The tricks and treats of celebrating Halloween
On the 31st of October, my teenage kids and I marked Halloween in a way we’ve not done before. We baked a couple of batches of cookies, hung a sign on our letterbox and then proceeded to welcome the little pack of ghouls and witches that ventured to our front door.
My kids have never trick-or-treated, and for a couple of reasons, the seeming encouragement of this strange festival is unexpected. When I was a kid in the 80s, no one around us celebrated Halloween, which means that as its popularity has grown over the years, I’ve found myself in the camp of the Halloween Grinch.
It’s not hard to find reasons to dislike it: its costumes are made in sweatshops and find their way into landfills, it promotes entitlement in children and sees them consuming far too much sugar, and then there’s the celebration of the macabre. Why on earth would we want our kids to celebrate such dark mumbo jumbo as monsters, zombies, and witches?
So, yes, an unlikely Halloween convert. What prompted such an about-turn?
Paul Borden, Gil Rendle and Alice Mann talk about the need for Christian leaders to read, understand and respond to their community.
Borden writes, “ Effective pastors are really missionaries. They must become amateur sociologists who can help congregations, remove cultural barriers, and build cultural bridges.” If you’re curious how to do this, Rendle and Mann have a whole swag of suggestions, including locating census data, purchasing demographic and psychographic studies, conducting interviews with key community members, and, my favourite, taking neighbourhood walks. The purpose of this data gathering is to find accurate answers to questions such as these:
Who are these neighbours?
In what ways are they similar to us?
What are their needs?
How do we invite and welcome them?
What do we have to offer them? What do they have to offer us?
In my neighbourhood, it’s rare to have groups of tamariki roaming the streets. In fact, it’s relatively rare to see significant neighbourly interaction. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that most of my neighbours are fiercely independent of one another. We live lives that rarely cross over. The weekday routine looks something like this: Go to work/school. Come home. Lock the door. Rinse and repeat.
I’ve not located any census data or bought demographic info, but my hunch is that the biggest challenge in my neighbourhood is isolation.
And the day that I see more neighbourly interaction, community spirit and hospitality than any other is…?
Halloween.
I chose to participate in a less-than-ideal festival for two reasons.
The first is that I think isolation is a greater danger than the vague celebration of evil things, overdosing on sugar, and the sweatshop/landfill issue.
Put another way, I wonder when we refuse to greet trick-or-treaters at the door because we don’t like what Halloween promotes, we win the battle for uprightness and lose the war for community connection. Having done that for a decade or so, now I’m choosing to ignore the vague paganness and get involved in doing some much-needed community building.
My second reason is that I want to see my neighbours come to faith in Jesus. But, long before that happens, I need to make the effort to connect with them on a level that makes sense to them.
In Pathways speak, the trick-or-treaters were Potential Contacts; despite living in the same neighbourhood, we didn’t know one another. Halloween provided an opportunity to put my kids and I In Touch with dozens of people. We moved from being strangers to acquaintances, a not-insignificant step.
What about you? How much do you know about your neighbours? What are their needs? What are you doing to invite and welcome them?
Sources: Paul Borden: Make or Break your church in 365 days: A daily guide to leading effective change. Gil Rendle and Alice Mann: Holy Conversations: Strategic Planning as a Spiritual Practice for Congregations.