A Message from a Dream

Sometimes our dreams tell us more than we can hear. Last night I had a dream that I'm sure had more in it than I can now recall.

I had a wheeled crate full of discarded vines and I was working my way down a residential alley, a concrete drive between small houses. In front of most of the houses people were putting up fences, small yards which they were decorating for Halloween. People I knew and strangers alike were hauling in lumber, settting out friendly Jack-O-Lanterns, stacking stalks of corn against a wall, or preparing food for guests. I was like a school assignment all the parents were helping their kids with.

The yards filled most of the alley, with paths leading to the homes and gates at regular intervals between opposing yards, as if to section off the alley into venues. I pushed my cart uphill through each gate, barely squeezing through, until I got to a large gate end of the alley. There, between two carts of watermelon against one of the gate doors, I found a place to rest my crate of discarded vines. I found a scrap and after repeated attempts wrote a note to post above my crate identifying my load: "Fall Decor; Please Do Not Discard"

I borrowed a marker from a passing stranger, a man whose house was not being decorated, but it didn't work well on my scrap, so I gave it back and found another nearby. The man had seemed busy, but stopped as he leaned against the open door of the old entry gate. He talked mournfully about truth, the heart of the church, and "itching ears". What he said caught my attention, and I wanted to hear more, but I began to wake up and my conscious mind began to interfer with the conversation, so I can't be certain what his actual words were.

The alley is the path to God and the people are His church. The path is designed to be fresh, clean, and accessable, free from clutter and debree. It had been clean, with no trashcans or weeds in sight. Yet, the people were filling it with all sorts of stuff. The houses had been right on the road, yet these yards had made the real lives of their residents less accessible. Each artificial yard was designed to be inviting, but they really functioned to make the way nearly impassable and to slow people down on their journey.

The decorations are signs of compromise. Specifically, they are monuments to compromise with the darkest evils in the world. They didn't look evil. People weren't setting up graveyards and skulls. But, what they really represented was very evil, even Satanic. What they represented should never have been allowed into the alley, the Way, God's church. Yet, they practically filled it, as family after family unquestioningly and happily followed the assignment laid out for them.

And my wheeled crate? My crate is about what we cast off as we rob the beauty of God's creation in our rush to compromise with the world. We take the best of the real beauty in the world and corrupt it. We cut it off from the life-giving Vine, and carve it up, paint it with glitter-paint, surround it by seasonal trophies and hide it behind a waist high fence: Look, but don't touch. See, but don't experience. Taste, but only the sugar filled artificial flavors and treats that I can take credit for, not the real things as God created them to be. My cart is about what we hide from the world, and what we are in danger of throwing away: the Vine.

We think we're going to attract people with our compromise, so we justify it. We celebrate, because it is a season of celebration in the world. We follow, rather then lead. We set up our attractions and wait for people to wander up our alley and be captivated by them. We say they are only temporary, and that we'll clean the alley up afterwards. But, when we do, where will those people go? What will they think of it all? Will they feel tricked? Will they trek up the hill and discover the old gate at it's end, or will they miss the new fences and treats, and look somewhere else? Will they exit downhill and keep wandering down the broad road? When all the earthly glamor has been wasted, how will they know that our alley is any different from all the others they visited on Halloween?

I believe God has a calling upon my life to minister, and to proclaim His truth. I'm not perfect. I make wrong choices and I even compromise myself sometimes. There are things I sometimes get into innocently, or at least ignorantly, and this is why we need each other. We need a Messenger, a Word from the Lord, to help us in following Jesus. Sometimes, I'm the one who needs correction, and sometimes I'm the one called to correct. I may never work in a church because there are areas I will not compromise. Halloween is one of these areas.

I will not participate in such a blatant compromise of the truth of Christianity. Nor, will I simply be silent when I see others falling into sin, especially when I know some of them are only perishing "for lack of knowledge." Some do not know the origins of this celebration. Some falsely claim that whatever it was in the past, Halloween is now a "secular holiday." (1st secular is a religion; 2nd "holy" days are not secular; 3rd Halloween is a religious day.) Others do not know Scripture's perspective on it. Some believe that the end of bringing people into the sphere of the church justifies almost any means. Some think it's just innocent fun and doesn't affect us and our chidren that much.

I believe all of these people are wrong, as I once was. Halloween should not be a time of celebration and "Fall Festivals" for God's people. It should be a time of mourning, weeping, intercesion, and simplicity. Rather than blowing up air-castles, wearing costumes, handing out candy, and baking cookies, we would do bettter to sing hymns, close our doors, and fast. If we were being authentic in our Christianity throughout the year, then our absence on this day would speak more clearly about God than hundreds of self-righteous attempts to compromise with the world.

Halloween is not ok, and compromising with it is wrong. I believe God's challenge to us is simple: Have nothing to do with it.