Last year I did an outreach in my church called Hallowfest. It was a way of using culture to redeem the holiday for Christ. It was a hit, and we saw 20 student come to Christ(exciting!). Before the two events (jr.high and sr.high) we had comments from parents, and people that we shouldn’t be supporting the “devils day”. Not being raised in the church, and not accepting Christ until I was in grade 10 gave me a different understanding of Halloween. One that is all about candy. That is what it was about for a sinner like me…and to be honest it is still about the candy! I have been thinking lately how Christians give so much credit to something that has already been overcome by Christ.
I found an article on the resurgences called, “what Christians should know about halloween”(for some reason it was taken down this year), and I would send it to people who wondered why we wanted to use Halloween to tell students about Jesus. I stumbled across this excellent article this year on Justin Holcomb’s blog called, ” what christians should know about halloween“. It is worth the read, and I love his last statement, “Perhaps instead of fleeing the darkness in fear, we should view Halloween as an opportunity to mock the enemy whose power over us has been broken.”
For the past two years we have worked hard to redeem halloween and use it as an opportunity to tell students about Jesus.
Here are three ways we redeem it:
1. We plan attractional events. We want to see tons of new students that don’t go to church, or have never been to church. Last thursday we ran an event for Jr.Highers, and one for Sr.Highers on Friday. It was a crazy week, but it is worth seeing lives transformed. For the past two years we have rented a old run down hall, decorated it, and have thrown an huge party. There are prizes, games, food, and so much more. It is two crazy night.
2. We clearly explain the gospel, and how to accept it. At our event we share the gospel in a simple way that allows students to accept it for the first time and follow Christ. The first year we did these events we saw students come to Christ, and then discipled for the next 8 weeks. Some of these teens are on my student leadership team because of this event. Gets me so excited just talking about it.
3. We engage in the community. We want our church to be in the community handing out candy, or taking their kids to get candy. We want to love on our neighbours. My kids will be handing out candy because we want to know the neighbours next door.
Justin Holcomb shows the need to engage with our culture when he states, “There should be no pressure to participate, but for those Christians whose conscience permits we should view it as an opportunity to engage wisely with our culture.” We have a great opportunity to reach students and their parents this halloween. My hope and prayer is that you wouldn’t reject it this year, but you would redeem it.
