Why We May Never Have a Fall Festival

It's Halloween, and here we are--one of the few churches not offering an alternative activity for kids. We'll be the same church that doesn't have a Super Bowl watching party on our giant screen (we actually have giant screens now!), that won't have a Christmas spectacular, and that won't have a giant Easter egg hunt. If you listen carefully, you can hear the sucking sound as I've just sucked all the fun right out of the church! Some may think so; I hope you're not one of them. Play is one of the 4 primary functions of our church, so I'm certainly not against having a good time (see other blog posts for an explanation of the 4 functions). It's not the activity, but the location we're taking issue with. So withhold judgment for a moment and continue reading....

Regardless of your opinion on Halloween itself, you have to recognize that it is perhaps the single most neighborhood-oriented night of the year. On what other night do your neighbors bring their children to your door to meet you? People you may wave to every week but have never actually met will arrive on your doorstep on Halloween. You can go to their doors and introduce yourself without an excuse or feelings of weirdness (everything's weird on Halloween, right?). The event itself breaks down social barriers that seem to exist every other night of the year. And on this night, of all nights, the church has tended to encourage its members to...leave their neighborhoods and go to the church building. So the most gift-wrapped opportunity of the year to develop relationships in the neighborhood is lost. I understand many people's complaints about Halloween as a holiday; if you are compelled to boycott it or abstain from participation in Halloween for reasons of conscience, I certainly honor that and am not criticizing it. I just believe our best chance for societal change--and changed lives--lies in engaging our neighbors.

We're having a block party in front of our house on Halloween. Several of our neighbors are bringing their candy bowls out to the party, so families who come trick-or-treating can just join our party for a while, and the kids get several houses worth of treats at one stop. We're basically just grilling and hanging out in lawn chairs with our neighbors for the evening. We'll take turns taking the kids around the neighborhood in a little gang to knock on doors. If it goes as I expect, there will be at least one family who discovers us and joins the party unexpectedly--bonus! We'd love to do this on any other night, but Halloween kind of serves it up to us on a platter.

The same principle generally applies to most holidays and community events. We want to strategically engage our community by participating in it as followers of Christ--whenever possible without compromise--rather than separating ourselves from the community to distinguish ourselves as Christians. One large church with a great track record of serving people in need recently "experimented" with the concept of partnering with existing local charities rather than creating their own, separate service project. In addition to the overwhelming success of the project, they discovered that spiritually seeking people in their community had viewed them as uncooperative in the past because they always "did their own thing," and viewed the church in a more favorable light after the event. Sometimes even our most selfless efforts fail to reap the additional kingdom benefit of "enjoying the favor of all the people."

So don't look for a flyer from the Springs about the big Super Bowl party next February. You'll find me watching the Cowboys and the Patriots on my big screen, hopefully with a bunch of guys from my street.