Take a moment to think of the memberships you’re part of. You might be a member of a public radio station or a gym, an industry association or a group related to a particular hobby. For me, I belong to a Christian writing association, was actively involved with the Greenwood-Phinney Chamber of Commerce through my work until recently, and am a member at Mars Hill Church.

Have you ever thought about what membership means? It varies, depending on the organization or association, but what they all have in common is a network of people united by a common interest or cause.

At Mars Hill, the commonality is Jesus, and that’s where I’ll draw the line in comparing church membership to other associations—they’re obviously a lot different. But if you belong to other groups and aren’t yet a member of a church, I’d encourage you to think about why those organizations are of value to you, and how joining a church could also be beneficial.

I’ve been a member of Mars Hill since fall 2005, but before I started attending this church, I don’t think I ever thought seriously about church membership. That changed as I started visiting Mars Hill more frequently and spent time with the man who’s now my husband, who saw value in membership and went through the process.

As church members, we’re part of a church that is part of the Church. No matter our role, we’re playing a vital one for God. We’re part of a family, of a network of people who are committed to our Lord and Savior and are on mission for Him. We’re privileged to have responsibilities at the church, and we know that if we have a need, the church is going to do its best to help us out.

If you’re not a member yet and are wondering if or why you should become one, I’d encourage you to attend the Doctrine Class this Sunday, November 8, from 2-4 pm. You’ll learn more about what Mars Hill believes and what it means to be a member here. You’ll also have a chance to talk with pastors and ask questions. It’s the second session of a three-part class, but if you missed the first class last month, come anyway; you can catch up at some point by viewing the first four sermons in the Doctrine series online. Also mark your calendar for Part 3, which will be held on December 13. I hope you can make it!

Listen by clicking the image above, or visit the Mars Hill Church Lake City YouTube page HERE.

Listen to the weekly preview by clicking the image above, or our YouTube page HERE.

For more information on our upcoming Member Class, click here.

For more information on our upcoming Men’s Training Day, click here.

Dude. This topic can be really frustrating when leading people to pray. “Therapy by Prayer Request” occurs in mild forms when people start bonding over a prayer request. Typically, the requester puts forward a request that another person “just resonates with.” The typical response runs something like, “Omigod. I went through that also!” And then the two have what I think is called “a moment.” This form of therapy can be good- building relationships, sharing life, opening up doors for deeper “convos” or “heart-to-hearts” that can lead to confession and repentance. In my limited understanding of the female species this seems to be a really powerful thing. Guys do this too, referring to this as a…well…I can’t think of a term. But we do it too. Honestly. But it usually involves “fixing” another person. Despite the positives in milder forms, in more advanced cases this can be damaging. You know this is occurring when there’s…hmm…30 minutes of prayer request followed by 10 minutes of prayer. Most time is spent therapeutically discussing the prayer request instead of praying. The telltale symptoms for diagnosing this is a lengthy conversation that usually begins with:

• “I remember when we went through that…,”
• “Aaaah! I am SO proud of you! Did you do…,”
• “How did he say it…,”
• “What you need to do is…,”
• “Dude, you need to read…,”
• “Bro, just listen to that one sermon about…”

Now again, these and more importantly the empathy behind them- are not necessarily negative. But when this begins a conversation with man that trumps a conversation with God, I’d argue that there’s an issue. Who are we indirectly teaching people to go to for comfort, fulfillment, and fixing: God, or man? Sure, prayer requests identify deep important things. They can help you “read” a person, whether seeing their idolatries, fears, lack of trust, or greatest joys. These are good things to catalogue and remember, especially at community group prayer times. But do they need to be discussed right away? Are we scared that if we don’t discuss it right then and there,  we can’t make a follow up call/e-mail/text/hang out? If not, was it that important to begin with? Are you scared that if you don’t speak pearls of wisdom in that moment, it won’t be “fixed?” If we are scared, what does that say about who we believe is really in control? Finally, I perceive that the pushback to this will be, “But John, if I know what’s going on better, I can pray for someone better.” Fair, and I appreciate your heart. Buuuut…does God really need you to explain another person’s situation to Him? Doesn’t He already know? To the point where the actual time spent in communication with Him is significantly cut? So, I’d call us back to hitting our knees first, giving God the first crack. Then, by all means go discuss the issues behind the request, the life experience/book/sermon you can impart…unless of course, it’s time to go and getting to bed is more important…

