Today we focus on our 15th annual Festival of Lights, which is this weekend at Harvest. Pastor Jared Baldwin and Jared Ball join us to discuss the details.
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Episode transcript:
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 25 minutes together telling you the stories of our church by interviewing our members and other friends of the ministry. We’d like to invite you to join us at Harvest Baptist Church this week. There are 2 services every Sunday.
The first at 8:45 AM, the second at 10:45 AM. We’ll have Japanese and Korean translation during our 10:45 AM service, and that’s also when we live stream at hbcguam.org, hbcguam.org. We hope you can join us this Sunday. Let’s begin today’s harvest time by welcoming pastor Gary Walton. Hi, pastor.
Gary Walton: Hey. Hafa adai, Chris. Yeah. We are launching the Christmas season. We’re into December already.
That means there’s a lot of things going on around campus and we’re going to get a chance to talk about it today. But the highlight of everything that happens, in December at harvest is our Sunday morning gatherings. And so we want to, invite you to come this Sunday. It’ll be the first, actually the 2nd Sunday in December and, we got a lot of things happening. We’re going to open up the word together and, you’re going to feel warmly welcomed.
We hope that you’ll come and join us. As you’re thinking about Christmas and all the things that are going on, you might be going through a season of life when you just you’ve got a lot of questions, a lot of distractions happening in your life, and you just need a place where you can stop and slow down and focus again. And I’d encourage you to find that place in church. And if you don’t have a church on, we’d love to invite you to harvest this Sunday. Super glad to have, a couple of guys with us on harvest time today that are well known to our listening audience.
We have Jared Baldwin, Pastor Jared Baldwin and Jared Ball, affectionately known around here as JB 1 and JB 2.
Jared Ball: Hafa adai and hafa adai.
Gary Walton: I don’t know how affectionately affectionately that is, but
Jared Baldwin: there’s there are some people that kind of use it as a joke. But for the most part, it’s how we just keep our emails straight and our anything inbound. Sometimes packages end up on each other’s desks. So just to just
Jared Ball: to keep things straight, we have jb 1 and jb 2. For sanity’s sake for us, we don’t know how other people use it, but it helps us stay organized. Yes.
Gary Walton: Well, as most of you would know, Jared Baldwin’s the executive pastor here at Harvest and also well known for the host of Live ’til Five smash hit viral sensation.
Jared Baldwin: Potentially millions listening.
Gary Walton: Potentially. Yeah. Jared Ball is, our Director of Communications, sometimes guest, often guests on Live ’til five. And specifically for today, he’s the big circus master for the Festival of Lights. And you’ve, Jared’s been putting a lot of time and work and effort into leading a team that would bring us to Festival of Lights, which is why, what we’re talking about today, we want to invite people to come and join us on campus, this Saturday Sunday.
Jared, tell us about Festival of Lights. What’s coming up?
Jared Ball: Yeah. Here’s all the important information. Festival of Lights is basically Harvest Ministries’ love letter during Christmas to the island. We welcome everyone onto the campus of Harvest Baptist Church, Harvest Christian Academy on December 7th 8th this year. So you could be listening to this on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.
It’s December 7th 8th. That’s Saturday Sunday from 6 to 9 PM. And we’ll tell you more about it during the rest of today’s episode, but this is the way to kick off Christmas for you and your family, and we are so excited to put it on for everybody.
Gary Walton: Pastor Jared, we’ve been doing this Harvest have been doing this for a long time now. This 15th year. Is that right?
Jared Baldwin: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s it started out as a a way to draw in people from the community in things we were already doing. You know, we were already putting up some Christmas lights. We were already, doing some music.
And so we started to incorporate, okay. Let’s let’s let’s just make it just a little bit bigger, a little bit larger invitation. And it started out as kind of like an outdoor concert, was really the feel and, kinda in the Caroline area. And then I remember in 2011, which I believe was the 2nd or 3rd year, we moved it across the street to the soccer field, and we did a outdoor cantata almost. And we set up 100 and 100 of chairs on the soccer field, prayed for a nice cool evening with no rain, which ended up perfect, and, lit up that whole area.
And then at the end, during, like, the big crescendo of the music, all the Christmas lights around campus came on. And so we’ve been able to do a lot of different things, different ways of doing it from year to year. And, each year, we kinda find a new, you know, a new emphasis or a new addition to it. This year, we have a couple new things and and have really, actually also just, built up some of
Gary Walton: the things that have been stables last couple years. Well, I had somebody this week volunteer for fireworks. Said he was not licensed, but he’d be happy. Okay. Maybe next year.
