BRP 261001
Check-in with Barbara: The Raineys and Halloween

Description: Is Halloween a fun chance to dress up in a costume and get candy from neighbors, or a dark celebration of death and the occult? How should Christians participate in cultural events? What about alternatives to Halloween? Barbara shares how she and Dennis approached Halloween, and she gives creative ideas for making a bigger deal out of All Saints Day in your family.

Samantha Keller: On or around October 31st every year, families have a choice to make about how they celebrate—or don’t celebrate—Halloween. Here’s Barbara Rainey.

Barbara Rainey: There are some people who just absolutely refuse because of the message of Halloween and its contradiction to our faith, and there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, I think we all have to make our own decisions. And we have to give people the freedom and the grace to make a different decision if they do. So I think we need to be gracious and kind in what we decide, and not be critical of others who are doing it differently.

Samantha: Welcome to the Barbara Rainey Podcast from Ever Thine Home, where we’re dedicated to helping you experience God in your life and home. Thanks for listening!

How Christians should engage with the culture around them is a matter of much debate. Different people have different ways of thinking about it. And Barbara says that’s okay. Actually, the Bible says that’s okay! Romans chapter 14 gives helpful counsel on how to handle matters of liberty and conscience, when believers land on different sides of an issue.

In this conversation, Barbara Rainey speaks with Brandi Johnston about how she and Dennis approached the question of Halloween when their children were young. They also talk about the day that comes immediately after Halloween, All Saints Day, and some creative ways you can observe that day in your family. Let’s listen.

Brandi: Well, welcome back. This is Brandi again sitting in with Barbara.

Barbara: Hey everyone!

Brandi: We are so glad to get to sit across the table here—or I am. You get to listen in to Barbara share a little bit about life. And we just want to talk about as we're getting close, Halloween is coming up. I know it's not one of your favorites, but it certainly is a time of year when we as parents, when we have kids at home, can really struggle. Like, how do we balance walking in faith and celebrating a holiday that sometimes goes in the face of our faith—or it feels like it does. So will you share a little bit about what your family did and how you balanced that as a mom?

Barbara: Yeah, I'd love to. When our kids were really young, like the first two were three and two, I remember we'd help them to get dressed up because we were both excited about doing it, and then a few years into it we thought, “Okay. Wait a minute. Why are we doing this? This is something that the culture advocates. This is not something that's in the Bible, obviously.” And so we kind of pulled back. We really kind of thought it through, and as we talked about it and thought it through, we asked, “What is it about Halloween that is appealing?” Well, part of it is just the fun for kids to dress up in costumes. I mean most children love costumes, and they love pretending. It's fun for them to get to do that. There's nothing wrong with that.

So that was one piece. Going outside at night after it's dark and going out with mom and dad and walking around in the neighborhood? Well, that's fun. There's nothing wrong with that. Handing out candy and getting candy. There's nothing really wrong with that, you know, it's not like we do this every day.

And then we thought about the people that we meet in our neighborhoods, because when we would go out trick-or-treating, we always went to this one neighborhood that was behind us that was the bigger neighborhood and had the fancier houses. We would take our kids back there, and there were, of course, lots of other people trick-or-treating back there. But we would meet people that we would not have met otherwise because we walked up to their door and knocked on their door…

Brandi: Yeah.

Barbara: Because it was Halloween. We wouldn't do that any other day of the year. And we got to know some of these people in our neighborhood because of Halloween and because they thought our kids were so cute and we thought it was fun to take them out.

So we realized that you can take the good out of this cultural experience that we have and you can use it for good, and you can use it for good in your family and in your neighborhood and get to know some people. You don't have to do it the way the culture—especially the way it's going now where more people are more obsessed with Halloween, and they're obsessed with the dark side of Halloween. We don't have to touch that, nor should we touch that. But we can do the fun, innocent part of it, letting our kids dress up and ask for candy and be cute with the neighbors.

So we did that and we really felt like that was a good compromise. It was a good way to
be a part of the culture around us, to be a part of our neighborhood and our friends. The kids could talk about it with their friends. So it felt like a good solution for us.

