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Transcript

Halloween And the Family · Equipped for Impact

• 0:00
  Luis: Every year around this time, I notice the same thing happening in Christian circles.
• 0:05
  Luis: Halloween shows up, and suddenly every family feels like they have to pick a side.
• 0:10
  Luis: Full participation, costumes and candy, and the whole neighborhood, or complete avoidance, lights off, doors locked, maybe a trunk or treat or fall festival at church, and almost nobody talks about what happens in between those two positions.
• 0:28
  Nate: And what strikes me is how rarely the conversation is actually about the kids learning anything, right?
• 0:34
  Nate: It's the parents defending a position to other parents.
• 0:37
  Nate: Meanwhile, the kids are standing there watching mom and dad have strong opinions about a holiday without ever being taught how to think about it for themselves.
• 0:47
  Luis: Which means that we hand them the verdict and not the process of thinking through it.
• 0:53
  Luis: And a verdict only works as long as we are standing next to them making that decision.
• 0:59
  Luis: But the process is what they're gonna still use when you're not there.
• 1:24
  Nate: And I'm Lewis.
• 1:25
  Nate: And Halloween is right around the corner.
• 1:28
  Nate: So I need to ask Lewis, what is the best Halloween candy?
• 1:33
  Luis: Hmm.
• 1:33
  Luis: It used to be Snickers, but then I developed a condition that prevents me from eating a lot of like nutnuts, almost things like that.
• 1:41
  Luis: Okay.
• 1:42
  Luis: And so now anything fruity that's also gummy.
• 1:47
  Luis: So like gummy bears, gummy Jolly Ranchers, even the hard Jolly Ranchers.
• 1:52
  Luis: And the fruit flavored tootsi rolls.
• 1:54
  Luis: You ever had those?
• 1:55
  Nate: I have not.
• 1:56
  Nate: They're delicious.
• 1:57
  Nate: I am anti-fruity chewy candy.
• 1:59
  Nate: What?
• 1:59
  Nate: Yes.
• 2:00
  Nate: 100%.
• 2:01
  Nate: Like peanut butter and chocolate.
• 2:03
  Nate: Like give me a Reese's cup all day.
• 2:05
  Nate: My wife and she's a few.
• 2:07
  Nate: I will take a Snickers.
• 2:08
  Nate: I will take a Three Musketeers.
• 2:10
  Nate: I will not eat gummy bears.
• 2:12
  Nate: So no gummy bears, no gummy bears.
• 2:14
  Nate: No fruity lifesavers.
• 2:15
  Nate: Nothing.
• 2:15
  Nate: What about hard fruity candy?
• 2:17
  Nate: Uh I'm still not a fan.
• 2:18
  Nate: No.
• 2:19
  Nate: Like if I'm gonna if I'm gonna take those very dense calories, I want it to be chocolate of some type.
• 2:26
  Nate: Yep.
• 2:26
  Nate: Yep.
• 2:26
  Luis: Have you ever had a Snickers almond or an almond Snickers?
• 2:29
  Luis: I don't know how you do it.
• 2:29
  Luis: I have not.
• 2:30
  Luis: No.
• 2:30
  Luis: They're really good.
• 2:31
  Luis: Do you like almonds?
• 2:32
  Luis: Uh I'm I'm alright with almonds.
• 2:33
  Luis: So if you like almonds and you like Snickers, almond Snickers, almonds, Snickers.
• 2:37
  Nate: Whatever.
• 2:37
  Nate: And then it helps you not be a diva, too.
• 2:39
  Nate: It's really good.
• 2:40
  Nate: Okay.
• 2:40
  Nate: I can't eat it much anymore.
• 2:42
  Nate: Okay.
• 2:42
  Nate: Well, this is not an episode about candy, although I think that is a very important part of Halloween.
• 2:47
  Nate: We are talking about Halloween.
• 2:48
  Nate: So it's just by the time this episode releases, it's a little over a week away.
• 2:53
  Nate: And we wanted to give parents something that they can actually use this time around and not just another argument for why you should or shouldn't hand out candy in your neighborhood.
