Happy Halloween!

May your day be full of more treats than tricks, and may all your ghosts be friendly ones!

Will's Top 10 Halloween Movies

A happy BOO Day to each and everyone of you. May this Halloween be both fun and frightful for you all! In honor of the holiday I thought I would share a list of 10 great Halloween movies with you- but then I remembered that scary movies are not really my thing. My list would include Young Frankenstein, Ghostbusters, Hocus Pocus, Scary Movie 3 and Scooby Doo 2 (the monsters are real!). So rather than subject you to my thoughts, I turned to our resident expert on all things movie related- my son Will. He has watched dozens of scary films and even written a few of his own, so he is just the man for the job. Here is his Top 10 list of scary movies for your Halloween enjoyment. And in case you have a question, with each and every title he is referring to the original movies made under the names mentioned. Remakes are the wrong kind of scary...

Will's List

1. Psycho
2. Halloween
3. The Shining
4. The Thing
5. The Exorcist
6. Evil Dead
7. Alien
8. Cabin In the Woods
9. Bride of Frankenstein
10. The Strangers

So there you have it. I know a few of you are stunned that The Last Dinosaur didn't make the list. Why not? I don't.......KNOW! Have a safe and happy Halloween- and let us know what would be on your list!

Happy Halloween!

Here's wishing everyone a safe and (reasonably) sane Halloween!  May the Goblins be festive and the candy be tasty!  I also want to wish a late happy birthday (Oct. 30) to my good friend Jerry Hanbery, the best underpaid, slightly crazed youth ministry intern anyone ever had.  I'll be back tomorrow to tell you about the passing of yet another great man from High Point, NC.  Heaven's getting crowded... 

Fear Not

Happy Halloween!  I hope that this day full of thoughts of ghosts, goblins and spooks will be a good one for each of you.  I find it very interesting that this day based on scary things has become the second most popular holiday in USAmerica.  When you pair that statistic with the plethora of scary movies, vampire books, thrill rides and TV shows that are out there, you begin to get the feeling that we like to be scared.  The truth is many of us live in fear.  I want to explore that a bit today.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 by addressing the nation with his famous speech that included the line, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."  This oft-quoted piece of political rhetoric, while brilliant and well timed, is total BS.  We have all kinds of things to fear.  I grew up with the Cold War in full swing, and I had nuclear annihilation to fear.  Today we have disease, terrorists, a crumbling economy, LeBron James and FOX News to fear.  We are told to be afraid of everything we eat.  We are told to be afraid of people who are different from us. We are told to be afraid of our own leaders. Sue Sylvester (GLEE) says that fear is the only motivational tool that really works.  We live in a world in which people's fears, both valid and imagined, often control their lives.

At yesterday's Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Keep Fear Alive in Washington, there was much talk about how fear can immobilize and destroy us.  Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, in their own comic styles, pointed out how fear is being used to play on our worst instincts.  We become afraid of all Muslims because terrorists who happened to be Muslim did horrible things to our country.  That is like being afraid of all cars because someone you know had a wreck in one.  Colbert said we should be afraid of all robots; Stewart pointed out that R2D2 is cute and friendly.  To a great extent, their point was this:  There is plenty to be afraid of in this world.  But if we live in fear of everyone who is different from us- whether it be religious belief, sexual orientation, political persuasion, skin color or number of tattoos- then we will indeed live in constant fear.  We will become like the Bill Murray character in What About Bob? - unable to leave our homes, scared into a form of insanity.

So what do we do?  The great Larry Norman once wrote, "Why don't you look into Jesus?  I know He's got the answers..."  And indeed He does!  The King James Bible contains the command FEAR NOT 83 times.  God tells us to FEAR NOT.  The Angels tell us to FEAR NOT.  Jesus tells us to FEAR NOT.  I get the feeling they may be serious about this.  But how do we get past our fears?  We do it by living a life that reflects our belief that Yaweh- creator of the universe and everything in it- is in control.  And that same God, ABBA (daddy) loves each of us so much that He knows our names and the numbers of hairs on our heads.  Jesus came so that we would live lives filled with love, not fear.  2 Timothy 1:7 (KJV) reminds us,  "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."   Jesus said He came to bring us abundant life, not a fearful one.  Fear will always be with us.  It can be confined to its' proper place in our lives if we will just remember this cliche- "I don't know what the future holds, but I know WHO holds the future."  When you come face to face with fear born of hatred, racism, bigotry or misunderstanding, hear the words of the Angel as the shepherds stood in their field, full of fear and misgivings.  Hear the words of Jesus to Simon Peter when He called him be a disciple, asking him to give up everything he knew for a life of mystery and uncertainty.  FEAR NOT!  Then go forward with the love of God surrounding you and lighting a dark world for others- including those you are told to be afraid of...

Now get out there tonight and scare the poop out of someone!  Hey- it's Halloween!

Because of Jesus,

Happy Halloween!

Here's wishing everyone a safe and (reasonably) sane Halloween!  May the Goblins be festive and the candy be tasty!  I also want to wish a late happy birthday (Oct. 30) to my good friend Jerry Hanbery, the best underpaid, slightly crazed youth ministry intern anyone ever had.  Come back tomorrow as my journey takes a turn north...WAYYYY north!  Have a blessed day everyone...