Jared Baldwin: That that sounds like let’s add that to the list.
Jared Ball: What a great what a great opportunity, we’ll say.
Chris Harper: Yeah. Exactly.
Gary Walton: Yeah. It has been amazing to see what really God has done, you know, with this ministry, from the beginning. And over the years, you know, we’ve walked through some years of, of adjustments. I mean, COVID changed things. And I remember that year, can we do it?
Will we be able to pull this off? And, we’re going to do a walk through and then eventually became a drive through, which was unbelievably successful. In fact, so much so that we actually considered maybe that’s the future of this. Maybe it’s always gonna be a, you know, a drive through and then, you know, that was really the launch of the Bethlehem, you know, that came out of that. So it really is cool to look back and think on, I think, how God’s directed us to where we’re at today in a way that does welcome the community on our campus.
But then, also, I think right at the beginning of the year, it puts the focus, I hope, for many people, many families right on the right things as they come in.
Jared Baldwin: Yep.
Jared Ball: Yeah. In planning Festival of Lights, my first Festival of Lights was one of the drive thrus.
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Jared Ball: And so I got to participate in that for the very first time. So I would hear stories of what Festival of Lights was. I guess
Gary Walton: you’re up on the roof, weren’t
Jared Ball: you? Yes, I was. I was the innkeeper. I got to shout down that there’s no room, no room. And at the end of that, I had no voice, but it was totally worth it.
Yeah. Super fun event. And I started thinking, well, if this is the backup plan, or is if this is what we came up with, you know, with all these roadblocks in the way, I wonder what it looks like as it’s supposed to be. And I got to see that as I worked with pastor Brian Leonard since he led it the 1st few years when I was here. And what I came to understand was that there are a couple things that you wanna accomplish with Festival of Lights as you’re planning.
You want to put on the best Christmas event that you can for the island, for families, children, individuals to come on to campus and just be able to look back and say, that was an awesome time. I really enjoyed that. But what we also want to do too is tell the story of Christmas. We want to shout it from the rooftops. We are celebrating something here.
And to be able to accomplish both of those things while having just the most fun planning, prepping, working with the church body, and meeting new people around island because we want it to be an event that brings the community in. It’s incredible to be able to accomplish those goals while having so much fun.
Gary Walton: Yeah. You know, when I’m talking with people and inviting people to Festival of Lights, I usually come back to this. There’s a lot of things going on on island over Christmas. Really a lot of great events. Guam loves Christmas season and there’s a lot of things happening.
There’s something about this that I like to encourage families in particular that as you launch the Christmas season, we’re going to have a lot of fun. I’ll let you talk about that. But ultimately, the whole focus does bring us to the central meaning of the Christmas season. If we can start the Christmas year off, seeing that, it really does set the tone for everything else. Absolutely.
Jared Ball: Then you see that with the drama production that we do every year. It’s one of the core elements of entire Festival of Lights is that we have that moment of seeing the newborn child at the live manger scene, where you almost get to look back on all the Christmases of your childhood, you dream of the Christmases in the future. There that is the element that never goes away. You know, we can bring in new elements to Festival of Lights. We can bring in new story elements and and different attractions and stuff like that, but the nativity scene will never go away because that is the center of what we’re doing.
Jesus was born on Christmas Day, and that’s why we get to have the fun family events. It’s because we’ve got the hope and the joy of of eternity with Christ. And, I mean, if that’s not the driver of Festival of Lights, then we’re not going to do it. So that’s why it’s a central part every
Gary Walton: year. Well, I love the idea. I mean, somebody can come and walk through Bethlehem. Right? Tell us about that.
And then that all really does lead somebody kind
Jared Ball: of this journey through Bethlehem that eventually leads them to the manger. Yeah. Absolutely. And there are some inside scoop parts, that we’ll talk about a little bit later with the living Bethlehem, but it is exactly what it sounds like. It is a part of Bethlehem, basically the city constructed in our parking lot, with all the stalls that you would expect during the time of the birth of Christ.
We’ve got armorers making swords and hammering away at metal. We’ve got woodworkers building benches and and constructing different things that the kids and the and the parents get to come and watch and interact with the different characters during the Bible times, with Centurions walking through the streets, making sure that people are paying their taxes, and you can really immerse yourself into this old city of Bethlehem. But Have animals? Any animals? Absolutely.
