Forbidden to Go

I should be traveling home from East Asia today. I was supposed to go on a trip with my pastor, Jason Clark, to go and train Church leaders in an East Asian country. I packed my bags, made all of my neccessary preparations and was ready to begin another awesome adventure. That is until I checked my passport. No, my passport was not expired. But, my visa was expired. The country that I was supposed to be traveling to has a visa requirement for entry into the country. I had gone to this country before, back in August and received a visa for that trip that supposed to be good for one year with multiple entries. Late on the night before I was supposed to leave I saw a small discrepancy with my visa. Instead of saying multiple entries, mine said one. So, in essence, I had already used up my one entry that was good for that visa.

What happened next was a whirlwind last ditch effort to go on the trip.

Sunday afternoon I flew to New York City. I was standing outside of a visa expeditors office in Manhattan at 8:30 on Monday morning and had my passport and visa application headed to the consulate office of the country that I was trying to get into. After discussing with the expeditors how long it would take to get my visa, I changed my airline tickets so that I would be flying to the country on Wednesday morning. Monday night I got a call from the expeditors that told me that my visa had been denied. They said (and I'm not sure if I believe this, but it is what it is) that it was denied because the consulate had determined that I did work at a church. I flew back home on Tuesday.

What happened? Why didn't I go on this trip? Now, I know that I have just recounted to you the facts of the situation, but I don' believe that they tell the whole story. I want to share with you, sincerely from my heart, what I believe happened. My thinking on this has been shaped by an experience that the Apostle Paul had after he first met Timothy. This is recorded in Acts 16. It is verses 6 and 7 that have captivated my thoughts over the past week. The Word of God says,

"And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them."

Forbidden by the Holy Spirit. Why? Because they were about to commit egregious sin? No. Because the Holy Spirit was against what they wanted to do? No. The answer to that question of why is just this: we do not know why. Remember, though, what has happened before Acts 16. The Lord Jesus Himself has commissioned His followers to go into all the nations and make disciples of all men. He has also said that His followers would be His witnesses into all the world. A burden has been placed on the heart of Paul to preach the Gospel to the Gentile world. So, Paul heads to Asia with all of those truths fully confirmed in his heart. But, the Holy Spirit forbid him to speak the Word in Asia. Then the Spirit did not allow him to go into Bithynia. What's going on?

Now, we have the luxury of being able to read what happens next in Paul's life and see where the direction the Lord was leading him. Paul didn't have that luxury however. I imagine that after verse 7, he was feeling a bit discouraged and perplexed. Last Monday night I felt the same way. I wondered what God was doing. Riding the subway from Times Square to my hotel that Monday night I asked the Lord, "Lord, am I not doing what you called me to do? Am I not taking the Gospel to the nations? Am I not striving to make disciples of all nations?" The Lord's reply to me was simple and profound. "Jacob, are you for My will or aren't you?"

I am for His will. Above all else I want to see and be submitted to the will of God. Sometimes, a lot of the times in fact, the will of God will cause a shut down of my plans for me. Even when those plans are good and godly. A lot of times His will leads me to a very uncomfortable place, where all that I have is Him. The very thought of that makes me want to cry, honestly. In my heart of hearts that is what I want, but my flesh abhors that thought. My flesh takes great comfort in all of the stuff that I hang onto: familiarity, comfort, ambition, ease and pleasure. When those get taken away and all that I have to hang onto is Christ alone, I get scared. My flesh lies to me and tells me that I need more. Jesus lovingly assures me that is not true.

So many scriptures have comforted my heart and mind in Christ Jesus this week. 2 Cor. 5:7, "for we walk by faith and not by sight." Romans 8:28, "For we know that God works all things out for the good of those who love Him and called according to His purposes." Proverbs 3:5-6,

"Trust in the Lord will all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths." Proverbs 16:9, "The heart of man plans his way,but the LORD establishes his steps."

So, why did the Holy Spirit not permit me to speak the word in Asia? I'm not sure except that was His will for me. I do have one thought though. I mentioned earlier that my pastor and I were going on this trip together. Pastor Jason has only been on one international mission trip and that was 8 years ago in Haiti. This will be the longest that he has been away from his wife and 5 children. This will be the farthest from home that he has ever been. He has been in a culture that is very much unlike his own. And He believes that the Lord has lead him every step of the way. I have already said this to him and I really believe this: Me not going on this trip is more about him than it is about me. In the past year Pastor Jason has been leading our fellowship at FBC Athens to be much more missional than we have ever been before. I believe that the Lord is going to use him in an even greater capacity concerning our church's involvement in missions in the years to come. I really believe that the Lord wanted Pastor Jason to have his own experience in Asia. Without me. And I am thrilled about that! I believe that the Lord knew that Jason would need to have his own experience planting and watering, making disciples on the mission field in order to serve as a launching pad for his own passion. A passion born out of his own experience. I praise the Lord that the Holy Spirit burdened my pastor's heart to go to Asia and then filled him with His Spirit that enabled him to go. I would be forbidden a thousand times over if it meant that God would empower and burden Jason for the nations.