So I don't know if that will be of any help to you who are listening, because there are some people who just absolutely refuse because of the message of Halloween and its contradiction to our faith, and there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, I think we all have to make our own decisions. And we have to give people the freedom and the grace to make a different decision if they do. So I think we need to be gracious and kind in what we decide, and not be critical of others who are doing it differently. So I think there are different ways we can approach it. But that's what we did, and I think it worked for us.

Brandi: That's really good. It's so interesting, and I would imagine most of our parents and grandparents that are listening… they've had to grapple with that at some point and make those decisions. And you always wonder. There are so many churches that either have nothing or they do like a fall fest. Some will do a trunk-or-treat, which is kind of nodding a little bit more, but it's just interesting to see how different communities of faith, how they balance.

Barbara: Yeah, and I think those are great alternatives. Going to the church, even if it's not your church, and doing it that way.

Brandi: I love what you said about being in your neighborhood and in your community, because we as a culture have gotten so far from that. And that's one of the things that we loved about it when we were at our old house, too. We knew our neighbors but not super well. And I feel, like you said, we had conversations with so many of them every Halloween. And they looked forward to seeing, like, “Oh, so cute!” because we would dress up with our daughter and just get all into it in a fun way, and then get to have these fun conversations.

So I love that, because when I met and when I first started here and we started talking, I loved it that you had walked down the path before me. I know for me as a mom, it gave me great encouragement to be like, “Okay.” Because I definitely have friends around me that are like, “Hard pass. We don't do that.” And then friends that are like us that try to do the balance. And I think to hear that someone, you know, has walked with the Lord as long as you have and written so much about parenting that I was like, “Okay, I think that's helpful.” So we appreciate you sharing that.

Many of the products that we have in our Etsy store have really been born out of either something you created for your family or something you said you wish that you had with your kids. So we have one of those things. It's more Halloween-adjacent,
I guess.

Barbara: Yeah, it's adjacent to Halloween because it's adjacent on the calendar. Yes, and this is a this is something we created for All Saints Day and which I did not know anything about when my kids were young. I don't think I found out until they were maybe teenagers or older, I don't know. But All Saints Day has been on the calendar for centuries.

Brandi: Probably millennia.

Barbara: But anyway, it's been on the calendar for a long time, and that's November 1st. And it's the day that the church set aside to honor the saints—the people who have gone before us. People who've written books, people who've preached sermons that have changed people's lives, and on down through the line of the centuries. I wish I had known about it when my kids were younger, but I didn't, but It's one of those things that I think would be a good counterbalance to Halloween. Do Halloween on the 31st, you know whether you go to your church or you go around your neighborhood or whether you don't do anything at all on Halloween but then that gives you an alternative on November 1st to do something more on the upside or the positive side, if you want to look at it that way.

So we have a couple of things. We have some cards. They have stories on them that you can read and you can write, and then there are some blank cards where you can write about somebody who influenced you or somebody that your kids know who has really inspired them in their faith. You can write about those people. And you can hang these cards up as a banner, a decorative banner, through the month of October.

We also have a book called Tales of the Resistance, and it was really interesting that we're talking about this day because I was doing my first reading for my class this semester. I'm taking a class on the Gospels, and this book that I'm reading about the Gospels— I can't remember exactly how he said it, but he talked in there about how important it is for believers to resist. And I thought, there it is again! that whole concept again.

I didn't know that in the early years of my faith. I didn't know it in connection with All Saints Day, but I love the idea of resistance. We think in our country of resistance being a political idea. But it's really a Christian idea, and it's the idea of resisting sin and it's pushing away from things that are against God. So we have this book called Tales of the Resistance. It has—how many stories? Seven? Yeah, something like that, on different heroes of the faith that you and your children may or might know about. You may know some of them. But you may not know of them all.

It's a great way to introduce your kids to the idea, first of all, of heroes of the faith that they can look up to and maybe want to emulate someday, rather than a football player or a movie star. It gives you stories that you can read at night to your kids before bed, and it gives you an understanding into the concept of resisting sin. Each of the ones that are featured in this book are heroes of the faith who resisted sin in one way or another in significant ways, and it helps your kids to begin to understand, “What does this mean, and why is this important?”

