This Week: With Halloween just around the corner, many Christians are engaging in a yearly ritual: debating with others and themselves whether Halloween should be engaged in at all. Ryan Holmes rethinks the issue…

As I grew up my family didn’t participate in Halloween. And by not participate I mean lights off, lock the door, and hide out. In essence Halloween was a yearly hurricane we had to weather and avoid. We survived the onslaught if we didn’t have to interact with anyone. Trick-or-treaters—avoided. Parents with miniature superheroes next to them—avoided. Other Christians—avoided.

In recent years I’ve been thinking about whether that is a distinctly Christian response to Halloween or not. Ultimately, there tend to be 3 predominate positions towards Christian involvement in Halloween:
1) Halloween is evil and Christians should avoid every aspect of it,
2) Halloween is potentially evil and only church approved functions should be attended, or
3) Halloween is acceptable when done in moderation and we should have fun

A Halloween-centric blog post on Pen and Parchment got me thinking about which view I hold. Obviously, growing up it was the first option. The blog post, however, pointed me to a Christian cliche which has me wondering if I’ve had the wrong view. It sounds cheesy but in regards to Christians and Halloween—WWJD? If Jesus were around today would he hide up in his house, turn off his lights, and hope that nobody knocked on the door? Would Christ, who was accused of being a glutton and a drunkard, try to avoid all signs of Halloween (Luke 7:34)? Is this the same Jesus that was friends with sinners and tax-gathers (Luke 5;27-32)? To be accused of being a glutton or a drunkard, or friends of the unfriendable don’t you have to be hanging around those types of people in the first place?

In thinking of how Christ acted throughout the Gospels, I’m starting to think that on Halloween Christ would have all the lights on in his house, have the best lawn decoration (he was a carpenter after all), and be handing out some of the sweetest candy in the neighborhood. While I think it’s unnecessary for Christians to make Halloween an explicit Gospel presentation, like handing out tracts instead of candy, I do think it’s an excellent opportunity for Christians to get involved with their neighbors. What other time do people explicitly come to your door in droves looking for interaction? How often do you get to be benevolent to your neighbors? And why are we always saying, “Go out into the world and make disciples” but on Halloween we take the day off? It’s almost like we want to suspend out Christianity on October 31st.

I’m starting to think that my reclusive childhood may not have been as distinctly Christian as I have been led to believe. Maybe I need to engage those around me more than I usually do on Halloween. Maybe I need to leave my lights on tonight. Maybe I should be the house handing out the best candy on the block. Where do you stand on  Halloween participation?

In the end, my wife and I decided to cut the cable television and keep the high speed internet. The way we figured it, all of the shows that we watch on cable we can catch on the web for free (or very inexpensively—I’m assuming legal, non bit torrent approaches to content acquisition for this post). For broadcast television shows we break out the good ol’ bunny ears. So far it’s pretty successful. So if you’re looking to pinch some pennies this new year here’s my list of places to go for free or cheap shows:

Network websites — whether your a fan of Burn Notice, Sons of Anarchy, Glee, Lost, or House they’re all backed and distributed by a network. Virtually all networks post their shows on their own websites for viewing. ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, MTV, VH1, USA, etc. have more shows than you can watch on their respective websites. Some networks, like NBC, even post “classic” shows, such as the A-Team, Magnum P.I., or Quantum Leap, on their site (and who doesn’t love themselves some A-Team?!!).

Hulu.com — Hulu is an online repository of major programming. It sports a clean interface, robust search function, and well designed player. There are close to 200 companies represented on Hulu. Apart from the individual network sites, Hulu has the biggest name recognition in the biz today.

Streamick.com — a site that looks like it just fell out of the 90’s, but man is it cool! Basically, you can live stream any channel to you computer. Channels such as ESPN, FoxNews, CSPAN, Cartoon Network, MSNBC, CNBC, TLC, Discovery Channel, History Channel, etc. The sheer coolness factory gives it enough bonus points in my book to overlook the horrific design, cluttered interface, and sometimes buggyness of the video player on the site.

iTunes — If you don’t know about iTunes, then you may have been in a cryogenic freeze for the past decade. If so, iTunes allows you to buy songs, movies, television shows, and e-books for use on your computer (PC or Mac), iPod, or iPhone. Individual episodes cost $1.99 and up. Some television shows and movies are available in HD 720p.

Amazon On Demand — If you don’t know about Amazon, here again, you may have been cryogenically frozen for the past decade and missed it. If so, Amazon sells just about everything and recently branched out into selling music, movies, and television shows. The files play on a Mac or PC. Amazon sells TV shows for $1.99 and up with some shows and movies available in HD.

Set-top boxes — Devices from Apple, Boxee, Netflix, and Samsung help you connect to the content you want to watch. These devices allow you to search, purchase, rent, or stream content immediately.

While the adjustment to losing cable has taken some time, my wife and I think the savings speak for itself. Additionally, with the rise of the internet and broadband speeds  constantly increasing it made plenty of sense (or cents) to stop tossing our money to the major cable company (or at least as much money…we still need their internet connection, though with other options cropping up that may soon change). Maybe it’s time to start getting Lost via the Internet and not through cable or satellite!