We got to have animals. There’s goats every year. We make sure that there are goats, chickens. We are trying to get a carabao or a heifer every year so that we got some big animals to even out the smaller animals. So the the point of the living Bethlehem is, again, twofold.
We want people to be able to enjoy experiencing what it would have been like to be in Bethlehem back during the birth of Christ. But the second part of it is it’s preparing people as they walk through the living Bethlehem to go into the live drama which is going on in the auditorium. So you get to come out of Bethlehem experiencing the sights and the sounds and the smells, and then you hit the auditorium and then you see a production that’s taking place adjacent to where you just came from. So it’s a it’s a story taking place in Bethlehem, and you get to see that which leads into the nativity scene.
Gary Walton: Yeah, I love it. It’s really special. Jared, what other things? I mean, there is a bunch of stuff happening.
Jared Baldwin: Oh, yeah. We have in the month of December, we have a lot of activities. And Festival of Lights, of course, kicking it off. And at Festival of Lights, you have a lot of things in addition to the program. Yeah.
Let me maybe touch on that first. So we have a lot of food trucks coming in. Some of the local favorites, our hub is also open. And so I think that actually draws a lot of people to the campus. They know it’s gonna be this well lit, beautiful Christmas themed event, and they know there’s gonna be food trucks.
So for some, that’s the initial thing that gets people in the doors because, you know, who doesn’t like to do that? It’s kind of a fun time for a little family. We also have a kids area. There’s gonna be, like, outdoor snowball fight. You gotta come and see it.
It’s I know it sounds crazy, but we have the equivalent the Guam equivalent of a outdoor snowball fight. We have, we actually this year, we added something new. Harvest Christian Academy alumni and friends reception over at the Harvest House Training Center. That’s gonna be happening. What are we calling that, Jared?
That is the HCA alumni holiday hangout. There you go. The alumni holiday hangout. And so having that going on at the same time, our koiang, you know, our our yappies men’s house that we built is gonna be all lit up, and it’s like a perfect place for people to take that that memory making photo. And we’re actually gonna have some of our students from our bible college dressed in island dress and doing different really cool Micronesian things to kind of draw people in and create conversation and picture opportunities, stuff like that.
So pastor Clinton is running with that. And it’s just gonna be just fun all around. We have a lot of people on security helping with parking. You know, we’ve learned over the years. So every time we do a big event, we learn a little something.
Mhmm. We’ve learned that you can’t stack too many things on one day. We did the Harvest House Christmas event on the same day a couple years in a row.
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Jared Baldwin: That just about killed us. We did the HCA Christmas concert once or twice. That just about we tried selling Christmas trees. Didn’t sell too many trees that night. We used to do a carnival.
You know? So we’ve we’ve learned. And and, actually, the, just the interest and the needs of the community have changed over the years too. And so we’ve tried to adjust a little bit to the things we offer and do to make it as conducive for a carload of people to show up, whether they’re they’ve never been on Harvest Campus and they can just feel welcome and celebrate with us. Or maybe it’s a church group from another church that maybe they don’t have a congregation that’s big enough to have a Christmas program.
And this is their one opportunity to bring people, bring unsaved relatives and family members, or for our own church folks or and and our our folks that that are here that wanna invite family and friends and neighbors. This kind of has it all. So we we really try and keep all those things in mind as we, map this out.
Gary Walton: So what about Inside Scoop? So if I’ve been to, you know, Festival of Lights a few times and I’ve kind of generally walked around, I’ve got the what’s the inside scoop? What am I gonna miss that, you know, the insider would know about?
Jared Ball: Oh, yeah. Great question. So oftentimes on the planning side of things, we can get really in our heads about, oh, are people gonna be tired of this? Are people gonna be bored with this different thing? That usually does not affect somebody showing up for Christmas.
They are looking for the things that they remember from last year that they really liked and enjoyed. And for us on the planning side, we’re thinking about it all year long, but everybody else is experiencing it 1 or 2 days out of the year. And oftentimes, they’re looking forward to what they had last time that they really enjoyed. So we’re bringing back a lot of the same stuff that you saw last year that you really like. The Living Bethlehem got a great reception.
The children’s play area got a great reception as well. Ornament decoration station. We’re changing something up with the koiang, like pastor Jared mentioned. We’re we’re dressing it up even more. Last year, it was a photo booth area.
