Some mornings, events conspire against you to bring you to God.

Every morning, at 4:45am I walk my dog.  I actually appreciate this time because it gives me a chance to pray and talk with God.  Usually it’s a one-way thanks and praise session and I wonder sometimes that I don’t have a chance to listen to what he has to say.  But maybe he is enjoying what I have to say.

Anyways, today, I was rushed so I didn’t do a full walk with the dog.  Late night with my lady, enjoying some tickets that were given to us to the Vancouver Theatresports League.  I determined to listent to a little Praise 106.5 and pray while driving.  (Useful tip: if you pray while driving, DON’T close your eyes!)

Well, on the local Christian radio station in between songs they start saying, “Well, It’s Hallowe’en today, but it’s Reformation Day to me because today is the anniversary of Martin Luther posting his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenburg chapel and starting the Reformation.  Today we’re going to be talking about alternatives to Hallowe’en - Harvest Festivals, or whatever terms you use.”

I listened to this, and I started trying to pray.  I would get to “O God” and then my mind would get twisted back to Hallowe’en, and the fact that this Sunday night is our first “Bring a Friend” night.  Then God starts pointing things out to me.

“Hey, you’ve never really reached out to your neighbourhood here.”

“But God, I live so far away from church!  Nobody around here will want to come that far.”

“How do you know?  You do.”

“Well yeah, but…”

“Why don’t you hand out Awana invitation cards to all the kids tonight when they come to your door?”

“I guess I could, but they won’t come.  The cards will just get thrown away.”

“How do you know that?  Why don’t you try it?”

“But God…”

“Look.  Last year you had more than 200 kids come to your door.  At least a few of them, their parents may be looking for something more wholesome to send their kids to for an activity.  You don’t know.  This is the one night a year when you can walk up to people’s doors and knock and ask them for stuff and people don’t think you’re crazy.  It’s one night a year that children take candy (and anything else) from strangers.  Why are you wasting it?  You want to hear from me, here I am talking to you.  Now get to it.”

So I get to work and I mention this to a Christian friend of mine at work.  I tell him that it seems like a colossal waste that Christians withdraw from our culture on Hallowe’en because of its roots as a pagan holiday.  He agrees.  He says, “You should give them some candy for coming too!”  I was like, “Well, we were going to for the bring a friend kids anyway, but you’re right!  I should stick an Avery label on each card saying, more candy for new kids who attend!”

So now I have a plan of action for tonight.  And this weekend.  200 invitations, directly distributed only to families with kids in the ages we serve.  How easy is this?  And to think, Christians don’t like Hallowe’en.  I wonder how many of them consider the lengths the early church went to, to “take over” pagan holidays?  I mean, look at Christmas, Easter.  They are both in origin pagan holidays, co-opted by the early Christians.  I am not saying we need to do the same for Hallowe’en, but there are elements of Hallowe’en that provide fantastic openings for us as Christians who wish to share our faith.  Why not take advantage of them, instead of shaking our collective fingers at secular society, “tsk, tsk”ing the whole time about witches and dead things?

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