Halloween Hospitality by Suzanne Hadley Gosselin on 10/23/2006 at 9:59 AM

Halloween is so controversial among Christians, that the children's magazines I edit don't even mention the holiday. Today Tim Challies talks about how Christians can use Halloween as an outreach opportunity.

I am guessing my neighbourhood is all-too-typical in that people typically arrive home from work and immediately drive their cars into the garage. More often than not they do not emerge again until the next morning when they leave for work once more. We are private, reclusive people who delight in our privacy. We rarely see our neighbors and rarely communicate with them. It would be a terrible breach of Canadian social etiquette for me to knock on a person's door and ask them for a small gift or even just to say "hello" to them. In the six years we have been living in this area, we have never once had a neighbor come to the door to ask for anything (except for this time). Yet on Halloween these barriers all come down. I have the opportunity to greet every person in the neighbourhood. I have the opportunity to introduce myself to the family who moved in just down the row a few weeks ago and to greet some other people I have not seen for weeks or months. At the same time, those people's children will come knocking on my door. We have two possible responses. We can turn the lights out and sit inside, seeking to shelter ourselves from the pagan influence of the little Harry Potters, Batmans and ballerinas, or we can greet them, gush over them, and make them feel welcome. We can prove ourselves to be the family who genuinely cares about our neighbours, or we can be the family who shows that we want to interact with them only on our terms. Most of our neighbours know of our faith and of our supposed concern for them. This is a chance to prove our love for them.

A family I know does just that. Each year, they open their garage and take pictures of each trick-or-treater against a festive fall backdrop. Later they provide the prints to their neighbors for free. They also hand out treats and tracts telling of Christ's love.

Candice's son asks: "Mommy, what can we do to let these people know how bad this holiday is? Should we go in and tell them it's not a Jesus holiday?" Perhaps if we introduce them to a Savior more powerful than a pagan holiday, they will discover this truth for themselves.

Halloween Hospitality by Suzanne Hadley Gosselin on 10/23/2006 at 9:59 AM

Halloween is so controversial among Christians, that the children's magazines I edit don't even mention the holiday. Today Tim Challies talks about how Christians can use Halloween as an outreach opportunity.

I am guessing my neighbourhood is all-too-typical in that people typically arrive home from work and immediately drive their cars into the garage. More often than not they do not emerge again until the next morning when they leave for work once more. We are private, reclusive people who delight in our privacy. We rarely see our neighbors and rarely communicate with them. It would be a terrible breach of Canadian social etiquette for me to knock on a person's door and ask them for a small gift or even just to say "hello" to them. In the six years we have been living in this area, we have never once had a neighbor come to the door to ask for anything (except for this time). Yet on Halloween these barriers all come down. I have the opportunity to greet every person in the neighbourhood. I have the opportunity to introduce myself to the family who moved in just down the row a few weeks ago and to greet some other people I have not seen for weeks or months. At the same time, those people's children will come knocking on my door. We have two possible responses. We can turn the lights out and sit inside, seeking to shelter ourselves from the pagan influence of the little Harry Potters, Batmans and ballerinas, or we can greet them, gush over them, and make them feel welcome. We can prove ourselves to be the family who genuinely cares about our neighbours, or we can be the family who shows that we want to interact with them only on our terms. Most of our neighbours know of our faith and of our supposed concern for them. This is a chance to prove our love for them.

A family I know does just that. Each year, they open their garage and take pictures of each trick-or-treater against a festive fall backdrop. Later they provide the prints to their neighbors for free. They also hand out treats and tracts telling of Christ's love.

Candice's son asks: "Mommy, what can we do to let these people know how bad this holiday is? Should we go in and tell them it's not a Jesus holiday?" Perhaps if we introduce them to a Savior more powerful than a pagan holiday, they will discover this truth for themselves.