Invite your one!
This is the way. I am your father. May the force be with you. Star Wars has been a focus in our house recently! Have you ever noticed how weirdly similar these phrases are to things we say in church?! Jesus is the way, Our Father, The Lord be with you… To someone unfamiliar with church we must sound very weird! “Christianese” can be a very real barrier to those exploring faith…
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I can get stuck on the barriers, and not see the opportunity in front of me. Growing up in the UK, Halloween was for sure a barrier to the Christian faith. With a focus on celebrating evil and experimenting with dark spiritual things, this was a night of the year that seemed bleak and hopeless, a night for believers to hide away and avoid engaging with the world. American culture engages in Halloween a little differently from British culture, but all the same I had a hard time adjusting when we first moved here. It took me a while to have eyes to see the opportunity. To see that even Halloween can be redeemed by the Lord for his purposes. To see that God could use Halloween For The One.
For the One. This is the Way. I am your father. What do all these have in common? Well, for our family this year…the Candy Door Dash! We have not just one, but two members of the family (child AND dog) dressing up this year as Darth Vader and I have to say, child-Vader is very excited about the Candy Door Dash. Our kids have had so much fun the past couple years, they can’t help but tell their friends about it. Dressing up, circling the doors of the Chapel Hill building, receiving candy, checking out all the other costumes, hanging out with friends—it’s a super fun way to start the night.
These days, I’m choosing to focus less on the barriers and more on the opportunities, and I invite you into that with me. My kids are busy considering who to invite to the Candy Door Dash, and I’m wondering how dressing up as a Star Wars character might lead to a spiritual conversations about Jesus as the Way, or how a peaked interest in spiritual things might lead to an invitation to explore faith at Alpha! With eyes to see it, Halloween can be an opportunity to engage in For the One.
The Candy Door Dash is one of those events that is so easy to invite to, and so easy for the invited to say yes! Do you have kids in your life? Grandkids? Neighbor kids? Friends of kids? I encourage you to invite them all and prayerfully lift up this opportunity to the Lord to use it for his purposes. Can’t wait to see you and your One at Chapel hill on Monday, October 31, at 4:00 pm!