• Weekly podcast Q&A with episode behind the scenes content. Just type in your question!
• Exclusive biblical resources such as the Courageous Marriage and Redeeming Childbirth series.
• Exclusive access to the courageous kid’s podcast. Play it for your kids to stir up good discussions.
• Monthly LIVE Q&A with the Tolpins; ask the anything.
• Powerful Biblically minded community.
• Topic-based discussion groups.
• You get your own profile and can connect with others.
• Growing libraries of LIVE replays

All Ministry Resources: becourageousministry.org

Our Courses

• Parenting Mentor Program, self-paced online program that equips you to biblically parent during unprecedented times.
• The Homeschooling Blueprint, the online program to boost your effectiveness & help your kids thrive.
• Postpartum Course, The First-Ever Christian Postpartum Course.
• Cultivating Biblical Friendships  The course that helps women build lasting Godly friendships.

• Financial Giving, is important to support our family and expand the impact of the ministry. We aim to impact 10 million families and their legacies. We are in full-time ministry as a large family, so everything makes a difference. 

Thank you for being part of this movement to equip 10 million families and their legacies with Biblical truth to raise confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Full Transcript:

Note: This is an automated transcript and misspells or grammar errors may be present.

Hey everyone! This is a sensitive topic, but it’s an important topic.

We are talking about navigating Halloween as a Christian parent, and while this is controversial and not everyone necessarily agrees on this, today’s podcast should be an encouragement in things that regardless of how you navigate it, you are able to teach your.

Kids no condemnation from us, but we’re going to say what we believe is good for our family, what Scripture says, and we’re going to give you some practical things you can do during this time. Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom.

And Isaac from Resolute Man Together pursuing the mission to impact 10 million families and their legacies for the Kingdom of God.

We’ve been married for 23 years and are seeing the fruit from raising our nine children biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible.

We can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children, as too many from Christian families are walking away from their faith by the age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way.

We’re praising the Lord. That ministry continues to expand and impact more legacies. We couldn’t do this without you. Whether you pray for us, give us five star reviews, or share on social.

Or even if you purchase courses and merch, or join the Be Courageous app community. Enjoy the coffee or support financially. We’re so thankful you are a big part of the 10 Million Legacies movement.

If you want access to all the episodes, show notes, and other biblically based resources, go to Be Courageous ministry.org.

Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Hey, we’re so glad you’re here. The Courageous Parenting Podcast. This is a very important subject we haven’t touched on in a while.

I know it’s actually been four years. I was going through our podcast. I’m like season one, episode 39 Should Christians Celebrate Halloween? Isaac, we got to cover this again.

Yeah, so there’s a lot of different stances Christians take in this area. You know us. We never skirt away from sharing what we see in the Bible, what we feel the Holy Spirit’s convicted us in. But we hope this is practical and gives you tools to make your own decisions about how you approach this day. That’s right.

So we are going to be talking about how to navigate Halloween as a Christian parent. We are going to share some lessons that are good for you to be proactively discipling your kids and teaching them about their specifically three, maybe four lessons that we’re going to talk about today. And we have some scripture that we just want to share with you. I want to start by maybe asking you guys a question, and that question is, do you want to engage October 31st in a different way than maybe you have in previous years, or in a different way than you did when you were growing up? Or maybe you are just kind of aware of what’s happening in the world today, and you’re going, I don’t know if we can do things the way we’ve done them the same. Well, we’re going to open up this conversation to be it’s going to dig into some scripture here. But I just want to encourage you guys that with the Lord. And the closer that you get to God’s heart, the more he will lead you in those things. If you experience conviction, I want you to listen to that conviction. There should be no condemnation from us or from other Christians on this topic, because there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. However, if you’re feeling convicted, I want to invite you and urge you to listen to that conviction. So I think.

That’s such a good word. The Holy Spirit is in us and convicts us of things, and sometimes we shrug it off because there’s so much pressure around us to think a certain way and a certain direction that we go, oh, I’m just that’s just me in the flesh or something. I’m feeling.

Judged or whatever, you.

Know? And, you know, I think when it comes to spiritual things, if we’re convicted in a direction, it’s probably the Holy Spirit.