These were wise words by the ancient philosopher, and filtered through a biblical worldview Christians are called to use their days resting and recreating with intentionality as they work their jobs as image-bearers of God. There is rest in God, and joy in God, but no express “me time”. God will indeed give and grant us rest and peace and relaxation as He see fit within the context of Jesus-centered lives. We are not religious people giving a portion of our time to church and community to warrant our weekends and goofing off; we are God’s people designed to bring him glory in our playtime and hobbies that truly lets us live in the manner we were created for, which ultimately brings true happiness.

Turning to rest or entertainment as your comfort (or escape), apart from relationship with Christ, is idolatrous. Entertainment is not evil. Webster’s definition defines two postures toward entertainment: one is “diversion” and the other is “engagement”. Christians should engage life with discernment, and this means both the people they talk to as well as the media they consume. To allow things like hobbies to serve as diversion seems at odds with what we profess about joy and hope and satisfaction in this life though Jesus Christ. A Christian is called to find opportunities to reflect God in rest and recreation.

Colossians 3
And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

1 Cor. 10:31
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

1 Corinthians 10:23-24
“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.

Assess existing hobbies and areas of life focus:
• Does it glorify God?
• Does it reveal God the Father, Son or Spirit?
• Does it build up (edify) others?
• Does it lead to cross-talk?
• Does it lead to thanking Jesus and speaking his name?
• Is it the “best use of time”?

Last question – ARE YOU HONEST, or do these help you rationalize?

Ephesians 5:15
Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time…

God calls us to live counter-cultural lives wherein we are not “working for the weekend”, or putting in “time with God” apart from “time in culture”. In John 17, Jesus calls his disciples to be IN but not OF the world. At Mars Hill, we encourage our members to be in local festivals, art, culture, theater, places of assembly, thirdplaces, hot spots, etc. and be students of the culture – film, sports, poetry, and more, familiar in the same way the apostle Paul was in Athens when he preached in Acts 17. We do not create a Christian ghetto, but interact with our community and the many who populate it that don’t belong to Jesus. Bearing all this in mind, we should assess our areas of cultural engagement and determine how God is calling us to glorify him, build others up, and point everyone toward the Savior we serve.

Listen by clicking the image above, or visit the Mars Hill Church Lake City YouTube page HERE.

For Pastor Mark Driscoll’s recent sermon dealing with the womb and God’s work in creating life, click here.

Listen to the weekly preview by clicking the image above, or our YouTube page HERE.

For the full article on The Holy, Hellish Hodgepodge of Halloween, click here.

For more information on our upcoming Member Class, click here.

Let’s just confess: I like to dress up. As a drama geek in high school and an actor in college theater, it was inevitable. My wife and I even met in a production of Brigadoon, so wearing costumes – even a kilt – is not really that strange to us. Our wedding reception was a masquerade ball, and our Tenth Anniversary party year has a Venetian Carnivale theme. ANY excuse to wear curious or atypical garb has an allure (as the pictures in the post will attest to).

Obviously then, our participation with a holiday like Halloween becomes a necessary conversation. WILL we participate? If so, HOW will we participate? Every year, we ask congregants at Mars Hill Church to do the same. The following examination provides good fruit for discussion, discernment, and decision-making on this second-hand issue.

The issue of Halloween and whether Christians should observe this holiday invariably rises from the grave each October. More to the point, most Christians do observe it, but differ in the level of participation or acceptance of it. Evangelist Jack Chick, for instance, the man famous for “Chick Tracts” naively depicts Halloween as a night when ancient Celtic Druids raped and sacrificed virgins, leaving carved pumpkins on the doorsteps of households that gave up their daughters (never mind the fact that pumpkins were a New World plant exported and only grown in Europe recently). Other Christians offer the opposite but equally naive defense of “it’s no big deal”, sending their kids out to eat candy and legitimize American obesity statistics.

