According to history.com, our country spends “an estimated $6 billion on Halloween, making it the country’s second largest commercial holiday.”

I have a lot of fond Halloween memories from my childhood. The days preceding the holiday usually included carving pumpkins and making costumes with my siblings. When the night came, we always pulled out our plastic jack-o-lantern candy buckets and waited anxiously for the sun to go down so we could collect candy from our neighbors. Although my primary motive was always to collect as much candy as possible, the evening was also a great way for our family to catch up with neighbors we already knew and to meet those we did not.

Skipping Halloween

It seems Christians find themselves in a few different places when it comes to Halloween. Some may have an innocent collection of fond memories, while others may have strong hesitations about celebrating a holiday closely associated with ghouls and graveyards. As a result, we respond in different ways. Some people see nothing wrong with Halloween and gladly participate in the festivities with their friends and neighbors. Others ignore the holiday altogether and go on with business as usual. Still others take a more resistant approach and either refuse to participate in the festivities entirely or else limit their activities to church “harvest parties” and “autumn festivals.”

I don’t see anything good coming from ripping apart any of these responses to this strange holiday, but I would like to suggest an alternative way of going about things on Halloween. In America it is becoming less and less common for anyone to actually know who their neighbors are. In fact, I’m living proof. At the beginning of the semester I talked with my housemates and we all agreed that we wanted to meet our neighbors and “be intentional” with them. Here we are — about two months in — and I have yet to meet any of them.

Thinking missionally about Halloween

Now think this through with me. Halloween is the only holiday Americans celebrate by going into their neighborhoods and interacting with their neighbors. If our goal is to make much of Jesus, why would we pass up on such an excellent opportunity to get to know the people living around us? So rather than turning off our porch lights and either pretending like the holiday doesn’t exist or going to some church event, why wouldn’t we take advantage of the opportunity to get to know the people that live around us? Halloween is a fantastic time to prayerfully and intentionally connect with people with whom we might not otherwise have the chance to connect.

I know Halloween is a little different if you are living on campus, but you can always volunteer to help out with Candyland in Alpha Hall. Every year hundreds of kids from the community come to trick-or-treat and the event requires dozens of volunteers to make it happen. If you have friends off campus you could also join them to hand out candy to their trick-or-treaters.

For the past three years I have been at a loss for what to do on Halloween. This year I think I’ll try something different. I think I’ll try to get to know my neighbors.