• 3:03
  Nate: Although, pro tip, if you are handing out candy and you're doing like a track with it, you know, like a gospel track to try and make it an evangelistic time, make sure it's good candy.
• 3:13
  Nate: Like don't give out like nasty candy.
• 3:15
  Nate: Yeah.
• 3:15
  Nate: Make sure like full size Snickers bars.
• 3:17
  Nate: Yeah.
• 3:17
  Nate: And then then the kids will come back to your house and you can share the gospel with them better.
• 3:21
  Nate: That makes sense.
• 3:21
  Nate: Give them the Jesus juke.
• 3:23
  Nate: Yes.
• 3:23
  Nate: But if it's full candy, is it not?
• 3:25
  Nate: Is it still a Jesus juke?
• 3:27
  Luis: No, if it's full candy, it's not.
• 3:28
  Luis: If it's if it's not good candy, right?
• 3:30
  Luis: Like if it's, I don't know, those caramel, what do they call?
• 3:34
  Luis: Yeah, like Werther's caramel, whatever.
• 3:36
  Nate: Yeah, like the little caramel.
• 3:36
  Nate: My grandma used to give out little boxes of raisins.
• 3:39
  Nate: Yeah.
• 3:40
  Nate: And we're like, really?
• 3:41
  Nate: That's the Jesus juke.
• 3:42
  Nate: That was the Jesus juke.
• 3:43
  Nate: Okay.
• 3:43
  Nate: We're not here to tell you what to do on October 31st, ex unless it has to do with candy.
• 3:48
  Nate: We have very strong opinions about candy.
• 3:50
  Nate: But what we do want to do is walk you through how you as a family can think through this kind of cultural time because you can't avoid it.
• 3:57
  Nate: The spirit Halloween stores are popping up all over the place.
• 4:00
  Nate: And and we want to show how you can use some discernment tools we've talked about before on the show and apply it here to this situation of Halloween.
• 4:09
  Luis: Yeah, because the real thing isn't that you get Halloween right this year.
• 4:13
  Luis: It's about how do you raise a kid who is going to walk into the next cultural question and the one after that.
• 4:21
  Luis: Because yeah, it's Halloween this month, but in two months it's going to be something else.
• 4:26
  Luis: And we want to help them with a way of thinking instead of just borrowing your opinion.
• 4:32
  Nate: And I like how you said in two months it's going to be something else, because that something else is probably Santa Claus.
• 4:38
  Nate: Yes, and Christmas and the thing that goes with it.
• 4:41
  Nate: You should celebrate Christmas because it's about Jesus.
• 4:43
  Nate: But yes.
• 4:44
  Nate: So let's let's kind of get this going on of and talk about why this conversation ever really existed in the first place, right?
• 4:53
  Nate: You know, most of what gets argued about Halloween is really just focused on this, you know, holiday as a single fixed thing, right?
• 5:03
  Nate: Either they're they're talking about how it's inherently a pagan, dangerous, you know, holiday, or you start talking about, oh, well, it's just neutral and it's just fun and dressing up and and we're all just overthinking it like that.
• 5:15
  Luis: And the truth is that it's messier than either side of that, right?
• 5:20
  Luis: Because Halloween, yes, it has genuinely mixed roots.
• 5:24
  Luis: Some are tied to harvest festivals, some are tied later to different church observances, some are tied to what it's actually become in most American neighborhoods today, which is mostly kids in costumes getting kids from people they know.
• 5:40
  Luis: I mean, some people might even think it's tied to the Disney Pixar movie Coco, you know.
• 5:45
  Luis: Yep, there you go.
• 5:46
  Nate: Right.
• 5:46
  Luis: Day of the Dead.
• 5:48
  Nate: See, in my house, it's more of the Elena of Avalore.
• 5:51
  Nate: Like I think there were three or four different episodes where it was like Day of the Dead, like where that episode is Coco's my favorite Disney Pixar movie.
• 5:59
  Nate: Okay, there you go.
• 6:00
  Luis: It's might be because of my culture and her.
• 6:02
  Nate: Your cultural heritage, it just makes you feel like home.
• 6:05
  Luis: Yeah, I'm just like, this is my movie.
• 6:07
  Nate: This is your movie.