Now it’s our island Christmas section. So it’s going to be themed. That’s something that’s a little bit different.
Jared Baldwin: We’ve kind of laid it out almost like an amusement park. We as we were we’ve been planning this since last spring. We’ve been having meetings regularly and someone brought the idea to the table. I think it might have been Brandon Peguarito coming back from the senior trip and going to Tokyo Disney and he and Jared talking about well, what if we kind of if we looked at the map of this, it is a little bit like the way an amusement park is laid out by its different themed areas. And practically, that helped us also to find leaders for each area to kind of enhance the focus on what’s happening in each area.
So that’s why the the coining area is better. It’s because we have pastor Clinton leading that area and really taking on, hey. How do we how do we make this even more? How do we make, the journey through Bethlehem even better this year? And so that’s been a that’s been a neat addition.
And we have kind of special names for each area. Right? So you have journey through Bethlehem. What are the other areas called?
Jared Ball: Yeah. So as we look at the map from the top down, you’ve got winter wonderland, which is the children’s play area where they’re gonna have the snowball fights. You’ve got your decorations station. See, everything’s gotta have a good ring to it. Very,
Gary Walton: yes.
Jared Ball: Got the island Christmas, but then we’ve got the food area.
Gary Walton: Mhmm.
Jared Ball: Okay. Maybe that’s not as dressed up of an area.
Jared Baldwin: That’s all we need. Everything you need to say. Two syllables. Three syllables.
Jared Ball: Yeah. We’ve got the food trucks. We’ve got the seating area. We’ve got beautiful outdoor seating with Christmas icicle lighting. We’ve got the hub in that area as well, which is gonna be open.
And so actually, this is one of the inside the inside scoop things. The hub has been remodeled. Mhmm. So you’re going to see it completely remodeled this year if you haven’t visited since last year.
Jared Baldwin: And they have a special seasonal menu that they’re offering that night. It’s all the best I mean, the top favorite best, drinks at the hub, seasonal drinks, hot and cold drinks available that those two nights.
Jared Ball: And they’re great. And we’ve got the Living Bethlehem, then we’ve got the Christmas theater, which is where the drama production takes place, and then of course we have the HCA alumni holiday hangout. And those are the different areas as you look top down on a map. Now that’s one of the other inside scoops, is we actually do have a theme park like map that you’ll get in a handout that you receive as soon as you hit the entrance. You’ve got a couple of goodies inside of that bag, but you’ll be able to look at that map and find your way all the way around campus.
And on the back, there’s a description of each section so you can figure out how am I going to take in Festival of Lights this year. I’ll say, one more thing. The HCA Alumni Holiday Hangout, that’s a special thing that we wanted to do this year, just to reconnect with some of the alumni who have graduated from the academy here. So it’ll be in the Harvest House training center across campus. If you’re an HCA alumni, we’d love to have you there.
Come by, say hi, grab some Christmas cookies, and then spend some time in our little holiday hangout.
Jared Baldwin: Yeah. They can I talked to, doctor Ring today? They want to even connect with people that maybe went here through 8th grade. Maybe you didn’t graduate from here, but you spent most of your educational history here. We’d love to, reconnect and kinda get that relationship going.
We find a lot of people, they have great memories of Harvest Christian Academy. But when they’re done here, they kinda never come back. And so this is a way to it’s a special reception. They’re gonna have all kinds
Jared Ball: of goodies and free stuff in there for you as well. And the very last inside scoop that I’ll give you, because I can’t give away all the secrets. The last scoop is when you’re walking through the Living Bethlehem and you’re participating in some of the activities that we have in there and also interacting with the different people in Bethlehem, pay attention to the subtle storyline that’s going on at the different booths. There’s going to be some scripted moments that you’re going to pick up on as you’re walking through Bethlehem that are gonna lead you right into the big production happening in the auditorium. That’s the crescendo for the whole night.
So pay attention.
Gary Walton: That’s what I was looking for. I had these friends that were members of Disney World. And as members, they were older, retired. It wasn’t really my thing, but at Festival of Lights, this would be my thing. They had it, I had some kind of a membership where they could get the back side tour.
They actually got to see, you know, backstage, all these things. So that’s what I’m looking for for Oh, yeah. People have been here a few years. That’s the inside scoop.
Jared Baldwin: Yep. If you’re a member of Festival of Lights 2024, you can go in the backdoor of the koi yang.