So, in closing (and I know that this has been a long one) I don't really have a pretty little formula for having figured all of this out. I am just trusting the Lord day by day. I encourage you to do the same. Trust Him in the yes and trust Him in the no.

I Stand Amazed in the Presence

The LORD is my refuge and strength; a very present help in time of need!
He is my rock that I can hold on to and know that He will keep me anchored!

Though the world around me may be discouraging and the wind from the storms of life are trying to blow my faith down, as long as I continue to praise Him, He will keep me still. He calms me with His soothing words and continuous presence.

Jesus loves me, even if everyone else rejects me. When I begin to have doubts, I am immediately reminded of how faithful He truly is!

I know that even if He doesn't answer my prayers when I want Him to or with the answer that I would prefer to have, He has my best interest at heart! His glory will forever be my best interest.

He knows the opportune moment for all things in my life, and as long as I continue to pursue faith in Him, He will always guide me.

He won't leave me; even though my "father may abandon me, the Lord will hold me close" (Psalm 27:10).

I am so thankful that Jesus Messiah loves me, even though I am so undeserving!

He is always there, no matter what!

He has never failed me! Even though He isn't here physically to wrap His arms around me and tell me everything will be ok, He has provided me with the Church to love me and to be His hands and arms of love.

God is not mad at me. Even when I take pleasure in sin and scorn Him, He is not mad at me.

All of the wrath that the Father wants to pour out on me because of my sin, He has already poured out onto my Substitute, His Son. Jesus, being innocent, took the blame for all my sin. I, being sinful, received all of Christ's righteousness. How, O how, could I not be enraptured with Him?

I am totally and completely in LOVE with my Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ!

He is by far the best thing that has ever happened to me…and He continues to amaze me everyday with who He is.

This was just welling up in my hear this morning.

Your Children Do Not Belong To You

This is the first post of a series that I will be running that will be entitled "Your Children Do Not Belong To You." This theme has been in my heart for several months now, and as a youth pastor I see the complexity of this issue. Plain and simple, parents - your children do not belong to you they belong to the Lord. You are their steward, their caretaker, their parent, but not their Lord. So, I am going to be saying some hard things and challenging you in the way that you think about your role as a parent. I wanted to start off with this testimony from Rob and Terri Stellrecht, whose 12-year-old son, Trent, was killed in a youth group skiing accident Friday the 24th of February. This was taken from Justin Taylor's blog, Between Two Worlds.

On Friday February 18, 2011, God did the unthinkable in our life: He chose to take our 12-year-old son, Trent Lee Stellrecht, home in a skiing accident.

It is only considered “the unthinkable” because our plans are not God’s plans, and our ways are not God’s ways.

Before Trent was born we have entrusted the Lord with his life and have asked Him, above all else, to bring salvation to our son, to use him in a mighty way for God’s glory, and to let him dwell in heaven for eternity.

God only answered our prayers last Friday in a mightier way than we could have imagined, and we have been rejoicing in His good works and His mercies ever since.

Trent was a boy who truly lived. From the very beginning he did what he loved and enjoyed the gifts and skills that God gave him to the full. In his short life he saw much of this world, traveling as far as India, the Bahamas, and Missouri to his favorite destination of Bass Pro Shop for his golden birthday, as well as many camping trips. God instilled a love of hunting and fishing into Trent and a joy of the great outdoors. Since he was little all he wanted was to turn 12 to be able to go hunting. During his 12th year God allowed him to shoot two deer. Trent loved to cook, to pick on his siblings Alexis, Cole, Grace, and Micah, to protect his mother, to snuggle with his father, to be with his friends, especially his best friends Thomas and Samuel. Everything he was interested in he tried, even carving his own long bow and succeeding in taxidermy. In his short years he truly lived.