That’s right. So we’re going to talk about two topics here at the very beginning of the podcast. I have a couple definitions for you because we have many posts. We have that other podcast that I mentioned. We have resources that we have in the Be Courageous app, and we’re going to be offering those for you guys today. So pay attention. But reclaiming October 31st or redeeming Halloween, these these concepts of reclaim and redeem I want to bring some clarity. So in looking up in the Webster’s 1828 dictionary, here’s a couple fun definitions that are fun to teach your kids too. So reclaim means to retrieve or return something that was lost or stolen to recall from wrong or improper conduct to reform. What’s interesting is redeem also has another. Another synonym for it is to reform as well. So these words are very much intertwined. To redeem would be I think of what Jesus did when he redeemed us. He he purchased us, right? He cleansed us. He brought us back into fellowship with God. But the definition of redeem is to repurchase, to get back to free from captivity. Also, something Jesus did for us to change for the better. Clearly, he makes us a new creation that’s changing us for the better, leads us, gives us the Holy Spirit. And so as Christians, we actually because we have the Holy Spirit in us, we can partner with Christ. We can partner with God in our efforts to reclaim things that have been counterfeit, stolen, taken away, maybe tried to be renamed in evil ways. And so that’s our encouragement today.

Have a question for you. So what? Redeeming something, taking something back. Some people might say, well, why don’t you just not even if they’re not into Halloween, just don’t even pay attention to it. It’s there’s a lot of evil going on that day. A lot of bad things. Out of sight, out of mind. Why? Why not just not even acknowledge it as a family and just move on and shut the lights off when people come to the door.

And I, you know, I know that there are a lot of families that do that, and I don’t want you to feel like you’ve done something wrong, because I think that not participating is better than participating in all of the things and not teaching your kids about evil and different things like that. I do believe that there’s this element of like, we need to really challenge ourselves. Wait a minute. And my fearing man and my fearing and my in my trying to hide from evil because we can’t do that our whole lives. And so really, ultimately, we need to like, think to ourselves, what am I teaching my children if I’m the one running? When the Bible says, resist the devil and he will flee from you? And I think.

What’s interesting is when they’re young, this isn’t so much the case, but as they get older, there’s no way to isolate them from the fact that this is one of the. Biggest holidays in Western culture and Western culture. It is massively celebrated. So much money spent on it and the acknowledgement of it is everywhere. So they start. So there’s no way as kids get older to not have conversations about it. And I think that’s what we’re saying is that you’re going to have to have a conversation about it no matter what. And it’s important too, because someday they’re going to be parents and they’re going to make their own decisions when there’s massive pressure on them to do it. So if we haven’t had education about it to our children, then there’s future challenges potentially.

Well, they may. I mean, honestly, I’m just going to share a little secret sauce with you parenting wise. I’m not. I’m far from a perfect parent, but a question that I oftentimes will ask myself on questions in regards to how do I navigate this right is when my kids are older and they have their own kids, are they going to look back on the way mom and dad parented with respect? Or are they going to go, oh my goodness, they didn’t teach us this or they didn’t do that, or or they were super Grinches or blah blah blah. Like they obviously those things can be changed through communication and giving people your whys, even if they choose to do something different when they’re older with their kids, there should still be a respect. And the way that you get respect is by making sure your children are there. They understand your personal conviction. If they understand that it’s a personal conviction, that it’s your personal conviction and that you feel responsible to raise them a certain way when they’re in your home, like, how can people laugh at that when they’re an adult later in life? Right? Absolutely. So we just want to share a couple scriptures here with you guys. The very first one I actually already mentioned is James four seven, which says.

Love, James.

I know it’s one of your favorite books. It says, well, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. So in case those of you who are listening wanted to know where that scripture was, I think that when I have read this in the past, I always just kind of thought or assumed Christians should flee from the devil. And there is a scripture that says flee from evil. So there is that. But it’s important that we understand that we have the power in Christ to command the devil to flee like we can resist him and he will flee from us. Kind of like when Jesus was being tempted after his baptism and he told Satan to get behind him. But another verse that we wanted to share with you.

Five one for freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. Stand firm.

Well, I love this because it’s talking about this yoke of slavery. Do not submit again, right? Like Jesus already redeemed us, he set us free. And when we start to just like, let our guard down with things like this, then we’re actually under another yoke of slavery, right? And so that’s something that you need to evaluate. That for us was a huge verse when we were trying to figure out, like, are we going to what are we going to do? And this feels like we have a conviction about this. So anyway, you guys, we’re really excited to share with you some lessons that we have. But first, we wanted to talk to you about how it’s really not easy to lead your family.