Halloween has a long and complex history; following the meandering chain linking a pagan harvest festival to toddlers dressed as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is not simple. Christian and secular historians keep finding layers of revisionist history that try to wrap the origins of this holiday up in a nice little bow (perhaps so it can go under the Christmas tree? The decorations come out early enough). Before addressing the Christian’s response to this holiday, let’s look at what little we do know.

Halloween 101
Ancient Celts celebrated a holiday called Samhain (essentially “end of summer”), where they would extinguish their hearth fires and host large ceremonial bonfires, sacrificing animals and crops. This didn’t occur on October 31 but around the same time, depending on the phases of the moon. It marked the end of the harvest and the beginning of a season where the people would be dependent on food stores and shelter from the elements. Superstitious Celts associated winter with death and thought that the season’s transition was marked by the close proximity of spirits; they believed this thin veil would help their Druid priests make prophecies, enabling them to survive the harsh winter. There is an accrued mythology that Druids also wore masks on this night and went from door to door, but historical evidence does support this theory; it seems more like creative fiction manufactured to explain the evolution of modern customs. While not a bad educational supplement, something is not history simply because it appeared on the History Channel.

The name of our present-day holiday, Halloween (or “All Hallows’ Eve“), actually stems from a celebration for saints formed by the early church. A celebration day for all saints emerges in church history as early as the 4th century, but it was originally set in May or the day following Pentecost (some records suggest this also paved over a similar Roman day of the dead). It was the Germans who initially shifted the custom to November 1st, and whether or not this had to do with the practices of the Irish Celts is questioned by historians to this day.

In the 8th century, Pope Gregory III universally changed the date to mirror the German date in conjunction with the consecration of the chapel in St. Peter’s. “All Hallows’ Day” or “All Saints’ Day” would later become a day not only to recognize official Catholic Saints, but also to commemorate the dead and visit the cemetery to reflect on family or friends who had passed away.

Several hundred years later, November 2nd would become “All Souls’ Day” in Catholic tradition. All Hallows’ Eve simply marked the night before, much like Christmas Eve. A focus on cemeteries and the dead had as much to do with Catholic as Celtic traditions, and the accrued traditions and superstitions are a mixed bag stretching up into our own early American immigrant traditions of harvest festivals, and the way Mexican culture turned All Saints’ and Souls’ Days into the “Day of the Dead” festival.

Despite myth and folklore imposed in retrospect on this holiday, recent study reveals that trick-or-treating is a fairly new convention that didn’t become significant until 1930 in the United States. Europe and other countries co-opted the practice, caught up in our merchandising and global influence. Forms of costumed begging have existed for centuries in Christianized Europe, called “mumming” or “guising” and usually involve singing or performing a short play in exchange for food or drink. Wassailing is another grand tradition of singing and going from house to house.

One of the closest similarities we find with a loose connection to trick-or-treating appears in the Middle Ages on All Souls’ Day (November 2nd), where the poor would go from home to home and offer prayers for those in purgatory in exchange for food. However strong evidence suggests that childish mischief and vandalism on the 30th and 31st in early 1900s America (particularly vicious in Detroit, where October 30, the day before Halloween, became known as “Devil’s Night”) gave rise to organized evening activity to make actual treats replace the increasing abundance of tricks.

If Christianity did not successfully pave over this holiday (much as Christmas paved over the Roman Saturnalia), Americana certainly did. This has been punctuated visibly with our indigenous pumpkin replacing the original “Jack-O-Lantern”, originally an Irish turnip. If Halloween itself was a pumpkin, however, there would truly be nothing left to carve. The seasonal change has been celebrated by pagans and Christians for centuries, taking on the customs of a dozen cultures along the way. Its present incarnation receives disdain not only from many Christians but also from professing witches and wiccans. The former feel that it’s intrinsically tied to satanic beliefs and the latter group sees it as a distorted mockery of their beliefs.

