Light Night

Photo: iStock

BY the time you read this, no doubt the supermarkets will already be filling up with plastic witches and skeletons, and fun packs of sweets to hand out to trick-or-treaters.

You may not know this, but the word Halloween is thought to have a Scottish Christian origin – from All Hallows Even, the evening before All Hallows’ (Saints’) Day. But with its increasingly commercialised association with evil and darkness, it is hardly surprising that most Scottish churches want as little to do with the modern secular Halloween as possible.

However, an increasing number of churches are running events to offer an alternative to Halloween. Often called a ‘light night’ or ‘light party’, they can be mainly about offering the community a more wholesome alternative to trick or treat, or can be more explicitly missional.

“I think at the heart of why we offer an alternative, is to recognise that our culture is going to do this anyway, but we want to provide for children (our own and locally) an alternative which focuses on God’s light and goodness, rather than the darker character and ideas usually associated with the season,” says the Rev Scott Burton, minister of Brightons Parish Church near Falkirk.

“Last year we had a cross on the front steps of the church all lit up, and people dropped off little tea-light jam jars over the course of the early evening, with the option of also doing a ‘light hunt’ – kind of like a treasure hunt, but looking for special lights in people’s windows by following clues.”

Similarly, at Elgin St Giles two years ago they used Scripture Union light night resources alongside the traditional Halloween activities such as bobbing for apples, crafts and food. Pumpkins were carved with a ‘J’ for Jesus, crosses and hearts to illustrate that Jesus is the light in the darkness.

Sonia Palmer, who organised the event, said: “The children had a great time and went away feeling that Jesus was to be celebrated with light rather than celebrating the darkness of Halloween!”

There were also pumpkins at Kirkton Parish Church in the Borders last year. Youth and children’s worker Lesley Ewing invited local families to write what they were thankful for on a pumpkin and bring them to church, where they were placed in a ‘grateful pumpkin patch’.

Lesley says the pumpkin patch was a response to all the uncertainty and worry around Covid-19, but it was such a success she is planning on repeating the initiative this year. “I wanted to do something that would enable my children, young people and their families to focus on the things in their lives that they could be grateful and thankful for. I choose to run it at Halloween as I wanted to bring some light into what is generally thought of as a time of darkness.

“It was wonderful – although exceptionally cold and wet when standing outside the church for two nights! Not only did I have children and their families come along but I also had some of our older members from our congregation bring pumpkins along. The display remained outside the Church for a few nights and at our evening service that week our congregation took the time to read all the wonderful things that had been written on the pumpkins.”

Julie Robertson is the new children, family and youth worker at Trinity Church Strathaven, in South Lanarkshire. She previously held a similar role at Chalmers Parish Church in Larkhall. She says she has been using the Scripture Union materials to hold light parties for over a decade. Most recently, in 2019, she held a neon party featuring the usual Halloween games but also a talk and craft session around Christ as the light within us. Julie says: “The first year I held one nobody came! But in subsequent years we were up to about 30 children, most of whom had some church connection but not necessarily with Sunday worship – they were from the toddler groups, holiday clubs or after school clubs.”

For the neon party in 2019, Julie admits she ‘massacred’ the various resources provided by Scripture Union and ‘stitched them back together’ into something that fitted the various groups she was aiming to reach.

“We had it on a Friday night in the Church Hall, and we made it quite clear that it was a light party, not a Halloween party. We said no scary costumes – no witches, warlocks or vampires – and asked that people came dressed as something fun. So people came as superheroes or fairies, and one person came dressed as a crayon!”

This year, her first at Strathaven, Julie is hoping to reuse the neon party but is making her plans adaptable to whatever Covid-19 restrictions may be in place.

“I’m looking at what we can do indoors and outdoors. If we can’t get into the church, we could make some sort of prayer path around the building.”

She says that such events work both as a service to the community but can also serve a more missional purpose. “It’s partly to fill a need – our young people expect to have a party at that time of year, so it serves that community aspect where families and kids are excited about Halloween and getting dressed up. But we’re also using it as an opportunity to give a different perspective, to spread the word about the light of Christ.” ¤