It’s not easy at all, especially I mean, gents, were the leaders of our families. We need to step into that, have an opinion about this, think about it and whether it’s this or other things going against the grain, even in Christian circles, especially in Christian circles, is so difficult to do. And it’s not easy when culture, friends, church things around us are saying, hey, you know, an aspect of this is okay, hey, you know, it’s fun to dress up and go do these things and these kinds of things. And if you’ve decided to do something different, it can feel lonely. But you know what? Often the very best decisions are the hardest decisions to make. That’s true in business and anywhere. It’s definitely true in leading our family. So if you have a conviction, if your wife is having a conviction, we need to lead that well. Hey, you know, there’s craziness happening in the world and this isn’t fear based. This is accurate conversation here. This is reality. Reality. We deal in reality. You may have heard me before. There’s this book, Good to Great, which talks about companies that went from good to great, dealt in reality, and the ones that didn’t. They sugarcoated things and made everybody feel good all the time. And, you know, that’s the same for families these days. If we’re just going to sugarcoat and and do the things we feel like doing, even though they’re going against maybe a Holy Spirit conviction inside of us, because the outcome is I want my kids to experience maybe something we enjoyed from our childhood or something like that, but maybe the world has changed in some ways.

Hey, you know what there is? You know, this thing that’s happening in Israel with with Gaza and Hamas and so forth is terrible. It’s terrible for any loss of life. Right? But, you know, the jihadists are calling for a global, you know, attack. Hack everywhere, you know, and they’re calling for these kinds of things. There is evil happening in the world. There’s intent to the enemy, the spiritual enemy. The devil wants to destroy your family and will use any means that they possibly can. There’s also fentanyl coming in the southern borders, like, you know, they’ve they’ve already got the authorities have already captured enough fentanyl to kill every single person in America, for example. That’s incredible. And so that’s not counting what they haven’t got. So this is being put in to candies and things like that for people to do. So. So we have to wake up. We can’t just be allowing our children to just eat whatever somebody gives them, you know what I mean? And it’s really important that we’re more vigilant. We need to be aware there is an effort to destroy the family, to destroy you, to destroy your children. And we have to be strong. And this is a day that is a very much so based on demonic activity. There is a lot.

That’s going on this day. And I think that for us, one of the the biggest things that we realized as parents was that even though we and our friends and our community weren’t participating in any evil, right there is still evil happening that day. But you know what? There is evil that happens on a regular Tuesday on a regular. Like every day. We live in a fallen world, and that is true. But for for me, I many years ago, when I was in college, was able to interview a woman who was an ex Satanist and she shared about how Satan worshippers truly view this day and the practices that they have, the sacrifices. There is massive evil that happens on this day, and that if that strikes a little bit of fear in you, like I, I’m part of me is like, sorry, not sorry because we need to be eyes wide open. We need to be awake. The Bible even tells us, Jesus tells us these evil things will be happening in the end days. And I’m telling you so that you’re not alarmed and to be aware of what’s going on. Like, as parents, you guys, this is part of why we do the Courageous Parenting Mentor program is we talk about controversial issues.

We’re not going to go and, you know, just talk about easy things or things that are common that everybody else are talking about. But instead, we feel called to really, truly for us to be courageous parents, to rise up because we’re not I, at least myself. I don’t feel like I’m courageous all the time. Right? And to hear these things, sometimes my heart can shake a little bit. I don’t know if any of you moms, your hearts are shaking a little bit when you hear some of the things that Isaac shared or what I just shared. But if you do, it’s because you’re human and that’s okay. But that doesn’t mean that we ignore it. Or we put rose tinted glasses on and we are always this like half glass full. Let’s just be smile and be happy. Like, no, we need to truly protect our children. That’s what we’re called to do when they’re in our home. And part of protecting them is equipping them so that once they’re out of our home, they’re aware of the realities that are in this world. And so can I don’t even know if reality parenting is a thing, but we need to be realists, and we need to be looking for the goodness of God and praising him and keeping our eyes on him and on the truth, while also guys, there would be no reason for prayer if we didn’t have our eyes open enough to see the prayer needs to pray for.

