Not Scary: The Gospel and Halloween

Alright, Christian, if you live in a place that culturally gets excited about Halloween, then once again we have an incredible opportunity and time to plan for it. So here's my ever refining Franken-article to help get you motivated. Read on...

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” -Matthew 5:14-16 (ESV)

Once a year we have the world coming right to our own doorsteps begging for treats. So we encourage Christians to do something incredibly easy—on Halloween night, turn your porch light on and share the love of Jesus along with your treats. In other words, be present with people.

Remember, this is as simple or complex as you want it to be. (We tend to go a bit on the complex side, but here's some inspiration if you like: All Hallow's Garage)

Need more ideas? Have a few:

• Dress up your goodies. Purchase some bags, plain or decorated. Add a small toy or something fun. Give the best treats on the block.

• Provide hot chocolate for your guests. Kids and adults love this. It can lead to time spent together and potential for deeper discussion.

• Set up a fire pit and roast marshmallows or make s’mores. Same effect as above.

• Do something big at your house to draw attention. Set up spotlights, games, fun scenes, whatever. People tend to remember these houses, and what you gave them.

• Use your skills, or those of a friend, and do magic tricks, balloon animals, music or something else fun and entertaining.

• Invite the neighbors to your house for a “getting to know you” party early in the evening or a day or two in advance. Pass out invites that week to let them know.

• Invite Christian friends to help out, especially if they have fewer children in their neighborhood. That way, you can double your efforts.

• Alternately, if you don’t have many children in your neighborhood, actively find someone who does and work with them. Or maybe go to a party. Be where people are.

• Consider having some Bibles available to give away as appropriate in case the opportunity arises.

• Pray, both before and after the evening, for the people you will meet and for a true love for your neighbors.

Whatever you do, don’t hide behind closed doors. The world is coming to us. Let’s give them something “sweeter than honey.” (Psalm 119:103)

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” -2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)
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Sharing the Gospel on Halloween (or any time) 

The Gospel is all about what Jesus has done, is doing and will do. Throughout Scripture we see reminders of the Gospel given to believers, or those who claim to be (e.g. 1 Corinthians 15:1-8). So don’t forget, the Gospel is for everyone all the time, Christian or non, not just a one-time event in which we hope someone responds and we move on. This is what our salvation is based on, and we need to remind ourselves and each other of that every day.

As a summary, we might say:
• God is perfect, and He says we have to be perfect too. Unfortunately none of us are perfect. We think and say and do things God says not to, or ignore things He says to do, all the time. Our relationship with God, others and our world is broken.
• Jesus lived the perfect life we couldn’t, took on punishment by dying for imperfect people like us, and came to life again, proving He’s God. Only He could repair our relationships.
• God calls us to stop focusing on ourselves and what we want, and to focus on Him, trusting Jesus as Lord, and the One who does everything we can’t.
• Through faith in Jesus alone we can live with him in a renewed Earth forever.

(This example limits religious language and jargon. Always explain words such as “sin” or “repent.”) 

If you choose to include printed handouts with your treats it’s important they include the basic truths stated above. Don’t go for handouts designed to draw attention without sharing the true Gospel, never give out tracts instead of treats, and don't use paper in place of relationships when you have a chance to engage people in person.

While summaries such as this can be useful, especially for review, they by no means express all the depth and richness that is the Gospel of Jesus seen through all of Scripture. There is a lot of theology behind the statements above that disciples need to have explained. There are also many ways to draw people more personally into the wonder of Christ and His beauty. Consider creation. Listen for ways the individual might see the Lord’s work or provision in life. Ask how they are doing and how you can pray for them. The possibilities are as endless and amazing as Jesus Himself.

When speaking to someone, we need to remember we aren’t doing the saving work, nor is the person saving himself with a response. God is Savior, and He knows who He has enabled to respond and when they will. Ask questions to understand where the person is spiritually. Don’t do all the talking, and certainly don’t aggressively attempt to force someone to “seal the deal” with an on-the-spot prayer. This creates confusion and could end in false assurance, especially if you can’t or don’t follow up. We are to make disciples by sharing who Jesus is and what He’s done, encouraging others to believe and obey Him, and to further encourage love of and joy in Christ for those responsive to Him.

Never forget the importance of listening and relating. If someone feels they can trust you, they will often tell you a lot about their life. This can help you discern where they are spiritually and how ready they are to hear more. Rather than approaching with a formulaic method, listen for concerns and needs, and consider how Christ meets that need. (Example: They’ve been unemployed for months. Jesus is Provider of both physical and spiritual needs. How have they seen Him provide?) Be ready to pray with them while present. Many people are touched by this act alone. Pray the Lord gives you a heart of compassion for anyone you meet.

If someone claims to be a believer but you feel unsure, you might ask them to explain the Gospel to you. Then you can commend or gently correct as necessary.

Should a person truly be ready to receive Christ as Lord and feel compelled to pray in repentance to Him, let them pick the words and see how He leads. Ask if they are comfortable with follow up so they can be continue to be discipled. 

