I can't believe what a lucky guy I am! I have been given the high honor of being in charge of my church's annual "Harvest Celebration" this year. That's the little carnival thingy that churches often sloppily put together in order to "give the people of the community a safe place" to enjoy a holiday - Halloween - dominated by images of death and sorcery. Of course, it's all o.k. as long as we wear costumes of biblical people, right? I mean, there aren't any scary images in the Bible, right? So what should I dress as this year? Pharaoh's dead son? Jonah covered with whale's gastric juices? How about a postmortem John the Baptist? If that ain't your idea of good, wholesome fun, there's somethin' wrong with you! Aw, what the heck, at least we all get to eat candy, right?

In truth, I don't give a flying flip about Halloween - the "evil" version of it or the "cleaned up" church version of it. That's probably a big reason why I have a bad attitude about being put in charge of this event. I don't even like the holiday, and I'm going to have to work my butt off to put this thing together. Bitter? No, but I'm pretty much opposed to the majority of church "events" as it is, so this one fits right in with things I love to hate. I feel no need to lure children onto our campus to bounce around in our Astro-jump. Especially because I am all too aware of the real ministry opportunities I'll be missing because I'll be calling frantically to get people to help with games and set-up and tear-down. I hope and pray that God proves me wrong by giving me some chances to meet people and just share life with them for a couple of hours the night of the event.

By the way, does anyone know where I can rent an X-ray machine for trick-or-treat candy to make sure it's safe? Grrrr.