One of the most interesting anecdotes I found in researching the history of Halloween is that the one activity many churches do engage in at replacement events like church “Harvest Festivals” is perhaps the one most easily linked to paganism: bobbing or “ducking” for apples was actually a divination ritual related to love and fertility.

To Trick or Not to Treat?
Even if we ascribe church origins to Halloween, the holiday does differ from Christmas. Some will offer that the week in December when we commemorate Christ’s birth was once a Roman festival celebrating Saturn, and may have even involved both gift-giving and evergreen decor. They make the case that Christmas is compromised by paganism just like Halloween. They will also mention that most Christians call the day Jesus rose from death “Easter“, which has roots in pagan fertility rituals (hence the rabbit and those horribly delectable Cadbury Cream Eggs).

As Christmas and Easter have overrun and co-opted various trappings, however, there is for Christians a clear, central focus on Jesus’ incarnation. Halloween may not be inherently evil, but it also has no central, specific focus on the Lord we love. Whether we see Halloween as pagan practices, Catholic traditions, or good old American, candy-coated commercialism, none of these offers great inspiration to participate.

At Mars Hill Church, we don’t believe in the deities worshipped by the Celts or the rituals used to appease or summon them. We do, however, recognize that there are evil spirits that confuse and lead people astray from relationship with the one true God. We recognize that the Bible calls all Christians “saints” and we don’t believe in the Catholic extra-biblical concepts of sainthood or purgatory. Many of the ideas and rituals that have contributed to the Halloween mish-mash aren’t congruent with our beliefs. However, setting aside times to remember or honor those we love that have passed away (hopefully to be with our Savior Jesus) is not a bad idea. On a less somber note, wearing Spider-man costumes, making funny faces on vegetables, and engaging in neighborhood activities where one can both give and receive hospitality is not something we oppose. Fictional fantasy tales of monsters and elves even scary ones are not wholly inappropriate either, whether punctuated on this particular weekend or sprinkled throughout the year in classic tales from authors including Tolkien and Lewis. We regard Halloween as a second-hand issue and ask that every Christian examine their response to the modern-day Halloween celebration in our culture.

Some members of Mars Hill opt to avoid Halloween altogether because portions of its mixed up history prick their conscience. Others see it as a truly americanized holiday, not specifically Christian but essentially “American” like Thanksgiving or Presidents’ Day, and have no conscience issues participating. Others still draw various lines in between; some don’t go out and actively participate, but remain in their homes and hand out candy to trick-or-treaters so that they can offer hospitality to their neighbors and community. Others gather together to hold festivities that exclude the more overtly creepy or questionable elements.

For those who have shunned Halloween because they were simply told it was evil, or for those who have participated and never bothered to weigh its appropriateness, your pastors would encourage the employment of godly wisdom, discernment, and a sense of our shared mission as Christians. Our abstinence or participation in regard to Halloween should not be derived from fear, misinformation, or pressure but rather from a sincere love of Jesus; every response to our culture and its festivals is a way to point to the God we love and serve.

Lastly, for parents, don’t forget that gluttony is a sin. Be careful not to force your kids to learn this the hard way: lying on an altar of plastic wrap and tin-foil, holding their bulbous stomachs. If you participate in Halloween, it might be the perfect time to introduce the concept of moderation.

Obscure Halloween Fact:
October 31st is also “Reformation Day“, commemorating the day in 1517 when Christian reformer Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses challenging the doctrine of penance, the authority of the pope, and the usefulness of indulgences. Dressing up the kids like Reformers and handing out doctrinal challenges, however, might not be the wisest form of cultural engagement. The period outfits are cool, though.

Listen by clicking the image above, or visit the Mars Hill Church Lake City YouTube page HERE.

For Pastor Mark Driscoll’s correlating comments about idolatry on Nightline, click here.

Listen to the weekly preview by clicking the image above, or visit the
Mars Hill Church Lake City YouTube page HERE.

For more information on community groups stop by a connect desk on Sundays or click here