And so Isaac just mentioned some on that day and even before. Even now, like I’m already praying that kids would not die from eating drugs that look like candy. And if you’re not praying that I would ask you to join me in praying for that, because those are God’s children, and for them to be simply wanting to have a piece of candy, something sweet, and then to be killed because of it, that is pure evil. And so there is an attack on children today. We see it everywhere. No one can deny it anymore. It is so blatant, all the attacks. What does the Bible say about the enemy that he’s out to steal, kill and destroy? Well, he has tried to steal a day and we as Christians can say nope, you don’t get a day, but instead I’m going to reclaim it as the Lord’s day that he has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. And I’m going to teach my kids about how much of a thief you are, Satan. And we.

Have zero fear about that day because God is all powerful, but we just don’t want to go into we don’t want to do the things that are on the evil side of things or.

Or even fund them, like, I mean, that’s for us. You know, we’ve talked about voting with your dollar and doing the best you can. But the truth is, is that consumerism for Halloween is above. I think it’s higher than other holidays in America. I know that I started seeing really like, Halloween stuff showing up in grocery stores in July and. And I was like, are you kidding me? You really need July, August, September and October. Four months out of the year for this. The day. Like, imagine how much stuff is being bought for this, right? And so if we’re participating in it, we’re funding it. We’re funding the skeletons in the grocery aisles that we’re trying to avoid so that our baby doesn’t have nightmares.

You know what’s interesting, too, is sometimes as parents, it can feel like children are driving this. But no, no, no, no adults are driving 100% of it. Children would not be doing this unless adults were driving it forward and adults being pressured by other adults and so forth to comply with the trying to make it nice and so forth. But really, you’re celebrating a lot in the same way.

So first Timothy 611 I just want to share this with you. It says, but as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith. How do we do that in regards to a day like today when Satan has tried to steal a day, right? He’s tried to make it about him, and it’s it’s actually disguised under fun things, right? Like trick or treating, dressing up things that kids would enjoy, games, things like that. Right. Like there’s a it’s a disguise. And that’s what he does. He disguises things. He’s a counterfeit. And so as a parent, like if you grew up and you have fond memories, you brought that up. I just want to bring that up for a second because I’m sure. Did you ever do trick or treating when you were a kid? Yep, I did too. And it was fun. It was a fun. It was a fun thing. But I do remember getting scared of certain things. And and I will say, you know, you guys, when we were young parents, I think we went once and we had a couple kids, and it was because we had been kind of pressured to do it with a group of people. And in doing that, man, the little kids were super scared, and it took probably three weeks of dealing with night terrors to get through that to where it’s like, that’s enough to make you never want to do it.

There was an interesting realization I had right then, which is why are other children not scared and our children are scared? And that was kind of a wake up call. And that goes into this next point, which is preserving your child’s sensitive hearts and not allowing them to be desensitized before you know, they need to know about things and understand things when children are so little, images have such a big impact, but once they see it, they get used to it. But when my children are young, I don’t want them to get used to evil images.

No, not at all. And I think that some parents, even I don’t know if you’ve said this before, I’ve caught myself in the way, way, way past. And now I’m kind of it’s like a soapbox for myself. Like to preach to myself, don’t do that because you want to preserve their hearts. But when parents will say things like, oh, honey, you don’t need to be scared, it’s just pretend. And they and they leave it at that and brush it off like if they’re scared of something. Instead, what I would encourage you to do, instead of just brushing it off and making your child feel like they need to, oh, grow up. Or like I’ve heard those kinds of things said by parents. Or why are you scared about that? You know it’s fake here. Touch it. And they’re trying to that is a desensitization. And so like to teach your kids first of all, you have to understand as a parent that children’s brains are not developed to the point where they can understand the difference between fantasy and reality. There comes a point where they can. But when they’re under five especially, they’re still trying to navigate what is fantasy? What’s reality? That’s why if a kid watches a cartoon that’s animated and doesn’t even have real people in it, it can leave them with night terrors. And so we as parents need to understand that that is the reality of how humans are created, and to live with our children in an understanding way means we’re not going to tempt them to become desensitized and by exposing them to a bunch of scary things just so they’re not scared anymore, or or to even just be constantly telling them, oh, you don’t need to be scared and then go, are you scared of that? To the older sibling? And they’re like, no.