• 6:08
  Nate: Can you sing any of the songs?
• 6:09
  Nate: No.
• 6:09
  Nate: Okay.
• 6:10
  Nate: I was hoping to get that on recording.
• 6:11
  Nate: I do like to listen to them though.
• 6:13
  Luis: But here's the thing, right?
• 6:15
  Luis: Is if you just treat it as one simple thing in either direction, it skips the actual work of looking at what it means where your family lives.
• 6:26
  Nate: Yeah, and and that's really the deeper issue because, you know, like we said, it was never about Halloween.
• 6:31
  Nate: It was never about candy or anything like that.
• 6:34
  Nate: It it was whether we've given our kids a process for evaluating anything that culture hands them, uh, or whether we've just been handing down our own conclusions and calling that discipleship.
• 6:46
  Luis: Yeah.
• 6:46
  Luis: Because a kid who's only ever been told what to think about Halloween is going to hit a harder question in 10 years, something that we actually never specifically covered as parents, and then they're not gonna have any idea how to work through it.
• 7:02
  Luis: Like I remember when I was dating my wife, her parents stopped buying Coke because, or it might have been Pepsi, I don't remember, because one of them was promoting Harry Potter, and they were like anti-Harry Potter in their home, right?
• 7:18
  Luis: There was no explanation as to like why.
• 7:21
  Luis: It was just Harry Potter is of the devil, and we're not gonna drink that drink anymore.
• 7:27
  Luis: You know, and then 10 years later we're faced with another culture question, and it's not Harry Potter, right?
• 7:32
  Luis: But now you have to decide whether you are doing this thing or not doing this thing.
• 7:36
  Nate: So are you telling me that Coca-Cola is actually polyjuice potion?
• 7:40
  Nate: It might be, actually.
• 7:41
  Nate: It might be.
• 7:42
  Nate: Uh two points for anybody in our audience that just caught that reference.
• 7:45
  Nate: But let's let's start where we like to always start, right?
• 7:48
  Nate: Which is going to the text of scripture because scripture actually gives us more than just a simple yes or no on certain things.
• 7:56
  Nate: I think, you know, Romans 14 is a really good starting point for things like this, because Paul is dealing with disputable matters.
• 8:05
  Nate: And I I honestly think like we apply Romans 14 to situations that are even more like disputable and a gray area than what he was talking about in that culture.
• 8:18
  Nate: Like in Paul's culture, the the issue they were talking about was whether you could eat food that was offered to idols.
• 8:24
  Nate: And what what I think is funny, we miss the fact that this is actually like closer to participating in legit like demon worship than even Halloween would be.
• 8:35
  Nate: Okay.
• 8:36
  Nate: So it's even like a a bigger thing because you see they offer their meat to idols, they're going out, and then they're selling it in the marketplace, and so then you are purchasing it there.
• 8:46
  Nate: And there's there's a whole lot going on there.
• 8:48
  Nate: But the whole idea is what he tells believers is, you know, there's not one rule for everybody.
• 8:55
  Nate: He tells them to be fully convinced in their own mind, and he says that whoever doubts is condemnable if they go ahead just because they're just doing it to fit in and they're not doing it out of faith, and so they're actually sinning because they're going against their own conscience to try and fit in with the culture.
• 9:14
  Nate: And so that's a remarkable amount of trust placed on individual conscience, right?
• 9:19
  Nate: Guided by conviction rather than just a universal command to, you know, not eat meat or go ahead and eat meat one way or the other.
• 9:28
  Luis: And then in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, Paul gives the other half of that same argument, right?
• 9:35
  Luis: He says that all things are lawful, but all not not all things are helpful.
• 9:38
  Luis: He says not everything builds up.
• 9:40
  Luis: So even in an area where there's freedom, right?
• 9:43
  Luis: Like, yes, I can do that.
• 9:45
  Luis: There's nothing necessarily wrong with that.
• 9:47
  Luis: The question isn't just can I technically do it?
• 9:51
  Luis: Is it permitted?
• 9:52
  Luis: But it's what does this actually do, right, to to me?
• 9:56
  Luis: What does it do to my witness?
