Gospel.com Blog

Whether it’s a harvest festival, or a fall carnival, or a Haunted House-esque Judgement House, or something else entirely, many churches are making alternative Halloween activities available to their communities.

What about you? Does your church provide a Halloween alternative?

Share your thoughts!

Every October 31st, Halloween rolls around with all of its perceived positives and negatives. For some, whether or not to participate isn’t even a point of discussion. For others, it’s a question they wrestle with every year.

James Watkins paraphrases Paul from 1 Corinthians 8:4-13 in his thoughts on the holiday:

Don’t worry about the ancient association of these holidays with paganism since we know there are no gods of sun and death, and that the dead don’t roam the earth. You’re not appeasing Samhain when you go “trick-or-treating” or sacrificing to the gods by carving a jack-o-lantern. But if your family or friends have reservations about these things, don’t encourage them to do something they feel is “sinful.”

Read the rest of James Watkins’ answer at Should Christians celebrate Halloween?.

What about you? Do you participate in Halloween festivities?

What do you think?

The Youth Specialties blog is written by and for youth workers. As someone whose last involvement in youth ministry was attending youth services in high school, I find it a great place to read about the issues youth leaders face today.

In a recent post, Brooklyn Lindsey discusses some of her thoughts on cell phones and youth ministry:

I recently returned from a summer mission trip where we made the unfathomable decision to collect cell phones for an entire week. A few students needed us to help them through the night sweats and uncontrollable shaking, but for the most part, by day two, all was well in the world.

We ended up having a week of deepened relationships, focused conversation, and focused service to others. Students could call their parents from the adult leaders’ cell phones but other than that, they were free…so to speak.

Three days after our trip I found myself in our local college/ young adult ministry setting. We meet in a local coffee bistro with live music and awesome discussion. My husband is the leader, so I love the ministry, 30 Below is something I look forward to every week. However, one thing was really obvious to me after having a week free of technological interruption, everyone around me (dozens of people sitting around tables) sat in this all too familiar conversation with eyes darting every few minutes to their lit up phones. Even if it was to simply “check the time”, we were all there…but not really. I started to wonder if I too, if our phones have become our safety, our fall-out plan.

We’ve all been around someone who can’t stop fidgeting with their phone or some other piece of technology, and I’m sure we’ve all wondered if they were really paying attention or if they were off in another world. It’s interesting to hear of youth ministers physically taking devices from teenagers in an effort to bring about some semblance of normalcy to their lives. Perhaps it’s a discipline we should all practice from time to time.

Do you think technology can keep us from fully experiencing our relationships with people? Or do you think our relationships can be made better through the use of always-on tech? And more importantly, what about your relationship with God? How do those bundles of circuitry help or hinder your connection with God?

Today is Maundy Thursday, the day of the Last Supper before Christ’s betrayal. While the most dramatic events of Easter—Christ’s arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection—are understandably where we focus most of our attention, the Last Supper is key to setting up the events to follow. Among other things, the Last Supper was Jesus’ last opportunity to directly minister to his disciples before his death and resurrection. So what did Jesus teach at this final gathering?

The Gospel of John goes into the most detail about the Last Supper, spending five chapters recounting Jesus’ words and actions that evening (more than he does describing the rest of the Easter story!). If it’s been a while since you read the entire story of the Last Supper, take a few minutes to read John 13-17.

What stands out the most in that story? For many readers, Jesus’ washing of the disciples’ feet is the most striking event in the entire account. What was the point of this display of humility? Blogger Mitch Lewis wrote an excellent reflection on feet-washing and its significance on Maundy Thursday that is well worth reading.

And over at Ravi Zacharias ministry site, Jill Carattini sums up the impact of this scene:

It was Oswald Chambers who once observed that drudgery is the truest test of genuine character. Foot washing was a lowly job, an oft-recurring job due to sandals and dusty streets—a job for a servant. But here, the menial task was instead performed by the master, their teacher—the Son of God.

And the influential truth of Christ’s identity is that He still does what is analogous to washing soiled feet: our deepest sorrows He feels, our sorriest actions He accepts, our smallest prayers He hears—our every transgression He forgives, our dusty, tired hearts He washes.

Also useful is this lengthier analysis of Jesus’ unusual action from a commentary at the Bible Gateway.

Was the timing of Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion significant?

The crucifixion took place during the Jewish celebration of the Passover feast, which commemorated God’s sparing of Israel’s firstborn sons during their captivity in Egypt, and their subsequent rescue from slavery. It’s not too difficult to see the thematic connection between Christ’s sacrifice and the events of the first Passover.

But Mart De Haan, writing at the Been Thinking About blog, observes that the timing of Easter holds even more connections to the Old Testament calendar if you dig deeper into the story. He sees a strong tie between Easter and the Jewish spring feasts:

In addition to fulfilling the mysterious predictions of prophets, Jesus showed how deeply his life was rooted in the annual celebrations of Israel.

…the fulfillment of [feast and holiday] patterns like this combine with the mysterious prophecies that predicted Messiah’s death (i.e Isa 53; Dan 9:26) to give us a compelling and convincing statement that the Passover Lamb was all that Jesus claimed to be– and far more.