And then there’s this pressure to not be scared. Instead, as Christians, can I just exhort you parents, we need to be teaching spiritual discernment and understand that that is a gift to be able to discern evil spirits. And instead of making our child feel like they’re a wimp because they’re scared of something going, oh, honey, have understanding with them, comfort them, and validate and affirm that they are feeling this way and go, you know what? That skeleton over there isn’t real. It’s made of plastic. But I understand why you’re scared. Because it represents evil. It represents death and and and death and like, enjoying death. And that’s not something that we should be enjoying celebrating, celebrating, celebrating. And so but then talking to your kids about like, let’s pray right now because Jesus can fill our hearts with bravery and he can take away our scared feelings. Do you see how you’ve used this as an opportunity to disciple your children? Because they’re going to be many opportunities in their life where they’re going to struggle with fear or they’re going to sense something evil.

We need to equip them with how to actually handle that. And that starts from the time they’re little. But we need to understand, like if we’re not scared of it or we don’t have an evil sense of that and our child does, that should be a wake up call to us that we’ve become desensitized to something. In which case, I, I truly believe that as a mom, like a healthy place to be in humility is to go, Lord, I have become desensitized to this. I like, I repent of that. Would you make my heart as pure as my child’s like that? That is like renewing. I think of all those verses. Wow. It just like leads me to tears because I think of the verses where God is like looking at children and saying, such is the kingdom of heaven. Why? Because of their purity and their faith in him. We should try to be more like our kids when it comes to this topic of having a sensitive spirit for evil and not wanting evil, and if we don’t have that, we’ve become desensitized by the trash that we’ve watched, been exposed to, participated in. And that requires repentance. Because Isaiah and first Timothy, they tell us to flee from those things and to pursue godly things and righteousness.

I see it in Hollywood, right? You just look at you accidentally see a premiere, you’re watching a good movie. But they have this, this premiere, this promo before it of some evil, evil movie. If you ever go to the theaters and I can just think of the worst movies when I was younger, and then I see these previews of the worst movies of today sometimes, and I’m just like, wow. There is an insatiable desire to see greater evil by human beings because they’re to satisfy the appetite. They keep finding ways to make movies even more real and grotesque in some evil ways. Not all movies, but many of them.

We don’t watch those, by the way.

I just it’s just when I see the preview, I’m like, wow, that is like next level. So there’s an effort to always do next level because the desensitization. That’s right. And if people aren’t paying attention to it then they want even more. They want it to go. How can you shock me even more with evil?

And what’s bad about that when you think about things like pornography and how that over time objectifies humans and then it leads to. Actual actions. Right? And then you have sex trafficking. You have all kinds of horrendous pedophilia, all this stuff. It’s like, what is the level of death and sin that is coming from someone who’s desensitized over and over and over again when it comes to death and things like that. It’s just sickening. Okay, I want to read to you guys from Isaiah chapter one, verses 16 and 17 and 18. It says, wash yourselves and make yourselves clean. Remove the evil from your deeds from before your eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Justice. Correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless and plead the widow’s cause. Come now. Let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they are red as crimson, they shall become like wool. This is the beauty of redemption in Christ Jesus. And I think that for all of us it’s a it’s an action, right? He’s literally telling us to take actions cease to do evil. To do is an action. It’s a verb. We have to take responsibility for the things that we do. We teach our kids to take responsibility for the things they do. So we need to be in alignment in how we’re going to engage October 31st with the rest of our life, and what we’re constantly teaching our children right to not do evil, to not participate those kinds of things. And so here are some other ideas of lessons we’re going to rattle off for you guys real quick, kids, real quick.

The Parenting Mentor program is one of the major ways the ministry is supported, and one of the reasons it is a major way, because the appetite for it is so large, because of the experience in the real change in Christian intentional families that go through it is dramatic and incredible. It’s legacy changing. And that’s what we keep hearing from the thousands of people that have gone through it. And so courageous. Parenting.com, I highly encourage you to learn more about that because you can listen to podcasts, you can get information and so forth. But what happened there really, I believe, was God inspired. And it literally has a curriculum that builds upon itself with action steps that married couples can do together. That leads to real implementation, real marriage alignment, and real change for the better in this world. Leading your.