But as we are all destined to, Trent also died. On Friday, February 18, 2011, we said goodbye to our son as he left for a skiing trip with his friends. Gods says he knows the number of our days, that He has created each one, and that He will do what He pleases. For most of his life Trent struggled with his own sinfulness before God. He knew that he was not right before God, and nothing he could do would ever make up for the sins he committed to make him worthy to enter heaven. In the summer of 2010 God graciously chose to bring salvation to Trent through repentance and the saving grace of Christ Jesus. Trent’s life was transformed and we enjoyed the young fruit in his life as we watched God work.

It was with great peace and much rejoicing that we as his family have sent him off before us and accepted God’s perfect plan for Trent’s life. Our longing is that God would be glorified in what He has done to wake up many to the realization that we are not guaranteed any number of years in this world.

On Friday morning we had our son, on Friday afternoon he was gone.

God’s standards to enter his kingdom are high: He expects perfection. Trent was not perfect, not even close. God graciously provided His perfect son, Jesus Christ, as an atonement for our sinfulness and requires that we simply believe and acknowledge Him for it. God does the rest.

What we have asked nearly every person we have seen since Friday is “What if it had been you? Where would you be right now?” We diligently raised Trent up to know his sinful state and taught him what the Word of God says because we know the implications of denying Christ now, and God was gracious to answer our prayers and to save Him. Scripture says that the gospel will go forth with much sorrow and heartache. Please let Trent’s short life be a wake-up call to you. We are rejoicing in the sorrow because we know where our son is and that we will one day be with him again for eternity because of our own salvation.

God’s mercies are new every day, and His peace does surpass all understanding. God has been so gracious to us in these few days by blessing us first of all with His peace. The family and friends that have surrounded us and have lifted us up in prayer are amazing and another testimony to God’s goodness.

It is with great rejoicing that we release our son, Trent Lee Stellrecht, age 12, to our Heavenly Father. Dance before your King my son.

What a Christ-exalting, eternally minded perspective. I pray that the Lord would be so gracious to me as to allow me to have this same attitude as my sons live and, if He so wills, in their death. Michael and Gideon do not belong to me.

Believe It or Not

A few more days of the Christmas season left. I'm not one bit tired of it yet. I love the Christmas carols, the lights in the neighborhood and the fun of being together. One thing that I have noticed about this time of year and around Easter is that television networks will air specials that they have on Jesus. The History Channel and National Geographic and the Discovery Channel will all broadcast shows with titles like, "The Real Jesus," "In Search of Christmas" and "The Secret Lives of Jesus." I will occasionally tune into one of these just to see what swill they are pushing. And it is swill. They will interview some of the most liberal and and outlandish "theologians" and "scholars" without even giving a chance for a rebuttal from a conservative. But, what would you really expect? They are pushing an agenda. Not a political one necessarily, but a spiritual one. "The world" (John 7:7), as Jesus describes it, is the system that the enemy operates in. It will always set itself up against the Lord Jesus and His kingdom. So, it is not surprise that it would use it's greatest platform, mass media, to sling fiery darts and arrows at the truth of the Son of God. Here are a few examples of arrows that have been slung recently and a defense of faith against them.

Herod did not kill the Bethlehem infants (Herod: Madman or Murderer on The Discovery Channel).

Rebuttal - Herod the Great, the one of whom scripture says was the instigator of the death of the infants 2 years and younger and who prompted the family of Jesus to flee to Egypt, ruled from 37 B.C.- 4 B.C. Herod interestingly was not a true Jew and was greatly disliked by the same, but was an Idhumean and was appointed King of Judea. Fearful of the brand of "Jew," he was a frequenter of the commercial Greek marketplaces and strove to be, as his adopted title suggested, a "friend of the Romans." Though a diplomat at heart, he was a man of great cruelty and paranoia. Reports have it that Herod had his nephew drowned, his sons strangled (7 B.C.), his mother-in-law Alexandra executed as well as his wife Mariamne. If Herod could kill family members, what would foreign infants matter to this murderer?

There was no Virgin Birth (Jesus: Holy Child on A&E).

Rebuttal - Just read this.

Jesus was the son of a Roman named Panthera (In Search of Christmas on The History Channel).

Rebuttal - Celsus, an influential 2nd-century Platonist of Alexandria and perhaps the first serious critic of Christianity is the source of this falsehood. Read more on Celsus here.

Jesus was confused about whether he was the Messiah (Mary, Mother of Jesus on NBC).

Rebuttal - There is no proof that Jesus was confused about his divinity or mission. See Luke 2:49, Mark 2: 1-12, 28, John 20:28.

