This post contains affiliate links
This year for Halloween, we decided to take a nod from the Needhams and use the holiday to love our neighbors well. For us, that looked like giving out what I call Gospel Goody Bags to each trick-or-treater that came by. We planned to make 50 bags because we made 50 last year and didn’t quite hand out all of them. We estimated that maybe we would be closer to 50 this year and we came pretty close!
Each bag contained our favorite gospel tract for kids, a king size candy bar, two stickers (we bought these stickers and these ones and put one of each in the bags), a glow stick, and an invite card to our church. We used these paper lunch bags and sealed each one with a jack ‘o’ lantern sticker.
A few weeks before Halloween, Derek and I were rewatching the Needham’s Redeem Halloween video from years ago and saw that they displayed a sign stating, “If you make the climb, we have king size bars ’cause no king is as generous as ours!” We loved that and wanted to do something similar but we didn’t necessarily want to get a sign printed. It also wouldn’t have made sense to use the exact same wording because our porch doesn’t have nearly as many stairs as theirs does. We purchased this large letterboard from Amazon and then ordered 2 inch letters for it. Using Velcro adhesive strips, we attached the letterboard to our front porch.
In our front yard, we set up a table with a light up letterboard that asked “How can we pray for you?” I wrapped an old Amazon box with wrapping paper and made prayer request cards for trick or treaters to drop in the box if they so desired. The table was wrapped with the same paper as the box and we also set out a few decorations and our ABC Scripture Memory Cards with the letter F on display.
The F card has Romans 3:23 on it and I felt that displaying it was one way for people to be exposed to the gospel if they happened to read it as they stopped by. We also decided to have Derek’s Bluetooth speaker play audio from the Streetlights Bible app so folks would hear Scripture as they spent time at our house.
The hours before trick or treating were rough for us. Our kids woke up multiple times the night prior and we were exhausted and grumpy as we prepped for trick or treaters to come. We wondered if we were under spiritual attack or if we were just dealing with the weaknesses of our flesh (or both). We felt so defeated right before we finished setting up outside that I came close to bringing the prayer table back inside the house. To me, it didn’t make sense to offer to pray for people when our hearts were struggling so badly.
When we experience moments like that, I usually say out loud “Satan doesn’t get the victory.” It’s a reminder to myself that regardless of how the moment feels, it will be worth it to honor God and remain faithful in fulfilling our convictions. Loving our neighbors by giving out the Gospel Goody Bags had been on our hearts for a while and as I filled them, I prayed over those who would receive them. We had come too far to give up in the heat of the moment. The evening went smoothly and it was actually a very sweet time for our family as we had some friends from church join us as we passed out the bags.
One of my favorite memories is of Adalyne saying “Mom, the prayer table isn’t working!” as she observed it being passed by. She was right in a sense. We didn’t receive one single request to pray about and no one asked us to pray with them. But, it was a really sweet opportunity to remind her that we were being faithful and that the results are up to God. I was able to encourage her that God was still pleased with us and the innocence displayed in her declaration was so sweet to me!
I’m not sure what next Halloween holds but we really enjoyed handing out our goody bags this year and look forward to doing so again next year. We also don’t know what fruit, if any, will be produced from this event but we enjoyed it and know God was honored.
I’m sharing here in hopes that it can inspire other Christians to consider how they might steward the gospel opportunities that Halloween participation provides. Here are a few pictures I took throughout the day. I’m often tired in this season and wonder if it’s worth it to take my camera out but these photos of the girls carving jack ‘o lanterns with Derek convinced me that it certainly is!
