Turn It for Good
There is a way to engage people on Halloween without actually celebrating the day itself. We are very careful to not have any traditional Halloween decorations like ghosts, spider webs, monsters and so on. Instead, we are trying to brand ourselves as the “crazy-generous” house on our street, to make a statement about the generous nature of our God through sending His Son.
How are we doing that? We give out the good candy! King-sized candy bars! And when you’re giving out over 800 of those candy bars, people start asking, “Why?” And that question right there is an open door for the gospel. “Because we serve a generous God who gave His Son to pay the penalty of death I owed for my sinful arrogance and pride and gave me new life I didn’t deserve. So we long to be a small expression of His generosity to us.” I’ve already been able to share my testimony and the Good News of Jesus several times just in buying the candy.
Not only that, we are hoping to love people well. With the help of our college home group, we have a welcome team that engages people at the foot of the steps, looking for opportunities to talk about Jesus and ask for prayer requests. Those requests are texted to a team in our guest-room-turned-prayer-room. After being loved, welcomed and blessed with king-sized bars, each person will be pointed to Jesus through signs on the way out proclaiming Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
There is a song we love to sing at our church called “Sovereign Over Us” by Aaron Keyes that says, “Even what the enemy means for evil, You turn it for our good, You turn it for our good and Your glory.” Halloween is a day that Satan has intended for evil, but we are leveraging it for the good of others through sharing the gospel and the glory of God by pointing to His grace.
We Are Sinners Too
“This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst” (1 Tim. 1:15).
Let us not forget that the only reason we are saved is because Jesus condescended into the filth of our life, met us where we were at, and extended grace and love to us there. We are no less sinners than those we seek to reach. We are simply great sinners with a greater Savior! Let us not fall into the well-worn path of the Pharisees, thinking in our religious arrogance that we are better than those who don’t know Him. For Jesus Himself said, “Truly I say to you, the tax collectors and prostitutes enter the kingdom of God before you [religious leaders]” (Matt. 21:31)
Let’s remember our Lord’s charge to us on Halloween, not to run from darkness but charge toward it with the loving light of the gospel. “He said to them, ‘Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature'” (Mark 16:15).
Follow our journey to #RedeemHalloween2015 by watching for pictures and posts on our Instagram accounts on Oct. 31 (@kellyneedham and @jimmyneedham). Why not start a new tradition of becoming the generous house in your neighborhood?
Taken from Kelly Needham’s blog post, “Redeeming Halloween,” truewoman.com. Used with permission.