Even simple discussions with neighbors just letting them know you are a believer could easily lead to deeper relationships born on Halloween night. Be ready to follow up with your neighbors in any way necessary to show them the love of Christ throughout the whole year.

More treats for you:
>> Check out some additional related articles by Verge Network.

>> Also, an excellent 3 minute video by Jeff Vanderstelt, who encourages us to "Open the Door to Halloween" in order to engage our neighbors.

glorifying God online

We recently spent a month and a half with our youth group discussing technology. This included discussions about communicating to large groups, such as social networking and blogging, more personal communication like instant messaging, texting and cell phone use, and a variety of pitfalls one can get into using technology, covering time wasters, downloads and theft, and some more unfortunate uses of the internet and technology, especially regarding images we’re either barraged with or can easily find. Even covering all that we barely spoke to all that’s going on and all the things we need to keep in mind as we navigate this rapidly expanding world.

We wanted to be sure no one left our discussions feeling all technology is somehow “bad.” Technology is neutral, but we need to use it properly. So we made sure every session to ask the question each of us should ask about everything we do,

“How does this glorify God?”

Obviously in discussions about theft or lust, we could pointedly state that those things never bring God glory. But other uses of technology have potential to do things and reach people in ways never before available in history. What will we do with them?

I often discuss or am asked about doing evangelism online, and I tend to approach the topic with excitement and trepidation. I am excited that people are willing to start thinking about technology as an evangelistic tool. I’ve been honing my outreach for years, expanding and using new things as they become available and relevant to reach people, especially in long distance relationships, some of whom I’ve never met. And therein lies the trepidation, because I have also learned over time to take serious precautions as I roam the internet, and I always want to be sure anyone else considering online outreach does the same.

With that, I would like to share some online cautions. People are very willing to share everything about themselves (and everybody else) on the internet, partly because there’s a disconnect with the “real world” when one is sitting behind a screen and keyboard, and this has the potential to be extremely dangerous regardless of age. The internet has made a lot of crimes easier to commit, and scams and stalkers do abound, so sometimes a little prevention goes a long way.

You should never make the following public about yourself or on behalf of anyone else:

• Contact info., primarily phone number and address
• Inappropriate photos (Don’t take them in the first place. Better yet, do nothing inappropriate to photograph!)
• Extremely personal information for all to see (and be careful e-mailing, chatting, etc. as this can “leak”)
• Financial info. – PayPal, bank accounts, credit/debit cards, social security number, etc. (And no one from Africa offering to give you their dead spouse’s money is your friend.)

It’s also highly recommended against publicly sharing:

• Full real names (even my e-mails have aliases)
• Current schools
• Current places of employment
• Where you/they will be and when

Of course, you should also always use caution in becoming friends with anyone you don’t know. I have a policy of only “friending” those I’ve actually met on one social networking site, with the exception of perhaps a few I’ve had a reasonable number of years speaking too online. I am more open to friend requests on another, but less open with the information I provide.

And so, with cautions such as these built in, and remembering Who I represent even online, I try to utilize the internet to glorify the Lord by sharing who He is with other people I talk too. I do this in a number of ways, which can include any of the following:

• God honoring and/or Scriptural, not preachy or judgmental, status messages, quotes, etc.
• Keeping up with friends, local and long distance
• Responding to anxious status messages and posts with love, prayer and God’s Word. These are often more appropriate to address privately.
• Blogging about what God is doing in one’s life
• Legally posting music with solid Christian lyrics
• The message can vary per audience. Mix in life stuff as long as the message doesn’t go against Scriptural principles. Be consistent and real.

I have prayed for and counseled many people during chat sessions and discipled others online via e-mail, chat or Skype, which allows for deeper interaction in being able to see another’s body language while talking. This includes a friend I met through the game site Neopets and shared the Gospel with a few years ago.

I’ve helped a few people research and find good churches out of state, using the internet of course. And for many individuals, I’ve shipped books or Bibles and cards once trust was established.

This website, obviously, is extremely useful in sharing the Gospel, various resources, how the Lord called me and what God is doing in my life. This has been invaluable in quickly sharing things with others, as I can simply link them to a page of the site or blog to discuss the content or answer a question. I also use the site heavily around major holidays to link holiday letters or Halloween outreach content.

Pretty much everything I do is free, other than the cost of accessing the internet. I bought my domain name and mini ministry is now graciously hosted by a great friend in TN, but I used a free server for years. The real cost here is time and effort in reaching a culture where they are, online, and finding ways previously unavailable or considered unorthodox to tell the world the greatest story there is to tell, that salvation and joy are found in Jesus Christ alone.

As will always be the case with technology, there’s more I could say. If you have questions about reaching out online, leave a comment. I’m glad to discuss. Pray for me as God mercifully allows me to reach different people in many parts of the world for His glory without ever leaving home. This is my mission field.

