that they were in. Mhmm. And that can be hopeful for us because we don’t understand everything that’s going on in our lives. Why does the Lord have us here? Why does he have us in this place at this time?
We understand even from the manger scene with Mary and Joseph, the shepherds that show up, we understand that those characters didn’t know everything that was going on. Yeah. Yet, we get to look back at that story now, and it was the pivot point for all of human history. We understand that this is when God fulfilled his promise in bringing us one that he mentioned back in Genesis three fifteen who was gonna crush the head of the serpent. And so it gives us hope as players in this big play that we’re all in.
We’re in this story that God has created. We understand that he’s got a plan for us. He will keep his promises, and he’s going to give good gifts to his children. So the manger scene for me is just a it’s a signal of hope, a signal of fulfilled promises, and that’s just it’s so comforting, especially at the Christmas season.
Gary Walton: Anything to add to that, Kelly?
Kelly Nupson: I exactly. I’d I’d echo what Jared has said. And it’s the manger scene is the beginning of, you know, Christ’s life on earth, the beginning of the the gospel, that that promise being fulfilled. And so I think seeing that is seeing God keeps his promises and God God does have a plan and God does know what’s going on, and even in the baby in a stable and such humble beginnings.
Gary Walton: Well, I love all of that. Thank you guys for, the work you’ve already put into this. Thank you for serving in this way. We’re looking forward to a great, great, couple of nights here. Anything else to add to this?
Jared Ball: Yeah. I think that if you haven’t been to Festival of Lights, this is the year to show up. Absolutely. Bring your family, bring your friends. This is open to everybody.
It’s put on by the church body. It wouldn’t be possible without them. But they’re just your neighbors. They live beside. They’re in the community.
They’re here ready to serve. We’ve been prepping for a a long time for this. We can’t wait to have you on campus as our special guest.
Gary Walton: No costs. No tickets. Just
Jared Ball: None Whatsoever. We’ve got some raffles. We’ll be giving away stuff. So quite the opposite.
Gary Walton: Alright, very good. Thank you guys. We’re looking forward to a great weekend together.
Kelly Nupson: Thanks
Gary Walton: Chris, as you sign off, maybe you could just tell us some of the other things coming up here at Harvest in December. We really got a number of opportunities for our listeners to hear the story of the gospel. We want to invite you to be a part of Christmas at Harvest with us.
Chris Harper: Well, we’d like to invite you first to our HBBC Christmas program on December 10 at 08:45AM and 10:45AM. We’ll be taken back to the first Christmas in this program called What Child Is This? At 08:45 and 10:45AM on December 10. Our ladies Christmas fellowship will be on December 12 at 6PM. Dinner is $12 per person.
RSVP by December 8. Our church Christmas celebration is on December 17 at 08:45AM and 10:45AM. Special music and a Christmas message on this Sunday morning, December 17 at 08:45AM and 10:45AM. Also, our Christmas worship service on Christmas Eve at 10:45AM. Lots of singing together that morning to celebrate the Savior’s birth.
Go to our website to find out more at hbcguam.org, hbcguam.org. And thanks again for listening to Harvest Time.