Children going around with their friends and/or families to their neighbors homes all on the same night, laughing and having a good time while households share treats and goodies, smiles, and kind words with those that come to their doors?  Shame on them.

How should the church respond to the one time of the year when nearly every neighbor family comes out of their homes to interact with their neighbors? Separate itself of course. Don’t interact with your neighbors and certainly don’t participate in the community activity. Turn off the lights, take your family to church, and be suspicious of any neighbors that enjoy decorating for and celebrating Halloween.

There was a period of my life when I responded to Halloween in similar ways. This is unhealthy behavior for Christians. We should be making the most of this opportunity to connect with our neighbors. This does not mean that we need to adopt the beliefs of our culture, or participate in satanic rituals. Frankly, I think one of the worst things that happens on Halloween is the acceptance and perpetration of consuming large amounts of sugar. But most Christians don’t care about that, and if they do, it too can be handled in an appropriate way to achieve moderation. Maybe we could display Christ-like character during this Halloween by being hospitable to our neighbors, not just handing out candy, but inviting our neighbors to join us for chili (or some other good Fall food) after they take their kids trick-or-treating.

What ideas can you come up with to display Christ to our neighbors?

Tags: Christian Living, christian response, halloween

Friends,

Came across this while perusing JI Packer’s Knowing God. Thought you might enjoy it too.

“We need frankly to face ourselves at this point. We are, perhaps, orthodox evangelicals. We can state the gospel clearly; we can smell unsound doctrine a mile away. If asked how one may know God, we can at once produce the right formula: that we come to know God through Jesus Christ the Lord, in virtue of his cross and mediation, on the basis of his word of promise, by the power of the Holy Spirit, via a personal exercise of faith. Yet the gaiety, goodness, and unfetteredness of spirit which are the marks of those who have know God are rare among us–rarer, perhaps, than they are in some other Christian circles where, by comparison, evangelical truth is less clearly and fully known. Here, too, it would seem that the last may prove to be the first, and the first last. A little knowledge of God is worth more than a great deal of knowledge about him.” (JI Packer, Knowing God, 25-26)

Friends,

I guess these folks, Steve and Kathy, have been doing their thing for a while now. I only heard about them because Christian Post did a story. I don’t really care one way or another what they do with their time and money, but I was just wondering about something after I read the story and watched one of their, uh, videos (which according to my powerful sense of discernment was racially insensitive). The CP story has this paragraph:

Aside from his book, Gray has also been addressing the issues of his “absurd religion” through The Steve & Kathy Show, a Christian comedy TV show featuring skits that are often critical of megachurches and the emergent church movement.

One skit, titled “Seeker-Sensitive Mega Church Guy,” which spoofs the megachurch phenomenon in America, has attracted over 49,000 viewers on YouTube as well as a recently-won Emmy award.

My question is, I wonder what happens when Christian Comedians, who are clearly despised by the ADM crowd, make fun of the people that the ADM crowd despise? I wonder how the two can co-exist without there being some sort of black hole opening in the universe and causing the failure of all life as we know it? Worse, what happens when the comedian apparently is the pastor of his own megachurch and apparently has a very strong urge to be Rob Bell?

I’m just wondering…