I live in Salem, Massachusetts. We have 31 days of Halloween in Salem. I have been here for 20 years. I pastored a church in town for almost 18 of those years. This means that I have effectively experienced 600 years of Halloween. We have had teams of people from chruches around the US and … More Christians and Halloween: Help! What do I do?!
Back in the summer, I spent a day with the Church Mission Society in Oxford, England. I taught on the subject of working in festival settings. Afterwards, I did a short interview with Naomi Steinberg about Halloween, Burning Man, learning to befriend Witches, and general festival outreach. You can find the interview at the top … More Interview with Church Mission Society in the UK
That’s right. I’ve got a new book coming out in a few short days. On October 1st, The Reformation of Halloween: rethinking Christianity’s response to Halloween is coming out. This is a topic I am passionate about, and it’s fair enough to say that I probably have more experience with missional activity on Halloween than … More New Book! The Reformation of Halloween
Here are a few more thoughts after the Coachella Music Festival. I helped Joshua Hanson’s Kingdom Promotions work with non-profit ministry rehab programs. They help men and women both young and old learn to work and re-enter life after drugs and alcohol. 180 men and women worked the festival and raised money to support their … More Post Coachella Update
For the last 30 years, I have been swimming upstream, but it seems that the tide is changing. Perhaps, I have not been swimming upstream after all. Like the tidal surge that reaches far upstream in rivers like the Amazon, the Severn and the Wye, and the Qiangtang it could be that the river was … More 30 Years of Swimming Upstream? Halloween, Culture and Church Life
Halloween has become one of the largest, most influential holidays in America, and is gaining ground in other countries as well. It is a day filled with costuming, horror images, candy, and community openness. That combination seems strangely out of synch with sensibility at first glance, but those issues may not be as far apart … More Halloween for Christians: How to Respond to It
Today, I learned that phlebotomists and nurses are like pastors, but it wasn’t a good lesson, or at least it wasn’t an easy lesson. This morning, someone tried to draw blood from the back of my hand. Not once, but three times. Not only did she miss, she went through the vein – beyond it … More Bad Pastors are Like Bad Phlebotomists
Phil Wyman: Dim Saesneg 