Daring 2 Share

Last week I attended a youth leader's meeting at the local Dave & Buster's. Didn't get to play any games, but we got a free lunch and heard from Greg Stier, the energetic head of Dare 2 Share ministries. D2S is a youth evangelism conference held all across the country, and it's getting bigger every year.

After going to the conference last February, I wrote an article for our church newsletter, and thought I'd share an edited version with you now. This fits incredibly well with what God has been showing me lately—all the ways He designed us to interact with one another, both for love and support, and as His means to share His love and spread His Word, sharing with others who Jesus Christ is.

Read on...

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Some of you may have heard of the Dare 2 Share youth evangelism conference. Students from my church have been attending for years, well before my time there. But since becoming a youth sponsor I’ve been able to attend at least portions of the conference three times now, and it has provided me some interesting opportunities for growth and renewal.

I wasn’t at all sure how to share the Gospel as a young believer. I based my presentation, or lack of one, on how I responded to people who tried to share with me before I was a Christian. Usually I thought they were kind of crazy and dismissed them entirely. My attitude was that my belief was none of their business, and they should get out of my face. (Or was it “get out of my faith?”) So when I became a Christian I didn’t share much, partly for fear that people would run the other way and never want to hear it from anyone ever again.

Thankfully over time, and with some discipleship, I learned that evangelism isn’t just “in the mall, in your face,” and that there are gentler approaches. Admittedly, I hadn’t felt that D2S was necessarily offering the “gentle approach” at conferences past. The goal on Saturday afternoon is to go door to door, with the recently revised approach of collecting canned goods for Sunshine Ministries, and then to present the Gospel. Presentation is up to the individual, but they provide a book with an acronym of Gospel basics and some lead-in scripts, usually with thought-provoking yet blunt questions such as, “Do you know where you would end up if you died today?” This year I was pleased to see an alternate script that simply asked, “Are there any prayer requests that you have that we can pray for?” as the lead-in. I thought this was a perfect option for someone who isn’t of the bolder mindset, and though I was unable to go with the group on Saturday afternoon this year, I heard a lot of positive responses to that one.

I certainly don’t want to put God in a box. He can use any of these approaches to draw others to Him. But I can say that learning all these different avenues is still useful to me as an adult in day to day discussion, and I have seen and heard the effect that it has on our students as well.

Since this is a youth conference, I thought it might make sense to find out what some of our youth have to say about it. So the senior high discussed D2S this week and I asked everyone to write down their thoughts, whether they attended this year or in years past, or even if they’d never been at all and had simply heard about it from others. Here’s what a few of them had to say:

“My first year of D2S was a life changing experience. The skit they performed opened my eyes to the fact that we really don’t have much time. We wait for “the right time” to share the Gospel with our friends. What was I waiting for? These people aren’t going to pick up a Bible one day and be changed by John 3:16. God doesn’t need us to help, but he asks us to.”
-Danny

“It’s an excellent opportunity for youth through even college age to get out in the community and spread the Gospel. By going door to door, it seems to get easier to ask strangers if they know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.”
-Colleen

“It’s extremely encouraging to be in a stadium filled with other teenagers praising our Father. It’s made me realize that God equips us all with different gifts for the purpose of serving Him. I don’t have to be outspoken and bold to be a witness to others. It also prepares us to fight the battle that’s raging on our own homefront.”
-Jannah

“Dare 2 Share is an interesting program. Although I am not extremely thrilled with their witnessing techniques, D2S is a great way to realize that we, as teenagers – many of us being in public schools—are not alone in our desire to share the Gospel. Unfortunately, I am not confident in the fabricated Gospel presentation guidelines. It tends to make it dry and somewhat monotonous. I do, however, think that D2S provides good practice for someone not accustomed to sharing their faith.”
-Jessica

“Dare 2 Share can be a great way to jump start your faith. The conference gets you excited about God, and helps you get over the fear of sharing your faith.”
-Josh

“I loved being in such a big place with so many teens with the same goal—to start a revolution for Jesus. This was my first time going to Dare 2 Share. It was very inspiring and I definitely reconnected with God!”
-Erin

“Dare 2 Share is a time to learn more about God and rekindle your day-to-day, lukewarm relationship with Him into the burning passion so many of us long for.”
-Andrew

“This past year at D2S I was really convicted about telling my friends about Christ and my relationship with Him. I’m actually giving one of my friends a letter telling her my beliefs this week. It has also given me a passion for growing in my relationship with Jesus daily!”
-Megan

I appreciate some of the candor in these responses, and I want to thank all the students who helped me out with this. There were plenty more comments I simply didn’t have the space to include.

Dare 2 Share is definitely a super-charged experience, so I pray that students who attend really do take something permanent away with them, even as the “experience” fades over time. As I’ve seen in my own life, there’s always something more to learn, something new to grow on. And I’m grateful that our youth are constantly being equipped even beyond the answers I sought well into my college years.

These guys truly are blessed. I pray they use it for His glory.

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Matthew 4:19:
Then He said to them,
"Follow Me, and I will make you