My post today will talk about what our family did for the time of Halloween this year. We are in the process of figuring out how we want to celebrate things and what things to celebrate and educating ourselves on the history of things and why people celebrate as they do, and how we can be a light of Christ or "missionary" in our community and culture, etc etc... We have always just done stuff because that's what we have always done or what we were taught, but I want to have and live with purpose and know why I do it and are having my kids learn and do it.
Well this year, a couple days before Halloween weekend I was led to do a lot of research on Halloween and I learned a lot of stuff. I even learned that Reformation Day is the same day. I had never really heard of Reformation Day. I knew about Luther and his theses, but I didn't know when he did it and why he did it that day. I could not believe that in almost 20 yrs of being a Christian, i did not know much about Luther, his theses, and the Reformation. It was very saddening to me. It is a very important moment in the history of the church. We need to remember it! This was all very interesting and enlightening. I was convicted to change our plans for that weekend.
We had just carved our pumpkin the night before and we had made it a witch. It was right after this that I started feeling weird and had a desire to research the holiday for personal knowledge as well as lesson planning for school (I had been putting it off). So first, I changed our witch pumpkin because I did not want to glorify the occult. Witches are real. They are not some made up fantasy that is just for fun. There is active spiritual war daily that we need to be aware of. Halloween is a wiccan holy day and the thought of having a witch on my front porch was grieving my spirit. The occult does not believe in God and spreads a false message along with serving false gods and so therefore they raise themselves up against him. So I did not want to display that at my house.
Then, I contacted a friend who I remember saying she was doing something at her house as an outreach. We joined them Monday night instead of trick-or-treating. The kids dressed up and we went to their house. They had a big display in the yard of a lighthouse which said that Jesus is the light of the world. They had a fishing area that the kids could go "fishing", catch a “fish”, and then get a full sized candy bar as a reward. Then they went to a table and made a witness bracelet that they then took home with them along with info. They also had popcorn, hot cocoa, and games set up. It was really neat. Our kids enjoyed themselves and it was great to serve others instead of going around being greedy with candy. The kids didn't even miss trick or treating. We want to plan our own something next year.
I also planned a lesson for Monday all about Reformation Day and some history of Halloween. It was really fun. The kids enjoyed it. I used things I found online, nothing was my idea. What we did was learn some history about the day and do some games and activities. The kids did a maze worksheet of Luther finding his hammer; they colored the symbol the reformers came up with; we made a Door of Wittenberg, put it up on the wall and wrote simple statements reflecting the theses and the kids “nailed” them to the door; we played pin the beard on the reformer; and we had a special snack of worms(dirt pudding) due to the trial held in Worms Germany. It was a great day and we all learned a lot.
We plan on doing a lot more stuff like this as we go about the year and learn new things. I am trying to figure out what we will do for thanksgiving and Christmas. I am looking forward to it. Anyway, hope you enjoyed seeing what we did.
Chrissy
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