Family. Yeah, we’d love to have you guys join us in our next program. So let’s talk about some things you can teach your kids. So obviously preserving your child’s heart. And you’re going to affirm them when they are seen evil and not liking evil. That’s one whole lesson that’s like a discipleship conversation that could be ongoing, teaching them how to pray, encouraging them with Scripture verses like Romans chapter eight, verses 34 through 38. Those were. That was a huge scripture that we have had our kids memorize, just if they ever got scared at night. So there’s a little side tip, but what about things like teaching your kids about pumpkins? Okay, I think that this is there’s an opportunity that’s there. Okay. So a lot of Christians, they’re kind of, you know, throw the baby out with the bathwater, all the things, or they’re on the other ditch where they’re participating in all the things. And I just want to, you know, share with you guys that, yes, we’re not ignoring that. There is a creepy urban legend, mythical jack o Lantern story. Evil was portrayed through that story. It’s very gruesome. And when your kids are teenagers, especially if they go to like a public school, they’re likely to be exposed to that. Just so you know, you’re going to want to go talk to them. But does that mean that pumpkins in October are evil? No, no.

Pumpkins are created by God.

That’s right. Pumpkins are neutral. They aren’t good or bad. They are just they’re actually a good fruit that was created by God. But it’s up to humans to use it in a way that’s God glorifying. Just like we have the responsibility to steward everything else that God created for good and not for bad.

So if you want to participate in some good ways in something that represents good, because carving a pumpkin is fun, it is fun.

And this is the thing. So you guys, many years ago when I was doing youth work, I was doing this object lesson with the kids, and it was something that I actually was inspired by when I was in college, and I kind of took it farther and I created something called the Pumpkin Gospel. And then since then there have been some little kids books that are published, and we share links to those in the blog post that’s redeeming Halloween. You can go find that on the website. But we also have the free Pumpkin Gospel, which is a PDF that you can download that goes through teaching like what is sin in our life? Right? So on the outside, the pumpkin is hard. It’s like a hard shell and it looks pretty and clean and, and it’s and it’s kind of like how we are as humans. Right. Like on the outside, you can even go to church and look like you have everything together. But on the inside, if you cut it open, what’s on the inside? You put a kid’s hand in there. The very first thing they’re going to say is yuck or. You because it’s slimy. It’s gross. Right. You’re going to hear words like this. That’s the perfect opportunity to talk about how everybody has sin in their life. And you go through the process of carving out all the icky stuff using a spoon. And and some of it’s harder. And I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, but when I, when I get those guts out, my hands start to sting. It stings. And isn’t there a sting to sin?

Okay, don’t give all of it to him.

So I’m not going to give it all to you, but you can get.

It at the Be Courageous app is going to be right there to download. And also, I don’t know if you know this, but we do extra footage from every episode and Q&A, ask any questions you want in the Be Courageous app, which is now free for the first week. So try it out completely free and get the download while it’s free. If you want to continue, you can pay for 8.99 a month. Very nominal compared to the massive value in there and community. But check it out. We invite.

You. So we’re going to let you guys in the Be Courageous app. We’re going to have the Pumpkin Gospel available, but we’re also going to have the scriptures that are on PDF form that are easy for your little kids to print out and put on candies. If you decide to open your door to people who are knocking. And we’ll talk a little bit about that in a few minutes, but you can find both of those handouts in the Be Courageous app. Super simple. Um, but as far as pumpkins go, like, what an opportunity to reclaim something that’s God’s that has been tried to be stolen and used improperly and for evil. And I just think that there’s something beautiful about that. And so I hope that that idea gives you guys some encouragement that like, if you’re feeling icky about anything, Halloween, that like, you don’t have to be the parent that is hiding and not doing anything fun on that day to where your kids are like, oh, my mom doesn’t let us do anything when they’re ten years old, right? But instead it’s like they have a conviction of, I don’t want to do this because it’s evil, but we do this instead, and it’s awesome. Have you ever heard of the Pumpkin Gospel? And they can share it with their neighbors? Like, we’ve actually done that before, where we put out fold up tables when we were living in a neighborhood.