That book, Tales of the Resistance, is also in our Etsy story. It's a not a very big book, and it wouldn't take you very long to read it all. I mean, in a week you can read all the stories.

Brandi: Yeah

Barbara: I think they're great stories and I think the more we can learn about the heroes of the faith that have gone before us, the more—I guess “robust” would be the word—the more well-rounded our faith will be because our faith is not just a personal thing. It's a collective thing. We're a part of a community of believers and someday we'll meet these people in heaven. And you can go up to Corrie Ten Boom or whoever the other ones are and say, “I want to hear more of your story. Let's sit down and talk.”

And so just knowing the names of some of these people is going to be a rich addition to your child's life. So I want to encourage you to to get the book too, and then get the cards and make a banner for your family and put the names of the people in your life, present-day heroes of the faith.

Brandi: I think it's really powerful. I have used this for the last few years in my house and I love it. I've had people come over and be like, “What is this? This is really cool!” And you have the ones like you said that are included with the kids that come there with the cards that have, I think Fanny Crosby? Maybe. I can't remember.

Barbara: She’s in the book.

Brandi: But anyway, it's just got some incredible saints that have gone before us. And then I added people from my family, and I was just thinking as you were talking: One my greatest mentors passed away this past year, and I was like, “I get to put her up!” My kids know about her and what a legacy of faith she left. I'm one of one of many, many people whose lives she impacted. I just think if we all do that— just think about the people that you impact. They're going to hang up your picture and remember you And celebrate how my faith grew and I developed, and because of what she did! I think it's an incredible tool that allows us and it's fun to do with your kids! Anytime you're cutting out things and making things and hanging them up, and I'm like, let's read this interesting story. They're powerful because I remember reading to my kids about Brother Lawrence, and they're like, “I don't know if I could do that,” and I’m like, “Me either!”

Barbara: I know, exactly. We did it last fall in October with our grandkids, which I'd forgotten about until you just started talking about them. I thought, “That's right. We did!”

We had all of the grandkids from one family come and spend fall break with us, which was a long, four-day weekend. We had the best time. It was so much fun because the parents weren't there. It was just Dennis and me and the six kids, and we had the best time. But we did that that exercise one night.

We passed the cards out and we read a couple of the stories, and we said, “Now, each of you have a blank card. We want you to write the name of a person who has influenced you in your faith, someone you look up to you in your faith, and then on the back write why,” and it was really fun to see who they chose.

Brandi: Yeah

Barbara: Some of them were people that we didn't know because it was somebody from their life and their other city, but I remember one of our granddaughters wrote “David.” Because she looked up to David from the Bible.

And I thought, “Isn't that interesting?” So it was really good for them to do. And then we hung it up. And it was up the whole the rest of the time they were there.

Brandi: I love that.

Barbara: Yeah, it was a great experience

Brandi: Some great ideas for things to do, some things to think about, so we hope you'll check out the Etsy shop and buy one — either the kit you can get the banner and the book together. Or you can buy each of them separately. So we hope that that will bless your family as you do something Halloween-adjacent this year.

Well, thanks for stopping in we hope that you'll leave us a comment and like this And let us know that you like popping in and listening to Barbara.

Samantha: Thank you, Brandi Johnston and Barbara Rainey. Here’s an easy way to get to our Etsy store. Go to BarbaraRainey.substack.com, and then select the tab that says “Etsy.”

The book with stories about heroes of the faith is titled Tales of the Resistance. Listen to the subtitle. Stories to Inspire, Guide, and Help You Stand Strong with Jesus. The resistance this book talks about is resisting sin and temptation. Again, that’s in our Etsy shop. And don’t forget about the All Saints Day banner, with 15 cards you can display in your home, cards that also talk about some great heroes of the faith.

If you’re not already a subscriber to Barbara’s Friends & Family, I’d encourage you to consider signing up. The monthly cost is only five dollars. And for that you’ll have access to much more content from Barbara, including more emails and check-in update podcast episodes, from time to time.

I’m Samantha. Thanks for listening today. I hope you’ll join us next time, for the Barbara Rainey Podcast, from Ever Thine Home.