Those are great questions and we'd like to take a moment to answer them briefly:
FX is basically the same thing as Fun Fest, except a whole lot bigger, a whole lot Funner, and is much more INTENTIONAL in sharing the Gospel with our community. We'll have more details on the schedule soon, but one of the highlights is Faith Force coming to do two shows--one during FX and a 7:00 show following FX in the ABC Sanctuary. Faith Force is all about the Gospel and we're excited as to what God is going to do through their presentation.
But what about October 31? I thought the whole point of having a "Fun Fest" was to provide a safe alternative for parents to bring their kids, instead of being surrounded by a culture that celebrates death and darkness?
Dr. George Robinson, from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote an interesting blog on this subject entitled provocatively, "Why All Good Christians Should Celebrate Halloween." (He said what?!)
We'd like to share a few quotes here from Dr. Robinson's blog in regard to Halloween and our calling as believers in Jesus Christ.
"Ironically, most good Christians that I know won’t be celebrating either Reformation Day or Halloween. Instead, they will be showing support for their local church by attending a “safe and sanitary” alternative called a Fall Festival. This alternative allows good Christians to invite their neighbors and friends to come to the church and get candy, play games and have some good, clean Christian fun. No pagan witches and goblins allowed. But they can dress up as David or Moses or some other biblical character. All the fun without the pagan revelry, right?"This is exactly what we've done with the Harvest Festival and the Fun Fest the past few decades. But Dr. Robinson continues:
"I would like to propose another alternative – that good Christians should indeed celebrate Halloween. I think that they should stay home from their church’s alternative Fall Festival and celebrate with their pagan neighbors. Most of them wouldn’t have come to your Fall Festival anyway. And those who did would’ve stopped by briefly on their way to “real” trick-or-treating. I’m sure that some of you reading this blog might be more than a little unhappy with my proposal at this point, but stick with me for a moment: The reason I propose that good Christians celebrate Halloween and stay home from the “Christian alternatives” is that Halloween is the only night of the year in our culture where lost people actually go door-to-door to saved people’s homes -- and you’re down at the church hanging out with all your other good Christian friends having clean fellowship with the non-pagans."Ouch! We leave our homes the one night of the year that our unbelieving neighbors drop by our house?
"Living with missional intentionality means that you approach life as a missionary in your context. I lived with my family in South Asia and we had to be creative and intentional in engaging our Muslim neighbors. We now live in the USA and we still need to be creative and intentional. That’s why for the past 2 years we have chosen to stay at home and celebrate the fact that Halloween gives us a unique opportunity to engage our neighbors. In fact, last year we had over 300 children and 200 adults come to our doorstep on that one night. And we were ready for them!"So, what are some practical ideas of how we can be intentional on Halloween?
"We had a tent set up in the driveway and gave away free coffee and water to the adults who were walking with their children. Our small group members manned the tent and engaged them in conversation and gave each one of them a gospel booklet (“The Story” gospel booklets are available with a Halloween distribution rate here: http://story4.us/offer). The children ran up to our door while the parents were waiting and got their candy, along with gospel booklets (even if they were dressed as witches or goblins!). In all we gave away more than 500 pieces of literature that night, each with our name, e-mail address, and a website where they could get more info."How about it?! Let's be intentional with the Gospel on October 31 and see what God does!
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