It’s an interesting exploration of Easter from a fresh angle, and a reminder that there’s a lot of depth to the Easter account that isn’t obvious to a modern reader, but which would’ve been quite apparent to a contemporary audience. If this sort of Bible trivia fascinates you, RBC Ministries has an online booklet that goes into more detail about the annual cycle of feasts in the Old Testament.

Do we know the exact location of Jesus’ tomb? What is the Shroud of Turin, and is it authentic or an elaborate hoax? Why were there guards at Jesus’ tomb, and who were they? If you’ve ever wondered about some of the details of the Easter story, our friends at the Archaeological Study Bible can help: they’ve created a site that looks at some of the most interesting situations, questions and objects surrounding Jesus’ death and resurrection.

There are ten different entries, each discussing an Easter-related topic with insight provided by archaeological discoveries. Here’s an excerpt from the entry on the Upper Room—is it possible to identify the exact place in Jerusalem where it the Last Supper took place?

Christian tradition, supported by Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 310-386), identifies the site of Holy Zion Church in Jerusalem as the place where the upper room was located. This may well be correct, but the story is complicated and details are disputed by scholars. [...]

The traditional location of the upper room at Holy Zion Church is called the Cenacle or, in Latin, the Coenaculum. It is located outside the Old City near the Zion Gate and may be seen on the sixth-century Madaba Map, an ancient mosaic map of the Holy Land. The Cenacle is also (erroneously) referred to as David’s Tomb.

There’s plenty more to satisfy the archaeology geek in all of us. Explore it yourself here.

How are you commemorating Lent? There’s no Scriptural requirement to mark the season of Lent, of course. But many Christians find it helpful to mark the period of time before Easter with some sort of deliberate spiritual activity, whether it’s giving up a specific habit, denying yourself something, or engaging in a regular practice like devotions or Scripture reading.

Several writers from the IVPress community are engaging in Lent journeys and are sharing them online—and they invite anyone to participate along with them. The Strangely Dim blog has a good roundup of these; here’s a quick look at what these writers are doing for Lent:

• At Likewise Books, author Tamara Park is sending out a short email each week of Lent with a reflection, song, Scripture, and image to help you focus on Christ. Likewise encourages anyone who wants to receive the weekly emails to write to likewise@ivpress.com and put “Lenten Sacred Encounter” on the subject line.
• Author Kimberlee Conway Ireton is posting a devotional reflection on her blog each week of Lent. Her reflections are based on readings from the Revised Common Lectionary.
• David Zimmerman, author of Deliver Us from Me-ville, is posting a quote from that book on his blog each day of Lent. Accompanying those quotes is a Me-ville reading guide you can follow to read through the book along with him during Lent. It’s all at his Loud Time blog, where he’s begun posting excerpts.

These are three solid ways of journeying through Lent—and there are certainly many more good Lent resources out there. We’ll share them here as we come across them in the weeks to come!

Happy Valentine’s Day from Gospel.com!

If you’re still scrambling to come up with a perfect (or at least acceptable) gift for your significant other, you probably don’t have any time to spare reading Reverend Fun’s collection of Valentine-themed cartoons. (On the other hand, maybe there isn’t much left for you to do besides laugh.) And of course if you’re single and pointedly ignoring Valentine’s Day, you can at least read ‘em and chuckle at the silliness of the holiday and the societal stir it causes each year.

What is a Valentine, exactly? It’s not just a mildly witty romantic card you pick up at the florist along with a bouquet of roses. Valentine—make that Saint Valentine, and there was more than one person who bore that title—was a Christian martyr, although details of his life (and his connection to what would become a holiday about romantic love) are somewhat vague. Christianity Today has a concise history of the holiday and the practice of card-exchanging on February 14, as does the Christian History Institute.

If your curiousity isn’t satisfied by those articles, the Wikipedia entry for Saint Valentine has more info, and History.com has an entire section devoted to the holiday.

A lot of Valentine’s Day material focuses on the early stages of a romantic relationship: initial courtship or dating, with some discussion of engagement or marriage. But for millions of people, the focus of Valentine’s Day isn’t a first date or schoolyard crush, but an everyday marriage relationship that has seen its ups and downs over months, years, or decades of married life.

To help husbands and wives think through their marriage relationship this Valentine’s Day, I can’t think of a better resource that ACTS International’s collection of essays about marriage and family relationships. Here are a few highlights:

• The Art of Staying in Love: is there hope for a marriage relationship after the “honeymoon wears off” and the intensity of romantic love starts to fade? Richard Innes describes what true love looks like in your marriage—love doesn’t begin and end with that butterflies-in-your-stomach feeling.
• Living Again After Divorce: it might seem wrong to talk about divorce on Valentine’s Day, but it’s a reality for countless people. If Valentine’s Day brings with it bitter memories about a divorce or broken relationship, this essay can help you gain perspective.
• Building a Healthy Marriage hits on some similar themes, encouraging husbands and wives to work on growing in love rather than just falling in love. See also Seven Secrets for a Successful Marriage, which has lots of practical advice.