HALLOWEEN

OK.  It's over.  So now we can talk about it.

Everyone (including adults who snuck the best treats out of their children's bags when they weren't looking) have awoken with that 'not quite right feeling' in their stomachs from all the candy consumed.

Strike one for Halloween.

It's been a controversy that has ebbed and flowed over the past fifty years.  What do with Halloween and the church?

I will admit that it has been something of a personal dilemma.  I say that because the same generation (my elders) who were so adamant in their day against things like playing cards and shooting pool are the same ones I remember from my earliest days hosting big parties in the church building on Halloween night and coming dressed as Frankenstein, the Headless Horseman, Chain Saw Charlie (blood included), ghosts, etc. -- and then drinking red punch, eating sugar cookies and playing church games together.

I'm not kidding.

So my head has spun around several times on the topic.

One thing is for sure -- Halloween isn't going away.  It is now the second most lucrative holiday of the year for marketers, after Christmas.  Seventy-five percent of us will participate in some way or another in the festivities.  The other 25% will turn out their lights, presumably praying in the dark silence of their homes for the salvation of all those walking like zombies 'out there' collecting little Snickers bars and licorice.

Sorry.  I got carried away just then.  You know me.  It happens.

It's pretty much the only time of the year 150 people actually come up to your door and want something.  Usually it's the other way around.

So - I don't know if it's good or bad - you decide.  I could give a pro and con list of Scriptures that might be used to support either view.  Instead let me say that's why God gave you a brain along with the instruction to 'work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.'  

One famous preacher once said there are three options Christ-followers can choose with all the things society celebrates.  There are some things we should obviously reject.  Other things we can obviously receive.  Then there's that middle category - things we can redeem.

Until you figure out where Halloween falls in that triad, here are some random thoughts on it -- and sure, it probably would have been more helpful had I posted this two days before Halloween rather than the day after.  Call it -- well -- cowardice, basically.

-- Make it a neighborhood deal.  
Invite the entire zip code to your backyard and grill hot dogs - have hot cider - put up a big screen and show 'It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown' (unless you also have a theology against pumpkins -- oops, there I go again.  Sorry.)  Redeem it by building some relationships on a night people are already prone to gather, even with relative strangers in their neighborhoods.

-- Pick one family and join forces for the night.  
Travel around the neighborhood together.  Then prayerfully take the opportunity to share the Gospel in some way.  Maybe you can choose that family strategically.  You've been putting Jesus hints out there from time to time with them -- now's another opportunity to go one step deeper.

-- Share faith along with the candy.
If you're staying at home, turn on the lights!  Add a little creative message on paper about Jesus given out with the candy.

The origins of Halloween are sketchy.  Search the internet.  You'll find a hundred different ideas about where and how it all started.  Admittedly, none of them sound good.  But however it began centuries ago, the associations are now limp at best for mainstream America.  We know there are ramped up, covert celebrations of evil on Halloween in various places, most likely right in your own city.  Let's not deny that.  But we also serve a God who has forever overcome evil and who will ultimately soon destroy satan and his minions once for all.

Can we as believers counter an 'evil day' with the power and love of 'Jesus who is greater' living inside of us?  Is there an opportunity to create Godly joy and be missional - as the sent people of God - on Halloween and in a sense, hijack this holiday for the purposes of good and for the purposes of God?

I'm just asking.

And be blessed.