• 9:58
  Luis: What does it do to the people watching how I handled this particular thing?
• 10:03
  Nate: Yeah, it your testimony, I think, is a really big thing, and that that's gonna tie in here to Halloween in a second.
• 10:10
  Nate: But but let's kind of wrap it up with one last passage, and that's Philippians 4.8.
• 10:14
  Nate: That's something where where Paul is going down to the end of his his letter there to the Philippians, and he encourages them that whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, these are the things that you should think of, right?
• 10:28
  Nate: It's not just a list to run a costume through, right, before you're buying it at spirit, which pause.
• 10:35
  Nate: Have you ever been inside a spirit?
• 10:37
  Nate: Twice.
• 10:37
  Nate: Like it it just weirds me out.
• 10:40
  Nate: So I I don't even like driving past one, but that's just me.
• 10:43
  Nate: You can go shop at spirit if you want to.
• 10:45
  Nate: But but he's not talking about that, right?
• 10:48
  Nate: He's actually talking about like, you know, what's actually happening, what's actually going on in your soul, what's being celebrated, what's the tone in your neighborhood or your church event or or whatever it is, like what is the focus on and how is that how is that directing your heart?
• 11:05
  Luis: Now here's the thing to know, right?
• 11:07
  Luis: None of these texts give a flat command about Halloween specifically.
• 11:12
  Luis: Because Halloween didn't exist back then.
• 11:14
  Luis: But it's the principle that's underneath all of them that's actually bigger than Halloween.
• 11:20
  Luis: It's teaching believers how we use discernment in these disputable areas generally, right?
• 11:29
  Luis: Which happens to include in this particular conversation Halloween.
• 11:33
  Nate: Yeah.
• 11:33
  Nate: So the biblical move isn't to look up what the Bible says about Halloween.
• 11:37
  Nate: You can't find it.
• 11:38
  Nate: There's nothing in there, right?
• 11:39
  Nate: It's to look up what the Bible says about how a believer walks through any gray area with wisdom, conscience, and love for the people around them.
• 11:49
  Nate: And so that applies here.
• 11:51
  Luis: So let's actually walk through what this actually looks like in your homes when you're having these conversations, because this is where the timeless truth framework that we've actually talked about before is going to apply as you're having these conversations with with your children and with your family.
• 12:11
  Nate: Yeah, so so really it's going to be a couple of questions that you can ask.
• 12:14
  Nate: And the first question worth asking out loud with your kids, right?
• 12:18
  Nate: Not just deciding silently as a parent, is what is this actually celebrating here, right?
• 12:26
  Nate: So not Halloween in the abstract, not, you know, what was meant 300 years ago when they had, you know, All Hallows Eve and it was before All Saints Day and all of that.
• 12:35
  Nate: It's like this costume party at our church, right?
• 12:38
  Nate: Or trunk or treat, costume party in your neighborhood, like trick-or-treating in your actual neighborhood.
• 12:43
  Nate: What what is that doing?
• 12:45
  Nate: Most of the time, the honest answer is just community, candy, fun, dress up.
• 12:52
  Nate: There's nothing spiritually significant at all.
• 12:55
  Nate: Sometimes there's a specific event or theme that genuinely crosses a line for your family.
• 13:01
  Nate: And so both answers are possible, and the only way to know which one you're facing is to actually look at it rather than just assume what's being celebrated there.
• 13:12
  Luis: And then the second question is what message are we sending by how we engage, not just whether we engage?
• 13:21
  Luis: So a family that skips trick-or-treating but uses the night to deliberately connect with their neighbors another way is sending a very different message than a family that just goes dark and hides and shuts it off and pretends like it doesn't exist, or like, you know, maybe even gets on a pedestal and is like, we're not gonna celebrate this because of this.
• 13:45
  Luis: Like, look at us, right?
• 13:46
  Luis: Yeah.
• 13:47
  Luis: And in a family that participates fully but never has a conversation about any of it, is missing a teaching moment just as much as the family that avoids it entirely or puts themselves on a pedestal because, you know, this is beneath us.
• 14:06
  Luis: We don't participate in this because of these reasons.
• 14:08
  Luis: It's a holier than now type of attitude.
