EVANGELISM: Trick or Retreat? (Round 2)

Trick or Retreat? (Round 2)
Posted on October 27, 2014  in Blog, Evangelism
Here’s a minimally updated post from last year for your consideration this time around…
Two years ago, after the fact, I read a fantastic article about Halloween by David Mathis.  It’s way better than this one so you might want to just go read it instead.  Afterwards I realized I’d missed an opportunity.  The reason?  One night each year the community comes out of their homes, into the streets, and walks right up to you front door.  Uninvited.  It’s fantastic! The question: how will they be greeted when they get there?
As Mathis puts it, we can naively underreact or unwisely overreact when it comes to October 31st.  We could go along with our culture and embrace darkness as fun and entertaining.  Or, we could hide out behind closed curtains and unlit front porches.  But what about a middle way?  What about using this opportunity to get to know the people who live next door and across the street?
Challenged by this new perspective, as a family, we made some changes to our approach last year, and it worked quite well.  Here’s what we’ll be doing again this year:
The plan is to set up a warming station under the carport in our driveway with some music, a propane heater (if someone lends one to us), and some hot chocolate.  We’ll hang out there for the evening and hand out full size chocolate bars to the kids who show up.  We live right across the street from a school on a busy 3-way intersection, so we’ll put up a sign the day before to let parents know they can drop by and heat up for a few minutes while they take their little ones from door to door.
Hopefully we’ll get to meet and talk with some people on our block that we never have before.  Hopefully we’ll go a little deeper with those we have.  It’s the easiest way of going on mission ever: don’t leave the house.
Why should we bother with all this?  Very simply, given the love and kindness we’ve been shown by God in Christ, as believers shouldn’t we make every effort to be the friendliest, most generous, welcoming house on the block?  Yeah some of the kids will be dressed up as ghosts, ghouls, devils and wizards, but consider what we were when God demonstrated His love towards us.
I know it’s Halloween.  I know there’s real darkness out there.  But Satan isn’t victorious, Jesus is.  So, instead of hiding, why not shine?
What does your family get up to?  Email me and I’ll pass along any better ideas you might have: sean@hespelerbaptist.ca
 
picture credit: Vichaya Kiatying-Angsulee, freedigitalphotos.net

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