Do you remember this many years ago? We had fold up tables in the driveway and we had pumpkins, and we had a couple of our neighbors come over with their kids and we’d carve them. And we talked about the pumpkin gospel, and it was really awesome opportunity to share the gospel with neighbors because you have their kids, they’re doing this fun activity. And, you know, there’s an element to that leads into our next thing, which is our relationship with the world. So after teaching your kids about the truth about pumpkins and the truth about October 31st, that those are God’s things that he made and Satan can’t have them, you know, we’re going to use them for what they are purpose for. We’re going to make pumpkin cookies. We’re going to have pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread. Isn’t it pumpkin yummy? Like totally turning it around and reclaiming it for what it was intended to be used for. But then there’s the element of like, we’re in the world. What are we teaching our kids about how to be in the world? Right? How how are they supposed to relate to neighbors? Well, I.

Think this is an opportunity. Like we’re always looking for opportunities to disciple our children and help our children. Here’s yet another opportunity to be proactive and not just ignore, but have an answer. Aren’t we supposed to have an answer? We’re supposed to have an answer for what’s happening in culture.

Well, and that goes with the Bible verse that we were going to share in first Peter 315, which says, let’s see here, but in your hearts honor Christ as Lord, as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect. So having a good conscience.

So that’s we have to be careful. We don’t want to be self righteous. We don’t want to create self righteous children. We don’t want our children to be judgmental. If other people are participating and so forth and go, oh, that’s evil and that kind of thing. We want to do things in gentleness and be respectful. We need to have an answer, and we need to be gentle and respectful and not talking ill of other people or anything like that, but to just share the convictions God has put on our heart. And here’s what we’re doing in place of it. And this is what we believe. And what a beautiful thing. I like the gentleness part.

Of that, the gentleness. It makes you go, okay, so like we need to be careful in teaching our children to love our neighbors. And part of loving them is to not be condemning of them and not be self righteous. This could be a whole podcast. How do you raise a child that isn’t self righteous? I think this is an important question. We’ll do that. We’ll do that in the future because or or a child that’s a know it all the two kind of go together sometimes. Right. But making sure that your kids truly have compassion and understanding for where other people are at in their spiritual journey. And so I would like honestly exhort you guys, we’re a family that doesn’t do Santa. We haven’t done Santa, and we write more about that on other posts. And we have Christmas podcasts that you can go listen to on. That topic too. But we also told our kids, it’s not your job to tell other kids that Santa is not alive. It’s not your job. That’s the parents job. To decide that and to have respect for other people that you go to church with or neighbors that you have so that they’re not dealing with something going, oh man, I don’t know if I want my kids to ever hang out with those kids, because then they come home and they’re like, oh, they’re calling me a liar, or like, you know.

And so instead, you need to proactively teach your kids, we don’t do this. This is a conviction that we have. And people can ask us, but it’s not your job to tell them, oh, you do that, that’s evil. Like how? How would another kid feel? That’s not gentle. That’s not being kind. And so we this is a huge thing we need to teach our kids how to be in the world, but not be worldly, and how to live out your convictions in a way that is gentle and having an answer, but having and speaking truth, but in love. And so what an awesome like this is something you’re going to have to teach your kids over and over again every year, many times throughout life.

Well, there’s many ways you might be bucking the normal system to raise your kids in this world. I hope so, I hope there’s many ways you can pinpoint that you’re bucking the system, but any of those points, that means there’s a lot more people probably doing it differently. And so it’s a terrible way to build friendships and to be a light of Christ, even to Christians. An example is to be offensive. Yeah. And so we need to speak truth. Yes. But how do you do that in gentleness, love and respect?

The third thing that we thought would be a really good idea for teaching your kids and how to part of reclaiming this day is to talk about how you are called as Christians, to be a part of the Great Commission, and how can you do that as a family? It may look different from family to family. For us, Matthew chapter seven seven was something that like for me, I was just literally reading. It was a God thing to just be reading it in the month of October. I’d already written many posts on Courageous Mom about Halloween and just how the process, the journey that we had been on. Now it’s been 23 years of parenting and not doing things the normal conventional way as Western culture cultures would say. But I had just been reading this and it said, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened. And then it just continues on. And that’s in Matthew chapter seven, verse seven. And here’s God talking about the gospel. But but here you have neighbors. If you live in a neighborhood potentially all coming and knocking on your door, and how we are called to be the light of the world. And I just saw this connection and felt this conviction in my heart, because we had done a few years where we hid upstairs with the lights off, you know, we tried it. We had done it a few years, I think it was the. Yeah, when we had really, really little kids. Whereas like, I just want to participate.

