Attempting to Avoid Halloween

Last year about this time I wrote about post about Halloween.  This post today has much of that content. I'm not writing to condem others, just to explain the view I hold.  Here goes:

My family does not celebrate Halloween.  My children have not gone trick or treating, we do not hand out candy at our door, we do not decorate for October 31 in the color orange [which actually is my favorite color... and a color, I prefer to attach to another concept].

When I have said in the past that we do not celebrate this holiday I have received different responses:



Aren't you depriving your children?
Aren't there other more important things to stand up against?

Why bother? Everyone celebrates Halloween.



First of all, I need to be clear - my reasons for ignoring the holiday are not because I have misunderstood the history of the event. I'll spare the history lesson for now as others have written about it already, and better than I would. [Click Here] For me the issue isn't about history its about now. I understand where Halloween has come from, its where it is now that concerns me. 

Why is it that I cannot walk into a store in October without seeing a bloodied corpse, severed hand, or a decoration colored as if dripping in blood? I don't misunderstand the event's past, but I sure don't want to be a part of its present.



I am a father, of 6 children, ages 3 weeks to almost 9 years. My feeling is that I cannot expose my children to the blood and gore associated with Halloween. We protect them as they watch television, we protect them as they make use of the internet, we watch who they spend time with, we keep them safe in every other way that we can - I feel that  I should also protect them from the frightening images and ideas associated with Halloween, from the unhealthy fixation on death and gore?.

Those are my thoughts. I know there are some who will respond - my children choose harmless costumes and eat candy, that's what the holiday is about. I understand that comment, I just know that what I see in stores, watch in my community, see on television and read online makes me believe that Halloween is not a holiday for my children.



In the end, in my attempt to be a good parent, I feel that I cannot choose for my family to participate in Halloween or the images that it will fill my children's minds with.

[Addition this year] It would be easy for someone who reads this post to misunderstand my intent.  I am not intending to judge anyone... every parent must make decisions for their family based on their convictions.  My intent here is simply to share my own thoughts. I'm interested in the dialogue.

Socialnomics & Deuteronomy 6

"It's no longer about building out the existing database. Instead, you could be in communication with fans and consumers on someone else's database. [Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc." Yet many companies fail to grasp this new concept..." [Socialnomics, pg. 48]

Over the past few years I've become fascinated with technology. Anyone who knows me, knows this truth. Many people may believe that I have a technology addiction [after all who else actually reads news about Google each day, or who else has bought and read The Google Story - a biography of the company?]

In reality, my fascination is less about being addicted to the consumption of technology [though there may be truth here, I won't deny it]. More to reality, my interest has to do with the impact of the mediums of technology on society... in other words, what is the affect of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, mobile phones [see the Pew report on Teens and Mobile Phones], etc. on who we are and how we share life together? In his book, Flickering Pixels [an application of the teaching of Marshall McLuhan] to faith / church], Shane Hipps explains that the impact of the form of media / technology may actually [is most certainly] more than even its content. In other words, the content of the text message you just read [or the 100 before it] has changed your life less than the fact that you can actually send and receive them.

Enter into this fascination the concept of Socialnomics - the idea that our economy has changed as a result of social media.  I just finished the book Socialnomics today.  Essentially Erik Qualman's study in the book Socialnomics is a study of how the world has / is being reshaped by social media.  This book [and the video] have added fuel to my fascination.  Where does this take me?  For now, I have a few questions for those of us who serve in children / youth ministry and I am thinking through some questions we should all be anticipating as our future in ministry.

Some questions for now:

• How does social media alter the effectiveness of our current strategies for communicating the content of the gospel?
• How has social media changed how people want to communicate with and be a part of the church community?
• Do those of us who serve as leaders [paid or volunteer] ever have time off in a social media world any longer?

Some questions for later:

• Today's generation of young adults can [for the most part] no longer remember life without the Internet.  Given that the children growing up in our children's ministry will not be able to remember life before social media, how will that affect how we minister to them?
• Taking Marshal McLuhan's ideas to heart - knowing that the medium of media often [always?] communicates even more boldly than its content - what will be the future mediums of Gospel communication and how does that affect the message of the Gospel?
• Social media certainly creates a world where almost all aspects of life are lived in the public sphere.  how will that affect the way that that Christian faith is lived out and passed from one generation to the next?
• What do the words of Deuteronomy 6 look like when their principles are transferred to a social media world?

Nehemiah and Poverty, Haiti and the Valley

It's been an eventful few weeks at Solid Rock Youth, the youth ministry I lead at our church. Last spring our leaders met and planned out a teaching series with three themes. We planned to look at the greatest commandments backwards, starting with our own value / identify in Jesus, moving to our perception of others, and finishing with how we express our love to God. In the fall we covered themes 1 and 2, and in January we were to cover theme 3. God altered the plan.

During the aftermath of the recent devastation in Haiti I followed [on facebook and twitter] the leaders of a number of aid organizations as the responded. I was moved as I watched and read the real life stories from Haiti and felt compelled to challenge our students to wrestle with how they can respond to poverty / suffering in the world. I fell that youth ministries have the responsibility to help students wrestle with these issues all the time - how does God fit into the picture that I see in the world? How do Christians bring the good news of Jesus to people who are suffering? What is good news to those who suffer?

So, with the prompting of God we showed at Solid Rock Youth an edited version of Mark Driscoll's sermon / report from his trip to Haiti with Churches Helping Churches. It was one of the most moving nights we've had in a long time. God was definitely challenging the students to think differently about the world. That night I taught from Nehemiah 1 about Nehemiah's response to the destruction in Jerusalem - he fasted, prayed, mourned for months asking God how to respond.

Last Wednesday we sought to expand or perhaps narrow the conversation about how we as the Church should respond to suffering. After brainstorming with our youth leaders I invited two people to share from their experiences in poverty locally. The first to share was one of our students who spent the first 5 years of their life in public housing. She explained that that was like. The second person works with young families here in the valley, often in their homes. That person was able to share from their observations of the house poor in the valley - those who have a place to live but cannot afford things like heat, electricity, food, medicine, etc. Our students were overwhelmed by the sense that the suffering / poverty that they see / read about elsewhere are problems here too.

The biggest affirmation from God that we are on the right track happened through the arrival of a visitor last Wednesday. Every once in a while, an elderly homeless man named Joseph travels through the valley and visits our church. On Wednesday night, as I stood to speak about Nehemiah 2 and how God gave vision to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, Joseph arrived. The next day as I spent time with him, I asked how he came to be there at that moment - his response was that he just felt like he should come. To bizarre for me to believe that it was a coincidence, I believe God brought him to confirm what is taking place in my heart.

That night, as I taught from Nehemiah, I explained that were I in his place that my first response might be to bring food, shelter, protection, and to bring soldiers to rebuild the wall. Instead, after months of prayer, seeking a vision from God for how to respond, with God's leading, Nehemiah led a campaign where everyone in decimated Jerusalem contributed to the reconstruction. Without the wall around their city they were a disgraced people, without identity or dignity - they were ridiculed by the people around them. As the people gained confidence from God's vision to restore them, and as they sought him again - they gained a sense of identity as his people, and dignity in the sight of those around them. I feel that God is leading us to seek Him, and to ask what this restoration of identity and dignity could look like in the valley for those who are the hidden poor.

This Wednesday coming, we will follow Nehemiah's leadership as he began to pray to God - he confessed his own sin and then the sin of his nation. After that he ask God what to do next. We intend to ask the same thing.

O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands, 6 let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father's house, have committed against you. [Nehemiah 1:5-6]