There are many more that I could list off, and the best and most powerful rebuttal to all of them is the Word of God itself. And that brings us to the true point of contention. Is the Bible really accurate? There are many, many more TV specials that discuss this topic and I will just let you figure out what their consensus is. Bill Maher, the comedian and the host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, has said, "The Bible is a fairytale," and "The people who wrote the Bible...it was not meant to be history, it was not meant to be literal." William Dever from the University of Arizona and frequent Bible Archaeology Review magazine contributor has said, "The Biblical tradition is a composite of...legends that still may be regarded as containing moral truths but until now they must be regarded as uncertain historical provenance." It is that last point that I want to speak against.

It is true that Bible contains some pretty incredible and fantastical stories. The Old Testament writers of the most dramatic of these stories are Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Jonah and Daniel. Moses gives accounts of the world being created out of nothing and man being formed out of dust. He talks about a worldwide flood, a bush that speaks and burns with fire but is not consumed and about a sea that is split in half. Joshua tells the story of the destruction of the great city of Jericho without even one finger placed on the walls of the city. Samuel writes about how Elijah called down fire from heaven and was also taken up into heaven by a chariot and horses that are made of...fire. Jonah tells the story how he spent 3 days in the belly of a giant fish before being vomited up onto the shore, alive. Daniel speaks of men being thrown into a very hot furnace and walking out unharmed, a disembodied hand writing on a wall and surviving an entire night in a den of very hungry lions. Those are incredible stories. And what about the New Testament? Look at all of the miracles that Jesus performed. Turning water into wine, walking on water, silencing a storm, feeding thousands of people with a handful of food, giving sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf, causing the lame to walk and run again and raising people from the dead. Are we supposed to believe all of this? Yes.

One thing for us to consider is the motivation of the writers. Why were these men writing these accounts down? To point people to the one true God. Now, if you wanted to accomplish this goal, what do you think is the best possible means of doing so? Would you want to write stories that were believable? Sure you would. But, if you set out writing with the express goal of writing stories that are believable you are already being dishonest because in a sense you are saying, "I will only write down and record the things that people will believe." That was not the motivation of the biblical authors. Their motivation was to write down the truth, no matter what that looked like. I wonder sometimes if this thought ever crossed Moses' mind, "They are never gonna believe this, but that's how it really happened."

When Homer was writing down his epic poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey, he knew that he was writing mythology. He knew that he was writing a story that was always only supposed to be fantasy. When the biblical writers were writing down these incredible stories they knew that they were writing down history. These were historical records of things that they had really seen and experienced the one true God do. The Gospel writers had either seen these things first hand or they wrote down the accounts of those what witnessed these events. It only makes sense. If you wanted to write down or have a story that would convince people that you were right, wouldn't you try to make it the most rational and realistic story you could? What Moses, Samuel, Matthew and John wrote down was not primarily intended to be persuasive, but to be an accurate accounting of events. So, you and I make our choice. Do we choose to believe these things as they were always intended to be or do we say, "No, that is too unbelievable and mystical"? I choose to believe the truth, wherever it leads. Merry Christmas.

What We Do At Christmas

I want to begin with saying that I know that Mark Driscoll just posted a blog talking about what he teaches his kids about Santa, but I have not read it. I really wanted to, but I have been preparing this post all week and didn't want to be influenced/impacted by what he has said. Also to say that these opinions are my own and I have not gotten anything from any other source.

Okay, now that the disclaimer is out of the way, I wanted to write about what my family does during the Christmas season. I have realized that what we Cloers do at Christmas is pretty different from what a great number of people do. First off, let me hit Santa. Oops, let me put that another way. I will discuss what we do/teach about Santa. We do not do anything with Santa Claus. We don't take our boys to see a Santa at the mall. They don't write letters to Santa nor do they leave cookies out for him. If we are ever going to tell them anything about Santa it will be about the historical person that his mythology is based on. But, I'm sure that they won't care at all about that nor will they commit those facts to memory. We don't do Santa for one simple reason: WE HAVE JESUS! That's it. TheLord Jesus' coming to Earth for the rescue of sinful humanity is a big enough and special enough reason for celebration. Some people ask, "Don't you feel like you are taking something away from your children by not letting them believe in Santa?" Or they say, "We do Santa with our kids because it just adds to the magic of Christmas for them." Really? My response to that is: WE HAVE JESUS! I could go on and on about this, but it really is that simple to me. We have the greatest thing in all of the history of the universe to celebrate in the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. And to say that adding a mythological story about an overweight, elderly man that rides in a sleigh that is powered by flying reindeer to deliver presents to the children of the world by slipping down chimneys will make that glorious celebration "more special" or "magical" is totally absurd. So, I have been trying to teach Michael some things to say when he is asked, "What's Santa gonna bring you?" First response, "There is no Santa." Second response, "He sits on a throne of lies."

