I am OK with Halloween

I have to admit, I wasn't thinking about it, but reading a blog buddy like who am i? made me realize that there is a debate out there regarding Christians participating in Halloween. Guess I have to start reading the news, thanks Barry, for the conviction!

I am OK with Halloween, I even felt good about adding this self portrait. I understand the issues and concerns around participating in Halloween, but I feel we can be in the world and not of it. We can participate in a great American pastime, the overindulgence in sugar (like Americans need a special reason to do this), and try to use it as an opportunity to share our faith while we are supercharging the neighborhood kids (as I have no children, I will sleep well when the doorbell stops ringing). It is an opportunity to engage with neighbors, strike up conversations, and show community and goodwill in a thoroughly Christian manner. All good activities, time well spent. It is what we are recommending at our church. And I think the avoidance of any demonic rituals is possible.

So, I am OK with Halloween. Whatever you do, whichever side of the debate you are on, I pray you engage in your response with the spirit of Christian love.

Technorati Tags: Halloween, Christian

Keep Going Strong

I have recently begun dipping into a compilation of letters written by Jonathan Edwards, a small selection of what the man wrote over his time in ministry, collected in a volume called A Sweet Flame, edited by Michael A.G. Haykin. One recently struck me for the timeliness of the advice, a letter written in 1741 to Deborah Hatheway, a young woman looking for advice from Edwards on how to live a Christian life as her church was without a pastor. Edwards makes many points, I found these most interesting (and I am paraphrasing greatly here):

• Keep up the same state of earnestness in your faith as when you were seeking it out
• Do not stop striving, seeking or praying for the things we exhort the unconverted to do
• Hear a sermon for yourself, don't listen and apply it to others
• Though God has forgotten and forgiven your sins, you should not forget
• You have more cause to lament your sins since coming to faith than before
• Pride is the worst viper in the heart and is most hidden, secret and deceitful
  
• Counsel others earnestly, affectionately and with expressions of your own unworthiness
  
• Do not let adversaries of your faith have occasion to reproach it on your account
• Walk with God and follow Christ like a small child

There are more in the letter, these are the ones that struck me the most.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.