• 14:11
  Nate: Yeah, and like when we to get into the specifics of like Halloween, like the different neighborhoods we've lived in over the course of of our family, like each one has its own feel, right?
• 14:21
  Nate: And so if we were to act the same way in each one, would communicate something different.
• 14:25
  Nate: Absolutely.
• 14:26
  Nate: You know, if everybody's out trunker treating or trick-or-treating and you're just like hiding in there, lights off, and you're the only house that's dark, yeah, like that says something.
• 14:35
  Nate: Looking through the blinds, yeah.
• 14:36
  Nate: Or if you're the only you know, you've got you know the the lights on and you've got it big and decorations everywhere, and you're the only house on the block that does that, also communicate something.
• 14:46
  Nate: Right.
• 14:46
  Nate: So not saying that you conform to the culture, right?
• 14:50
  Nate: But it is about our testimony.
• 14:52
  Nate: And so you've got to think through how does that actually play out in in your neighborhood, right?
• 14:58
  Nate: So the third question, and I think this is one that gets skipped a lot, is asking your kids what they think, right?
• 15:05
  Nate: Before you tell them what you think.
• 15:08
  Nate: Let them reason through it with you.
• 15:11
  Nate: What feels okay to you about tonight?
• 15:12
  Nate: What feels off?
• 15:14
  Nate: You'll be surprised how often a middle schooler already has real instincts that they've developed and walking through it together builds the muscle you want to build rather than just delivering that verdict.
• 15:27
  Nate: This is what we're doing as a family.
• 15:29
  Luis: Yeah.
• 15:29
  Luis: So, quick side note here: my two daughters, one is 16 and one is 12.
• 15:38
  Luis: They one of them is getting ready to trick-or-treat a neighborhood for the first time in her 12-year life.
• 15:46
  Luis: Wow.
• 15:46
  Luis: Because we've always been part of a church or community that did a trunk or treat on Halloween night or did something, right?
• 15:54
  Luis: And so that kind of became our thing.
• 15:57
  Luis: This year we're not.
• 15:58
  Luis: And so her and a couple of friends are going trick-or-treating in one of her friends' neighborhood.
• 16:04
  Luis: Like there's a few moms, my wife included, and these girls, that are gonna go.
• 16:08
  Luis: And like for them, it's just like she's looking forward to it because she's never she's never experienced that, but it's this camaraderie that's building within her friend group to be able to do something like that.
• 16:20
  Luis: And she's really looking forward to it, right?
• 16:22
  Luis: Yeah.
• 16:23
  Luis: But it was interesting as they started thinking through the process of like, how do we participate this year?
• 16:29
  Luis: And to even hear them have the conversations of like how they were gonna address you know what this meant.
• 16:35
  Luis: And it was almost like, Is this okay?
• 16:37
  Luis: Like, are we good to do this?
• 16:39
  Luis: And we kind of let them reason it.
• 16:40
  Luis: And I think my other daughter may be going to some type of party or gathering with friends on that same night.
• 16:47
  Luis: And my wife and I were like, Well, what do we do?
• 16:48
  Luis: Like, you know, she I think she's going with the younger one, yep.
• 16:52
  Luis: And so I may have like a free night to myself, and so we're just kind of just standing on the street corner with like a turn and burn uh sign, yeah, passing out like bad candy.
• 17:01
  Nate: Bad candy.
• 17:02
  Nate: You know what would be really good?
• 17:03
  Nate: And I got called out by one of our listeners because we had an episode that we didn't mention this.
• 17:09
  Nate: But I feel like Halloween evening would be the perfect time for breakfast for dinner.
• 17:13
  Nate: Oh, that's disgusting.
• 17:14
  Nate: You knew where I was going that's disgusting.
• 17:16
  Nate: You saw it.
• 17:16
  Nate: That's disgusting.
• 17:17
  Luis: That actually may be the sin right there.
• 17:19
  Luis: Like, like that may Because here's the fourth thing, right?
• 17:22
  Luis: Whatever you land on, hold it with some humility toward other believers who land somewhere differently.
• 17:30
  Nate: Especially if it's what candy is the best or whether to have breakfast or best.
