Halloween?

October 19, 2007

Halloween?

Many Christians have differing views when it comes to “celebrating” Halloween. Over the last few decades, it seems that more and more evangelical Christians have chosen to escape all of the garbage associated with Halloween by gathering at churches for an annual “harvest party.” My concern with this approach is that we may be missing out on an opportunity to be LIGHT on a night that is traditionally filled with darkness! The one night when our neighbors are coming to OUR houses, our lights are off and we are at church!

So, what if we moved the party to SEVERAL LOCAL HOMES! What if we left the porch light ON! And what if we gave away candy every time the door bell rang and then invited the kids and their parents to come back after their Trick-or-Treating for hot Chile and Cider on our front lawn? And then what if we actually TALKED to our neighbors?! Are any of you Journey folks game?! Let me know!

Comments

Anonymous said…

Ken, we've been doing something similar at our church for several years. Our pastor's house is in a "trick-or-treat" neighborhood with tons of kids. We Light up the yard literally white Christmas lights and flood lights. You can see the glow all over the neighborhood. Our youth band plays out of the garage filling the nieghborhood with music. When the kids get there they make a quick craft, play bean bag toss and choose a prize. It takes about 10 minutes. Then we give them about 10 houses worth of candy to make for the lost trick or treat time. In their candy bag is a little flyer with our name and location. The nieghbors love it. We don;t preach, we just have fun and smile a lot. The first year we had about 150 kids and by year three we had 500 kids! The nieghbors love it and the church people get to rub elbows with the community. I recommend it highly

Andrew Overby

8:01 PM, October 19, 2007