Another Year, Another Halloween

Some of you have been reading my blog for awhile and it is no secret that Halloween is not my favorite day. There is so much focus on death and gore.  The elements of darkness are everywhere.  I watch as many fellow church members dress up as witches, vampires, even satan himself!  I cringe.  There are so many costume alternatives so why would those that love God dress up in things that are totally against God?  A vampire is actually repelled by the cross!  So every year I struggle with this day.  But this year I made a decision to try and look at it differently.  First of all, I ran the popcorn machine at our Fall Festival.  Yes there were 3 witches and 1 girl dressed as satan, that I served popcorn to but there was 100 other children that were just cute.  I have to confess that I don't understand when churches have "safe" alternatives for children, like Fall Festivals or Trunk or Treats, why they don't actually have them on Halloween?  Do children really need two different days of gathering loads of candy?  Perhaps when we do that we could encourage the children to enjoy gathering the candy but then donating it to the Troops or something?

Okay, so on to today.  A couple of years ago I read a great article (I wish I could remember who to give credit to) about using Halloween as an outreach.  Being intentional about being a light on a dark night.  I remember in particular the idea about ministering to parents, with bottles of water or the like.  Actually sitting out on your porch where you could visit with neighbors.  It is the one day of the year the my neighbors will actually come to my house.  So this year I decided that is what I would do.  Unfortunately, it was too cold and windy to stay on the porch (I lasted 5 minutes).  But I left my front door open so it would be obvious I was receiving guests.  To the children's candy I attached a mini book called the pumpkin prayer that I found here http://www.christianpreschoolprintables.com/files/Minibooks/PumpkinPrayer.pdf, and for the adults I went to Costco and bought big Twix and attached this prayer to their candy bar.  "Tonight is all about kids, but we wanted to let you as a parent know that we are praying for you!  It takes a lot of wisdom to raise children to be good, responsible  individuals these days.  James 1:5 (in the Bible) states if anyone lacks wisdom, that he can ask God, who gives to all generously.  May the Lord bless you with all you need to train your child in the right ways.  May the Lord bless your family with health and happiness.  As your neighbors, if there are ever any specific prayer requests you would like us to offer on your behalf, just email us at lynnleaming@gmail.com and we will be glad to do that.  May the Lord bless you and your children with a safe night tonight!" 

 

Many of the parents thanked me for thinking of them.  I was able to tell children, "take this to your parent since they were so good to bring you out Trick or Treating."  The other thing parents appreciated was me asking if their child had peanut allergies since we were passing out Pnut M&M's (we also had Twizzlers).

Amazingly, not one child did.

Bottom line.  I really enjoyed tonight.  And amazingly, not one witch or vampire or satan came to my door.  Yes I did have a couple of grim reapers, but I also had a nun :-)

So hopefully I will hear from some parents and have the blessing of praying for them in the future.  Next year I have decided I will hand out hot chocolate.  Halloween tends to be on the cold side in Colorado :-)