How Christian families can help shine a light this Halloween

Whether you love it or loathe it, enjoy it, ignore it or embrace it as an evangelistic opportunity, it can be difficult to know what to do at Halloween.

My early Journey: From ignoring to engaging

When our children were small, I (in my naivety) decided the best plan was to ignore the 31^st October and hope the children wouldn’t notice it either. We’d shut the curtains and pretend we weren’t home. Ours was the dark house on the street. As our children grew, we would take them somewhere, such as the cinema, thus ‘avoiding’ Halloween.

After doing this for a few years, our children became more aware of what was going on around them so we decided to host a colour party at church and invite other church families to come along. Everything was bright and colourful and designed to be fun. Over the years, as a parent, grandparent and church worker, I adapted what I did with the colour party, deciding we were going to be better, giving out more prizes, sweets and having more fun than the trick and treaters.

Halloween alternatives

Over the years since then I have encouraged my church with all sorts of Halloween alternatives, including:

• Messy Church type events where all the crafts and games are related to light. We included food (usually hot dogs or pizza), songs, a fun quiz and a story. There were always lots of sweets and prizes.
• Light parties (or Hallelujah Party) where we decorated the room, played traditional party games, ate food and had fun.
• Light disco. We turned out the lights and turned up the music. Using glow sticks, party lights and fluorescent tape the venue can look great. We added food and drinks, and the children had a great time.
• Themed nights. The Superhero night was definitely a favourite and the adults loved that they could dress up too. We included a photo booth and printed photos for families to take away.

For a few years, we invited the elderly members of our congregation to join the activities, as Halloween can be a frightening time for those who are a little older, with lots of strangers knocking on their doors. We included games where the teams needed to include people of varying ages to gain extra points! It was a great way to keep everyone included and build multi-generational relationships.

The beginning of the Light Trail

Living and working in different areas, however, over the years, I have seen the number of attendees at these events decrease. Uniformed groups offer parties and children wanted to engage in Trick or Treat like their friends, and no amount of sweets and prizes which we gave could compete.

Let’s be welcoming and generous, whether it’s to trick or treaters on our doorstep with sweets and a gospel leaflet or running an event at church

Five years ago, when COVID hit, we could no longer open our doors to our church family or invite the community to hear the good news of Jesus, so we decided to do something different. By October, we were allowed to be outside, so we decided to run a Light Trail. We selected 10 houses within easy walking distance of the church to decorate their front window, hedge, or gates with as many fairy lights as possible and added a clue card. For the event, each child received a pack containing instructions, a map, an answer sheet, a pencil and a glow necklace. The children’s role was to collect 10 clues, learn the memory verse (Jesus said, “I am the Light of the World”), and then go to church to collect prizes and a Christian book. They received a prize for each clue they found. Having the glow necklace built a sense of community, as families joined others to find more challenging clues. The children loved being out in the streets with their friends and didn’t feel they were missing out, so we have continued this tradition each year since.

Now we can open our buildings, we have added hot dogs and hot chocolate as people collect their prizes. We vary the theme each year, but it is always around light. One year, we had a pumpkin lantern trail with each lantern having a Christian symbol.

We decorate the building with as many lights as possible and have an outdoor projector to light the outside. The trail runs from 5-7 pm, and people can collect their prizes at any point within this slot, so it doesn’t really matter if you have 5, 50 or 500 as attendance is staggered.

Other resources out there

There are also a whole host of other resources out there for you to look at, here are some:

• Hope Together has an excellent article which mentions many of the ideas listed above. There are links to other ideas, too.
• Scripture Union have produced a couple of booklets containing Light Party ideas for children and teens. They provide practical ideas, as well as the thinking behind the events. They have also produced an affordable booklet called ‘Jesus is the Light?’ to give away to trick-or-treaters as they knock on your doors or at any other events.
• The Good Book Company offers various Halloween leaflets for different age groups. They also produce a book called ‘One Day Wonders’ which includes all the ideas you need for a ‘Light Busters’ two- or four-hour children’s event or a 1 ½ hour family event.
• Muddy Church has an outdoor light trail, a bat trail and a pumpkin trail (as well as harvest and autumn). These can be downloaded instantly and are free of charge (though a donation is always greatly appreciated). These can be fun to do, whether as a family, with friends, or as a larger, organised event.
• Streets of Light started in Sheffield in 2017. The organisers write, “We seek to bring change & transformation to neighbourhoods & communities through window displays that convey a message of Light, Love & Hope as an alternative to Halloween. For one week, at the end of October, people create a design for their home, their place of work, a school, a church, or a shop. The windows are then lit up every evening, for people to spot and find.”
• Light Night. Nikki from Nottingham said, ‘We do a Light Night, which is not a party but a drop-in destination on the route for those doing Trick or Treat. Our church community has a village feel, and everyone is out ‘doing’ Halloween, so there is no point in the church trying to compete. We open our doors for games, crafts, food, and fun. People come with the intention of moving on, but many stay for a long time. We get hundreds of people through our doors.‘
• Trick or Truth boxes. Designed like a Happy Meal box, this Cheeky Panda-themed empty box is decorated with activities and QR codes that direct people to additional content, all of which point them to Jesus. They can be filled and given away or used at events for children to collect their prizes.

So, can I suggest that whatever we do, we aren’t the neighbours who everyone talks about because we don’t answer the door and whose house or church they avoid. Let’s be welcoming and generous, whether it’s to trick or treaters on our doorstep with sweets and a gospel leaflet or running an event at church. Let us be the light in the darkness.