Friday, November 04, 2011
family faith: at Halloween/All Saints part 2
One of the members of team Taylor went “peace-treating” this Halloween. They were keen to join the fun. And be with friends. Others in the family were uneasy with the very concept of trick-or-treating – that sense of expecting a handout.
So a healthy discussion ended in “peace-treating.” They would knock on doors and speak peace to every home. (Yep echoes of Luke 10:1-10!) To practically embody peace, they took along a collection of peace quotes on paper, which they handed out. They are into peace in a big way, so this was a perfect fit with their personality. It meant that rather than get, they would give – verbal peace, the presence of peace, a peace quote.
So off they went and had a great time. It seemed a creative way of practising faith in our world today. It brought to mind some quotes by Miroslav Volf, which I used in the chapter on gospel/culture in my The Out of Bounds Church?: Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a Culture of Change.
“’Gospel’ always involves a way of living in a social environment….”
“[T]here is no single proper way for Christians to relate to a given culture as a whole. Instead, there are numerous ways of accepting, rejecting, subverting or transforming various aspects of a culture….” Miroslav Volf, “Soft Difference. Theological Reflections on the Relation between Church and Culture in 1 Peter.” Ex Auditu 10 (1994), 15-30.
(This is another entry (P=peace-treating) in dictionary of everyday spirituality. For the complete index of all entries, go here).
How did people respond? Did they get peace back? Or did people give them peace sweets?
Comment by Duncan — November 4, 2011 @ 2:11 pm
Did anyone get peaced off? So asks the media and communications intensive. :>)
Comment by Duncan — November 4, 2011 @ 2:12 pm
I like it, subversive way of offering something different to what people were expecting, nice one team Taylor
Comment by Geoff — November 4, 2011 @ 5:41 pm
Love this idea 🙂 … looking forward to 31st October 2012 so that we can put it into practice here. Thank you.
Comment by Nel Shallow — November 10, 2011 @ 10:31 am
Thanks Nel. I’d love to see a pic of what you do 🙂
steve
Comment by steve — November 10, 2011 @ 2:03 pm