Seriously though, on Christmas morning, when our children are opening up presents (more on that in a bit) we want them to know that those were given to them by their parents who love them very much. And we love them even if they have been bad and they don't have to be good for goodness sake in order for them to experience love from their parents. So, no Santa, all Jesus.

Christmas day has always been special in my family. Here is what a Christmas day looks like in the Michael Cloer (my father) family. Wake up to smell of deer tenderloin being fried up. It is a wonderful smell. My parents get up early, I have never really known how early, to start making us breakfast. Breakfast will consist of the aforementioned deer tenderloin, scrambled eggs, biscuits, sawmill gravy, grits and my mothers fruit salad with miniature marshmallows and shredded coconut (so good). There is always Christmas blend coffee that is brewing all morning, cold milk and my mother's Christmas fruit cocktail drink/punch (non alcoholic, of course). When everything is ready, we sit down at large table together, everyone wearing their pajamas and such, Dad prays and we enjoy a great meal. A great thing is that the size of our family has grown numerically over the past decade. This Christmas there will be 11 of us around that table.

After breakfast, we excuse Mom and Dad to go and take showers and get themselves ready while we do the dishes and clean up. Then later in the morning, around 11 we all sit down together again, but this time it is in the den/family room where the Christmas tree is (that is a picture of it up there). Then Dad begins us in a time of prayer. Each one of us then prays and thanks the Lord for the blessing of the past year. It is usually a pretty emotional time. After that, Mom leads in some songs and we usually crack up at least once because it is either to high or too low for some of us. Then we refill our drinks with more coffee or more of the Christmas cocktail and maybe grab a quick bite of some goodie from in the kitchen and then settle back in for the giving of presents. That's right, it can be after noon sometimes before we start doing anything with presents. It has been that way my whole life. And sure when I was younger I might have been annoyed or irritated by that, but it taught much such a valuable lesson. It has taught me that there is so, so much more to the celebration of that day than getting presents. And that is what we want to teach our children too. We want them to know that this is a very special day because we get to be together and love on each other and celebrate Jesus and worship Him. We get to give to one another.

And we will not be showering our children with literally tons of gifts. I think that we can all agree that there is a tremendous amount of excess that American children experience all the time and especially at Christmas. It is not the aim of Melissa or myself to raise our children to be greedy, selfish or ungrateful. We want them to be generous, giving and compassionate. We want to give to people, families, in need. We want to give money toward global missions. We want to serve people in our community and love our neighbors. We want to celebrate Christmas in deed and not just in word. Our children will receive a few presents each year and they will give many gifts each year as well.

Christmas day usually ends with a ride around town to look at Christmas lights while drinking hot chocolate and some of Dad's homemade peanut butter cookies. I love my family. I love being a member in my family. I am not in any way saying that what other families do is wrong or sinful or anything like that. We Cloers are not better than anyone. But we are different. I love and embrace that difference. I truly am thankful to be a son of Michael and Tebra Cloer and I want my children to feel the same way about Melissa and me. Merry Christmas.

A New Chapter

For those of you who don't know you (there shouldn't be many), I am the new youth pastor at the First Baptist Church of Athens, TN. Just saying that statement brings back a flood of memories and emotions for me. Melissa and I went through a long process, not with First Baptist, but with the Lord about this transition in our lives. We prayed and started asking the Lord for some specific things concerning the next pastor and church that I was going to be serving in. It was, and still is, awesome to us how the Lord answered those specific requests and has so abundantly blessed us in the process. I could not be more pleased and at peace with where the Lord has brought us. This is the beginning of a new and exciting chapter in our lives.

I'm not making any promises here, but I do hope that I will be able to post at least once a week from now on. I hope that you will keep checking back in and seeing if there is something new. Also, please respond/comment if you wish. I think that probably every person that writes a blog really loves it when a person comments on the things that they have written. I have a tracker on my page that tells me how many people have viewed my blog that day, and I love seeing the numbers, but I would really like to hear what you think. Whether it is disagree or agree, I want to hear it all. But hey, no pressure.

