Hallelujahs on Halloween!

I think it’s important to be honest about how the church sometimes messes up.  If you’ve read this blog much at all you probably already know that.  But if I’m going to be honest about what we get wrong, I need to be equally honest about what we get right and on Halloween night one church (it happened to be my church) got something really right!

I have the privilege of being one of the members of Zoar Church in Shelby, North Carolina.

  For several years our church has hosted a Trunk or Treat event on Halloween night.  You may know how that works.  In a church parking lot – or in our case on the ball field – people line up their cars and give out candy to passing kids (and adults) from their trunks.  Ergo…“Trunk or Treat.” 

Each year the folks as Zoar invite anyone from our community, and surrounding communities, to come by and participate.  This year we gave out Bibles to all the children.  960 Bibles were given away, so that means around 2,000 people came through the line.  

This year my job was to help man the prayer tent.  Some people requested prayer on the spot.  Others wrote down requests on cards so people could pray for them later. 

One person wrote on their prayer card, “lost job yesterday.”  I hope she left with more than candy for her kids.  Maybe, along with candy, she received a renewed faith in humanity and God.  Maybe she was grateful to know that someone cared enough to pray.

And we will.  Prayer teams will meet.  Prayers will be offered on behalf of every individual that filled out a card.  Not generic prayers that can be applied to anybody, but real, heartfelt prayers that single out real human beings going through real struggles and need a real God to intervene.  Our faith is small but we will exercise what we have asking God to help.  Along with prayers for healing and strength, marriages restored and prodigals returned, we will be asking God to help this woman find another job. 

(I know we could get into a long discussion about why God seems to hear some prayers and sleep through others.  It’s a fair question but we’ll save it for another day.  Right now the point is that our people are praying for people because they care.  I think that’s important.)

Another woman was crying when she stepped into the tent.  She sat down and told me some of her story.  I won’t get into all the details.  It’s enough to say that she lost her faith in God and people.  She felt like both had let her down.  She was actually hesitant to come to our Trunk or Treat, but kids are persuasive and grandparents are pushovers so here she was, sitting beside me telling me her story.

Now, through her tears, she told me that she was touched by the love that our people shared with her.  She said she had forgotten that there are people in the world who really do care.  Maybe if she had been wrong about people she had been wrong about God too.  She was in the process of moving to the other end of the county and she said she hoped she found a church like ours.  I hope so too.

Between prayer sessions I stood outside the tent and looked across the field and the sea of people.

On a night when people try hard to look scary, I think our people looked saintly without trying to at all.  I saw people passing out candy, popcorn and coke…hugs, Bibles and prayers.  Some were dancing, some laughing, some crying, some praying and some seemed to be able to do all simultaneously.  That night I think I saw the church the way Jesus intended the church to be. 

As I looked around the ball field on Halloween night I whispered a heartfelt “hallelujah!” 

It seemed to be the appropriate thing to do.