Throughout history, the church has been in the world while trying not to be “of” the world. And it’s been a constant battle, the church trying to impact the world and the world trying to impact the church.
It is well known that prolific 1700’s hymn writer Charles Wesley took drinking songs (think 99 bottles of beer on the wall) and changed the words to religious words while keeping the melody. This would make Christian hymns easier to sing if the people already knew the tunes.
While nobody knows for sure, some church historians say that the date of Christmas, celebrating the birth of Jesus, was chosen 1700 years ago to compete with the festivals of the winter solstice in late December. For the last 20-40 years our society has been trying to turn Christmas back into a winter festival.
With Halloween on the horizon, I’m reminded that some churches have fall festivals to compete with Halloween. Our church is having a trunks of treats event Saturday. We have over 20 people committed to giving out treats from their vehicles in the parking lot of the church. We will be giving out copies of the Gospel of John along with the treats. And our church will do what the church has done for 2,000 years. With God’s help, we will try to impact the world, without being too impacted by the world.
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Scott Knowlton's Blog 