"...one action..."

BOO !!!

ok so my dog hates alarm clocks!!! when he was a young mutt, i would play this game i called turtle. i hid under the covers not moving, breathing as shallow as possible. it would drive him nuts. he would try to figure out where i went so he would pounce all over the sheets to find me. i would start laughing, picking him up, inevitably a tug of war would ensue wherein i would hide and he would try to unveil what’s behind the sheets. BOO!!!

we've all played this game. i saw a father at an airport playing the game with his little boy. it was a much simpler game. the baby sat across from him. he would cover up his face and say, "where's baby... ...boo..." removing his hands and unveiling his face "...there he is!" the baby chuckled. Boo!!!

searching for the weather report for this weekend's retreat, a news reporter reported on a Church that is providing an "alternative to Halloween." my first gut reaction was "blah-puke!" the reporter interviewed a clergy person who stated something on the line, "we invite everyone to our church. we will be handing out candy and tracks..." ("what?" "uh-oh" my brain screamed! tracks? tracks? "track-or-treat" - heh, heh, heh...). what shocked me most was when the clergy person stated, "...Halloween, as we know it today is evil!" "Ahhhhh! I threw my remote at the T.V."

ok when i hear the word evil! my first gut reaction is "fear." Jesus reminds me that, "where there is love there is no fear." Halloween evil not! google it yourself.



is it out of fear we create, "Alternatives to Halloween?" hmmmm....do we create programs based off of fear: Christian Sex Ed., Christian New Years Eve Celebrations, etc... been there, done that, guilty as charged! fear based programming sounds like a book that Oestreicher should write! (Speaking of Mark, 2 of my C.D.s from NYWC Austin don't work - arghhhhhh!!!!) maybe a good title to the book could be, "Boo Based Programming: Youth Ministry Fighting the Culture War!"

o.k. so back to my dog earlier this morning. my alarm clock went off and went off and went off - which is very untypical of me. i am usually up by 5:30 doing my God thing. but God was all in my ear this morning. a ton of prayer concerns: pregnant youth workers, struggling sunday school teachers, mothers with cancer, new worship service, lack of volunteer for retreat, finances, juarez mission trip, etc... so God continued to pray through me. it was cold so pulled the sheets over my head. after about 20 minutes of my alarm clock going off my dog finally had it. he came bursting into my room pouncing on the sheets (uh oh! the game of turtle has come back to haunt me!) BOO!!! he succeeded in pulling the sheets off of me, unveiling the reality that i can't lay in bed all day!!!

unveiling, BOO! Halloween sheets overhead, hands behind faces, a mask...

this morning i read, "in the Christian life, discipline is the human effort to unveil what has been covered, to bring to the foreground what has been hidden, and to put up a lamp stand what has been kept under a basket" (pg. 110, Presence-Centered Youth Ministry, Mike King). Boo!!!

maybe this Halloween i'll dress up as a candle, a lamp, a flashlight, or Q-Beam! Heck-ya! Q-Beam! maybe we need to not invite people into the four doors of our church providing "alternatives to Halloween" but maybe do the Jesus thing, and go out to the world... ...and see how God unveils himself through relationships, relationships that are often masked - BOO! relationships where we want to berry our face into our hands - Boo! relationships that we hide from God - Boo! maybe this Halloween should be the most terrifying event in our lives. maybe we should get out of our comfort zone (church, youth group, bible groups, sunday school classes, and all the rest...) and allow God to provide His Q-Beam to those that are still living veiled lives - including me!

posted by Ed Whipple @ 6:30 AM