Halloween Hodge-podge

I've always really liked Halloween.  It's not the best thing in the world.  It is kind of scary how commercialized it has become.  But I love Halloween.

I love church, too.  Jesus instituted the church as a means of his grace here on earth while he's in heaven preparing a place for us.

I hate how the church does Halloween.  Maybe it has pagan roots, but like Christmas, the Christians hijacked it and made it more Christian.  But it is good to remember all the people you love who have died and to thank God for the ones who were Christian and influenced you for the faith. 

And yet, when October 31 rolls around, we call Halloween satanic, yet do the same thing at our churches and just rename it.  I never realized how strongly I felt about this when someone mentioned we should do a trunk-or-treat next year.  How could they say such a thing?  Do what every church is doing and ignore that this is an important turning point in church history? 

As for Halloween tomorrow, I have class so I can't dress up and pass out candy at my door.  :-(.  However, I have a t-shirt with Charles Spurgeon's face.  I'm going to wear that and if people at CSU ask me who he is I'll pass out an excerpt from his sermons and some candy.  I hope it works.  It's the only time of the year where I can see myself passing out tracts and getting away with it.  I don't actually believe that practice works the rest of the year.

Moving on to other topics.  Our church is still growing.  I'm very thankful for that.  I'm thankful for Cathy Cutts, who teaches elementary Sunday School, Jamie Frey who along with Cathy is a CE elder, Debbie, the preacher's wife and pretty much my godmother, and my supportive church.  The new 5-year-old is going to a more multicultural church, which dismays me because now we're less so, but we still have enough kids where we might need to divide.

Huge praise, the three original kids are now able to live with their dad and step-mom all year, pending court decisions tomorrow.  We can start doing things on Wednesday nights now like skit practice.

The downside, is now we're wanting to get all the church in on what we are teaching, not buy different curricula, which adds up in costs, and the whole church can be in on one thing.  Which I thoroughly agree with and hope to bring the church to the point some day.  But as for now, I'm conflicted between Faith Alive's material versus Christian Focus.  Both are excellent.  I want to stick with CF as I'm afraid Faith Alive, a product of the CRC denom, is in danger of going liberal with their new environmental book.   

Plus, I'm not that sure that I want to teach both teens and kids the same thing, though providentially, I did this fall and Cathy happened to teach on Abraham as well in the FA material.  I think in the fall, I want to continue in my CF book with the kids as it moves on to Jesus lessons but move on to the Gospel of John with Aubrie.


Thankfully, by writing this all out, I know have formulated what I want to talk about with Debbie on Tuesday afternoon.  I'm just praying that the Spirit moves her to agree with me or moves me to better ideas.  Could use prayer on that.