Soooo, I figured that I would use the remainder of my time here to reflect on some thoughts that I have had about Christmas. Well, I guess I should clarify that. I want to talk about something that is pretty cool about Matthew chapter 1. If you haven't read it recently, take a minute or two and read it. Isn't that genealogy incredible? I think that it is fascinating that Matthew, a Jewish man writing to Jewish people, would use his first statement of his gospel to set the precedent for the entire book. Essentially what he says is that Jesus Christ is greater than David, the greatest king in all of Israel, and Abraham, the father of all Jewish people. You may be saying, "What? Where does he say that?" He is making that statement by placing Jesus first in the genealogy. Typically, if this were the genealogy of anyone else, then Abraham would be listed first according to his importance and the fact that he is the patriarch of the the Jewish people. If not Abraham, then certainly David, the greatest and most beloved king of Israel. But Matthew doesn't do that. Matthew, making the case throughout his entire gospel that Jesus is the promised Messiah and true King of Israel, places Jesus prominently at the head of His own genealogy.

Another amazing thing about this genealogy are the people that it is made up of. First, the women. Women were never included in genealogies. If there was a woman mentioned in a genealogy it would be extremely rare. Matthew places five women in the lineage of Jesus. Each one of them was either marked by scandal or the appearance of scandal. Tamar was a Canaanite woman who posed as a prostitute to seduce Judah, her father-in-law (Gen. 38:13-30). Rahab was a prostitute from the destroyed city of Jericho (Josh. 6). Ruth was a Moabite woman and a worshipper of idols (Ruth 1:3). Bathsheba, “Uriah’s wife” committed adultery with King David (2 Sam. 11), and Mary bore the stigma of pregnancy outside of wedlock. This shows us that the Lord can use scandal and what the devil meant for evil for His purposes and His glory.

Secondly, the men. These were not a collection of winners themselves. Jacob was a liar, Judah had sex with a prostitutes (one was his daughter-in-law), David was an adulterer and murderer, Solomon led the nation into worship of false gods and Rehoboam split the kingdom of Israel. So why did God choose this group of people? I believe it is because He likes to show how great He is in spite of how pathetic we are. He likes to display to world that He can uses the broken down and beaten up. I know that is is true because I can read it clearly from His Word and I have experienced it in my own life. I'm a nobody. I have screwed up more than I have succeeded and yet Jesus still loves me and wants to use and does use me for His glory. I get the feeling as I read the Word of God that the Lord is drawn to broken things. It's not because He likes to fix things/people. No, God is not a fixer. It is because He like to make them brand new. Born again, if you will. He is the Creator.

I will continue these thoughts later. Merry Christmas.

Harry Potter, Spiderman, Witches and the Apostle Paul

My sister-in-law, Erin, sent me this post a few weeks ago and asked me for my opinion. I will let you read it first before continuing.

Why All Good Christians Should Celebrate Halloween

I found this to be an interesting article. I think it would be awesome if more Christians would do something like this. I hate "Fall Festivals" that are really just Halloween parties held at churches. I am all for Fall Festivals held at churches that have nothing to do with Halloween. When I was the youth pastor at Hepsibah Baptist Church, the church would put on a fall festival that was either in the middle of October or in the first Weekend in November. There were hay-rides, games, boiled peanuts, cotton candy and usually some Bluegrass music. I loved it.

Now, I don't know this person that wrote this article but I did not like the way he references "good Christians." I know that he is using it sarcastically, and it rubs me the wrong way. I try to live my life to bring honor and glory to the Lord Jesus. Being a 'good Christian" is not my aim. But, that is just a small issue.

The main point of this post, and what I want to spend the most time one, is that I would not call what he and his family are doing as "celebrating" Halloween. It is using Halloween for evangelistic purposes. And I am all for that. I am all for taking advantage of something that the world does in order to impact the culture for the sake of Christ's kingdom. I believe that we need to do whatever it takes in order to shine His light into the darkness.

About this author, I just wonder if his house is decorated with spider webs, coffins in the yard and ghosts hanging in the trees. Are he and his family dressed as witches and goblins in order to be more "missional?"

I don't ever ask myself the pointless question, "What Would Jesus Do?" but I do often ask myself, "what would Paul do?" I wonder if Paul would dress up as a zombie or a wizard and shout, "Happy Halloween" as families approached his house. But, getting back to the point, I wonder if Paul would have wanted the churches that he had planted to join in with what the culture was doing? Would he have wanted the church at Ephesus to join in with the worshippers of Diana duirng their festivals at the Temple of Artemis? I wonder. So, in the end, I am all for using Halloween as a means of reaching the lost world, but I am adamantly opposed to Christians celebrating Halloween.

I am in favor of Reformation Day however.