It just felt a little cold.

Yes. But so you know what this verse did for us. And I didn’t want my kids to get like, scared of people coming and knocking on our door. So instead we still put lights in our pumpkins, but with crosses and Bible verses. I think one pumpkin said, daughter of the King and it was a princess crown. And do you remember these? And we had crosses, we had those. And then we put out a basket with candy, and it had scriptures on it. And I get that some people would be like, oh man, a scripture. And they just rip it off and they don’t care. But what about the kid who maybe is learning how to read and wants to impress his parents and he starts reading the verse out loud, right? And how you never know how seeds can be planted, but also, like, you don’t have to be the one answering the door if you have a lot of little kids. That for me was a good solution. That year when I had five kids under seven.

Until the kid comes, that dumps the whole bowl in his well bag.

You know, we had a sign that said, please be respectful of other people and just take one.

Depends on your neighborhood.

The other thing that I had heard from other people was that Christians were stingy and doing tiny candies, and so we actually went big. I went to Costco, got big candy bars.

Full candy, full.

Sized, and I put big Bible verses. We got.

Full sized Snickers and Reese’s Pieces because I was.

Going to be a light. We invested, I did, and so I guess we were part of the consumerism that year. But I share this with you because like what? That was how we were able to be a light for a few years, you know, living in the country, we don’t have a lot of people knocking on our door. But this was a scripture that at that time, I felt like the Holy Spirit put on my heart for a reason. And we didn’t participate in the other stuff, but we did participate in trying to share the gospel.

We’ve also answered the door ourselves and just had the kids in the back of the room. Now that we have older kids, it’s a little different because they would be able to do that. But like you said, we live in the country. I don’t think anybody came last year.

So one last thing, one other idea that would be there’s two ideas that we’re just kind of grouping together in. The fourth thing is what are there are some really significant things that have actually happened on October 31st. Reformation day is actually October 31st. It was the day that Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses onto the door of the Catholic Church. And there are so many good fictional books that you could have on hand to read to your kids. We have a few of those linked in the blog post as well. And you guys, you could have a Reformation Day party. We actually did that once. We where we had people that if they wanted to dress up, they could dress up like Martin Luther or a nun or, you know, you could make conditions on it. It was. Yeah. It was. Vacations. It was a Reformation Day party and we read about Martin Luther and they watched a video about Martin Luther and and we had communion together. And it was just like this. It was kind of fun. Another idea and thing that we had done in the past was we hosted a prayer vigil, if you will, and we did worship music and had kind of like a fire pit bonfire. Do you remember that we had the bonfire going outside? It was a burn pile really, in October, and we burned it, and we all were outside and we sang worship songs and we prayed for safety for people. We prayed for countries, we prayed against spiritual warfare. And it was a really, really powerful night to be able to invite other families to participate in that with us. And so there are ways that you can engage what is happening in the world in a way that is glorifying to God. And that’s really what our exhortation would be in this, because.

What’s our mission, the Great Commission, it is to share the gospel and seize opportunities. If people are coming to my property, coming to my door, what can I do? How can I be alive? How often is that that people are coming to my door these days and it says the delivery person or.

You know, missionaries from church.

So, you know, it’s kind of unique. How can that be utilized? So that’s the idea. Yeah. No condemnation from us. We’re sharing convictions God has put on our heart. We’re giving practical ideas for what you can do. If you are being agitated spiritually, that there’s something wrong with going along to get along in the normal Halloween adventures. So I think that that’s important to think about and we hope this was helpful to you. See you next time.

Hey, thanks for listening and being a part of the 10 Million Legacies movement, go to Be Courageous Ministry. Org for more biblically based resources, ways to switch where you spend your money that support the mission and information about the incredible Be Courageous app community for believers.

Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online Parenting Mentor program.

Isaac and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week, we release a video session with a downloadable parenting packet to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible, self-paced program. We cover everything from tending to their hearts, handling obedience to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private group and the Be Courageous app, live webcasts, and direct access to us.

If you’re interested in joining our next online Parenting Mentor program, secure your spot now at Be Courageous Ministry. Org that’s Be Courageous ministry.org.