• 17:33
  Luis: Breakfast or dinner.
• 17:34
  Luis: Uh, because here's the thing, right?
• 17:35
  Luis: A family that does the full costume and candy thing isn't necessarily being worldly or living in sin.
• 17:44
  Luis: And a family that opts for a harvest festival or party at church or maybe a church trunk or treating event isn't necessarily being leg legalistic or shutting the world off, right?
• 17:57
  Luis: Yeah, both can be genuinely walking in faith and conviction, and that's what Nate was saying earlier when he was describing what Paul was writing in Romans 14.
• 18:10
  Nate: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:11
  Nate: So there's kind of those questions.
• 18:13
  Nate: You can walk through that and just kind of like where you're where you're landing as a family as you're thinking through it in your neighborhood, in your church, in your context.
• 18:22
  Nate: How are you using those passages of like the discernment and and the filter in Philippians 4 and just kind of thinking about those gray areas and your testimony to the watching world?
• 18:33
  Nate: But we also want to kind of caution here because there's a version of this that sounds like discernment, but it isn't actually discernment.
• 18:42
  Nate: What do you mean by that?
• 18:43
  Nate: So discernment isn't the same thing as finding a clever justification for ever well for whatever you want to do already.
• 18:52
  Luis: So like I was already gonna do that, so let me walk through this process to justify my decision.
• 18:58
  Nate: Yeah, I was already gonna go trick or treat.
• 19:00
  Nate: So let me let me just throw some gospel tracks.
• 19:04
  Nate: In my in my pocket and say that I'm evangelizing, right?
• 19:07
  Nate: If a family walks through all of these questions and somehow always lands exactly where their personal preferences already were every single time with no real wrestling, that's not discernment, right?
• 19:18
  Nate: You're just decision making with a theological veneer sprinkled on top.
• 19:23
  Nate: Like it's it's Jesus dust applied to whatever you want to do.
• 19:26
  Nate: Yes, okay, which is not good.
• 19:27
  Luis: I've got this spinner, right?
• 19:28
  Luis: Lord, what do you want me to do?
• 19:30
  Luis: I flick the spinner.
• 19:31
  Luis: And you just put your thumb down?
• 19:32
  Luis: I just stop it where I want it to go.
• 19:33
  Luis: And it's like, oh, that's the way you want me to go, Lord.
• 19:35
  Luis: Okay, yeah.
• 19:36
  Luis: That's it.
• 19:36
  Luis: Don't do that what you're saying.
• 19:37
  Nate: Yep, yep, fair.
• 19:38
  Nate: Don't do that.
• 19:39
  Nate: Um or just like and some of that, I'm I'm gonna call out the churches that do this here.
• 19:44
  Nate: So you podcast at wingchristian.org if you want to get mad at me.
• 19:47
  Nate: But you know, there's the churches that do the costume parties to like as an anti-Halloween, yeah, right?
• 19:53
  Nate: But then somehow everybody at the costume party they have to dress up like Bible characters.
• 19:57
  Nate: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 19:58
  Nate: And then they find all like the goriest Bible characters.
• 20:00
  Nate: Yeah.
• 20:01
  Nate: So growing up in West Virginia, I had my church did this.
• 20:05
  Nate: And so my brother went as Stephen, like from Axe.
• 20:09
  Nate: Oh, okay.
• 20:10
  Nate: Who after he was stoned, it was it was the post.
• 20:14
  Nate: It was the post it was the post-stoning Stephen.
• 20:18
  Nate: He had like fake blood running down his face and stuff.
• 20:21
  Nate: And it was like, here's a here's a we're just doing a Christmas or a Christian Halloween, and it's like, but we still have like dead people.
• 20:26
  Nate: Hey, I'm one of the zombies that you know rose uh resurrected after Jesus died on the cross.
• 20:31
  Nate: You know, that like Christians are very creative.
• 20:33
  Luis: I'm Lazarus coming out of the house.
• 20:35
  Luis: Yeah, with the grapevist.
• 20:38
  Nate: We find ways to justify it and call it discernment.
• 20:41
  Nate: So that is not what we're talking about.