Jared Ball: Tell us which side you went in because it’s open on
Gary Walton: all sides.
Jared Baldwin: You get to walk away with a complimentary chicken from Journey of Bethlehem if you’re there on Sunday night.
Gary Walton: That’s what we’re looking for. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, it is really I love this every year for multiple reasons, but one of them is just connections with our community.
I meet so many people. We’ll have a couple thousand people. Yeah.
Jared Baldwin: It’s kind of a reunion.
Gary Walton: Yeah. It really is.
Jared Baldwin: You see people you haven’t seen in a while and all of a sudden it’s like, hey, wait, you know, you’re back or I haven’t seen you. How are the kids? And ends up being just great place to reconnect with people. Yeah.
Jared Ball: We have people schedule flights around Festival of Lights, trying to get on island, say, oh, can I can I make it long enough to be there for festival? Yeah.
Gary Walton: Get that connection. So, yeah, really do enjoy that. Well, thank you guys really for, you know, all the work that you put in. There’s a big team that’s been a part of this, and several 100 volunteers from Harvest Baptist Church that will be connected on Saturday Sunday. So we wanna invite you to that.
Pastor Jared, there’s some other things, Christmas related that we might wanna give invitation to.
Jared Baldwin: Sure. Sure. So we we have a number of things happening through the church and the school that are just Christmas seasonal things. At the time of the broadcast of this recording, the ladies Christmas fellowship dinner, the the sign ups have already happened. But if you want to sneak in at the last minute, give me a call.
We might be able to get you in on December 10th for the ladies Christmas fellowship dinner, but we we do that every year as a outreach to our ladies on Guam. We also have the, HCA Christmas concert coming up December 13th, 7 PM. People here in Guam, there’s just not always a lot of family events to go to. And so the the HCA concert is open to the whole community, and it’s a free event for Christmas music. But the big one, the one I really wanna emphasize is the call of Christmas.
It’s a gripping drama about the angelic visions foretelling the birth of Jesus. That’s gonna be on December 15th, our 2 morning service times, 8:45 AM, 10:45 AM. It is a beautiful retelling of the events that led to the greatest story ever told and is a great way to invite family and friends. Those people that maybe will never come any other time of the year or the people that come to Festival of Lights and you’re looking for a way to bridge to maybe get them to come in and hear another opportunity to hear the gospel, this one on December 15th, 8:45 and 10:45 AM, the call of Christmas, it is gonna be great, and it’s performed almost entirely by our Harvest Baptist Bible College students.
Gary Walton: Yeah. Yeah. It’s great. I love that morning. Those kids, you know, been here 5 years and it’s a little bit out of their comfort zone and they do an unbelievable job.
Jared Baldwin: Last year, one of the students had a southern accent in their character as a shepherd. It was it was like a it was hilarious and appropriate. It was just great. Yeah. Yeah.
Really great.
Gary Walton: Alright. Thanks. Jared, anything else? Last minute?
Jared Ball: I would say if you’re listening to KHMG right now, you probably already know. But remember, we play Christmas music all throughout the Christmas season up until January 1st. We’re playing 24 hours. Christmas music is going to be on the station along with our special programming. So tell your friends.
You can listen online. You can also tune in here, 88.1 FM. It’s the great way to just spread the Christmas cheer throughout the entire house wherever you got a speaker in the car at home. Tell your friends.
Gary Walton: Well, it really is a fun time, around, harvest, and we look forward to it every year. Opportunities to connect with people and to tell the story. I mean, the full story of Jesus and his birth and why he came. And so we want to invite you to come and join us. If you’re on campus and, man, I’d love it if you came and said hello, to me, to pastor Jared Jared Baltu.
I’ll be in, the auditorium actually 3 different times each night. You’ll have a chance to see that drama, but I’d love for you to say hi and, get a chance to connect. So, invite you to come, and, thank you guys for coming and tell us about everything that’s coming up.
Jared Ball: Absolutely. Merry Christmas, everybody.
Jared Baldwin: Merry Christmas. Thank you.
Chris Harper: And thank you for listening to Harvest Time. Of course, at this point in the program, we always wanna personally invite you again to services this week at Harvest Baptist Church. 2 services Sunday, 8:45 AM, 10:45 AM. It’s at the 10:45 AM service that we offer Japanese and Korean translation. And also during that service or for that service, you can listen live on 88.1 FM or khmg.org.
We do hope to see you this Sunday. Thanks again for listening to Harvest Time.