This may be a simple way for you to better stretch those dollars and use your resources for other things God may be calling you towards. Please note, however, that I am not saying cable television = bad stewardship. I simply want to point out that your money may serve better elsewhere than in Comcast’s or Time Warner’s pocket. And while you don’t want to pay the cable/satellite telco company, you may still want to keep up with pop culture. Hopefully this list will help give you some options to help you get your content cheaper through a different channel.

Apple announces the release of the iPad today. The actual device won’t be available for another 60 days (90 days for the 3G + WiFi edition) so you’ll just have to pour over the pictures for now (or here). Prices are straight forward: $499 for the 16GB model, $599 for the 32GB model, and $699 for the 64GB model. If you want to equip any of the models with 3G connectivity (WiFi 802.11n is built into every device) then you slap $130 on any of the above prices. If you need to geek out on specs Apple has all you need.

Game changer like the iPod or iPhone…not really.

Well designed, slick, and super cool…most definitely.

In recent years I’ve been thinking about whether that is a distinctly Christian response to Halloween or not. Ultimately, there tend to be 3 predominate positions towards Christian involvement in Halloween:
1) Halloween is evil and Christians should avoid every aspect of it,
2) Halloween is potentially evil and only church approved functions should be attended, or
3) Halloween is acceptable when done in moderation and we should have fun

A Halloween-centric blog post on Pen and Parchment got me thinking about which view I hold. Obviously, growing up it was the first option. The blog post, however, pointed me to a Christian cliche which has me wondering if I’ve had the wrong view. It sounds cheesy but in regards to Christians and Halloween—WWJD? If Jesus were around today would he hide up in his house, turn off his lights, and hope that nobody knocked on the door? Would Christ, who was accused of being a glutton and a drunkard, try to avoid all signs of Halloween (Luke 7:34)? Is this the same Jesus that was friends with sinners and tax-gathers (Luke 5;27-32)? To be accused of being a glutton or a drunkard, or friends of the unfriendable don’t you have to be hanging around those types of people in the first place?

In thinking of how Christ acted throughout the Gospels, I’m starting to think that on Halloween Christ would have all the lights on in his house, have the best lawn decoration (he was a carpenter after all), and be handing out some of the sweetest candy in the neighborhood. While I think it’s unnecessary for Christians to make Halloween an explicit Gospel presentation, like handing out tracts instead of candy, I do think it’s an excellent opportunity for Christians to get involved with their neighbors. What other time do people explicitly come to your door in droves looking for interaction? How often do you get to be benevolent to your neighbors? And why are we always saying, “Go out into the world and make disciples” but on Halloween we take the day off? It’s almost like we want to suspend out Christianity on October 31st.

I’m starting to think that my reclusive childhood may not have been as distinctly Christian as I have been led to believe. Maybe I need to engage those around me more than I usually do on Halloween. Maybe I need to leave my lights on tonight. Maybe I should be the house handing out the best candy on the block. Where do you stand on  Halloween participation?

The climax of the pilot episode, from which the line above comes, seems to drive home one of the most basic tenets of humanity: that of community. While the characters are brought together over a shared experience of community college, there are a plethora of other communities of which each of us can join—sports, book clubs, professional career, technology, video games, etc. Christians and non-Christians alike are inundated with various communities.

For Christians I think Community (the capital “C” is an effort to distinguish a distinctly Christian community from merely the community at the local Guinness bar) is even more essential since we are expected to live out our beliefs with a local body of believers. You can’t be a lone ranger Christian. Period. As a pastor I once studied under used to say, “Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto!” Doing life as a Christian means that you will live, work, study, and play around other Christians. Maybe not all of the time, but at some point you have people around you, your community, that encourages, corrects, or challenges you on things in your life.  Maybe your community consists of your local church, or your small group, or your accountability partner, but the bottom line is that community is essential in your life as a Christian.

Face it…being a Christian is difficult. Maybe that’s putting it too simplistically, but living in a world torn apart by sin can wear down even the most dedicated Christian. You and I need others around to help make it through the week. People need people. We are relational by design (a point the television show also brings out well). We need relationships. You are not a rock and you are not an island (alla Paul Simon).

The community should be a place of support and encouragement. It should offer us a place to be open and honest about our fears, faults, and insecurities. It should also be a place where correction and reproof takes place. In essence community should make us unstoppable. Unstoppable because we know our community unconditionally accepts us. Unstoppable because we know our community has our back. Unstoppable because we know that no matter what happens in the world we have a community that will listen, love, and laugh with us. Unstoppable because we know that when the hard times come in life we have a community that will carry us if necessary. If you have that in your Christian life then you’ve become something unstoppable. You’ve become a part of a community!

And P.S.—if you like The  Soup with Joel McHale there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy NBC’s Community (plus it has Fletch in it…look it up if you don’t know!)