• 20:43
  Luis: I would be the character in the book of Judges who gets the peg through your forehead.
• 20:49
  Luis: Yeah, who was it?
• 20:50
  Nate: Would your wife be Jael who like pounded it?
• 20:52
  Nate: Yeah, she would be, and I'd be the guy.
• 20:54
  Nate: What is the name of the general?
• 20:55
  Nate: I just it's Derek.
• 20:57
  Nate: It's Deborah was the judge.
• 20:59
  Nate: Baric.
• 21:00
  Nate: I'm gonna have to look it up.
• 21:01
  Nate: It was Baric because when you're just Barrett, Baric was the the general.
• 21:04
  Nate: Who didn't do it, right?
• 21:06
  Nate: Right.
• 21:06
  Luis: So Baric was the one who was killed.
• 21:08
  Luis: No.
• 21:08
  Luis: Baric's the one who didn't.
• 21:09
  Nate: Alright, we're gonna have to look this up.
• 21:11
  Nate: Google it, right?
• 21:11
  Nate: There's two pastors who can't think of the name of the character.
• 21:15
  Luis: Real discernment should actually be uncomfortable, right?
• 21:20
  Luis: Like it should occasionally be uncomfortable.
• 21:22
  Luis: And it should sometimes mean sitting with a question longer than it feels convenient, or maybe even landing somewhere slightly different than you expected when you started, which means that the actual goal of this whole episode isn't to convince anyone to land on a particular answer.
• 21:43
  Luis: Like we're not telling you participate in Halloween, right, on October 31st.
• 21:47
  Luis: We're not telling you to not participate.
• 21:50
  Luis: What we're saying is modeling for your kids what it looks like to genuinely wrestle with something that culturally instead of just rejecting it reflexively or even just observ uh absorbing it uncritically.
• 22:04
  Luis: Yeah, that's that's really good.
• 22:05
  Luis: Sisera.
• 22:06
  Luis: Sisera was the one who was killed.
• 22:08
  Luis: So that's who I would be.
• 22:09
  Luis: I would be kidding.
• 22:09
  Luis: Debra was the judge.
• 22:10
  Nate: Yeah.
• 22:11
  Nate: Baric was the general.
• 22:12
  Nate: And Sisera ran away and Jael said, Hey, come hide in this den.
• 22:17
  Nate: Give him some milk, right?
• 22:18
  Nate: Yep, and put him to sleep, and then boom, boom, that's who I revealed it.
• 22:21
  Luis: So I would be Sisera with the through the peg through your head.
• 22:26
  Nate: Yeah, okay.
• 22:26
  Nate: There you go.
• 22:27
  Nate: So we got a lot of uh random sidetracks here in this episode, but hopefully we gave you a good framework to start thinking through not just Halloween, but any cultural issue that comes down the lane.
• 22:39
  Nate: So, Lewis, as we wrap up this episode, any final words for the parents listening to this today?
• 22:44
  Luis: Let me start off by giving a shout out to my friend Rick in Washington.
• 22:48
  Luis: If you ever want to shout out or you want us to shout out your kid, shoot us an email.
• 22:52
  Luis: Podcast at wingchristian.org.
• 22:54
  Luis: And Rick, uh, whatever your family decides to do this Halloween right, don't make the decision alone and then just announce it.
• 23:02
  Luis: But sit down with your kids, talk about it, walk through these questions together, and then let them see you actually think through it rather than just hand down this rule or this decision.
• 23:14
  Luis: Because the kid who watches you reason through Halloween with wisdom and conviction this year is the same kid who 10 years from now is going to know the process for how to reason through something that honestly is a lot harder than whether you go trick-or-treating or not.
• 23:33
  Nate: So thank you so much for joining us today, everybody.
• 23:36
  Nate: And I hope this episode was helpful for you.
• 23:39
  Nate: Um, if you found it helpful, you can please share it with another parent who um would find this episode helpful as well and leave us a review.
• 23:48
  Nate: Maybe you'll get a shout out, right?
• 23:49
  Nate: Like some have already.
• 23:51
  Nate: But uh, until then, keep leading the next generation to stand firm in their faith and influence the world for Christ.