Light in the Night: Students Turn Halloween into a Holy Win

Students in Lincoln chose to see Halloween as a mission opportunity to declare and share the light of Jesus in their University and city. 

DELCARING 

As a teenager, Niamh was deeply involved in witchcraft—performing rituals and spells, using tarot cards, and seeking to communicate with spirits. Halloween was one of the most significant nights of the year for her spiritually; she would spend the entire day preparing for the rituals she planned to carry out that evening.

Now, having encountered the transforming love of Jesus, Niamh feels a strong call to create space for intercession and declaration of the light of Jesus over campus during Halloween - redeeming the night that once represented darkness into one of hope and the power of Christ. When we chatted, Niamh shared with us how the evening went:

"35 students came to worship and pray for those who are lost and yet to know Jesus. As we were praying I saw an image of water gushing down the streets of Lincoln, with doors on the streets which were being pushed open by this flood of water. I really got the sense that God was saying that there is going to be a revival within Lincoln, throughout the generations which will be unstoppable.

After the event had come to an end, we went out onto the streets to share with people the light of Jesus and highlight to students that there is more to life than the darkness they are living in. As we headed out we began to sing worship songs as people were walking by and this caught the attention of people and allowed us to have amazing conversations."

 

SHARING 

At the same time on the same night, a separate group of students also decided to seize this mission opportunity. Haydn, a second year student was one of them:

"I wanted to do something proactive because I felt that there’s a misconception among non Christians that Christians think they’re high and holier than thou, so dressing up on halloween and sharing the good news was a good way to break that stigma. 

We had people come up to us, we prayed for a bunch of people and not a single person declined being prayed for.

One guy walked straight up to me and said ‘f Jesus’. Instead of reacting, I asked him if he had a question. He said ‘why does Jesus not just end cancer’. I made a choice in that moment to show Christ’s compassion rather than give him an epistemic critique of the problem of evil. He then allowed me to pray for him and as he walked away he said ‘God bless you brother’. I was amazed at how quickly his heart softened."

Jack, was also part of the group that went out: "I decided when we went out on the streets that I would go as a giant inflatable shark. We figured people would be super happy to talk to us if we were dressed up, and it was also a really good conversation starter. 

We wandered up and down the high street with a cardboard sign saying ‘ask me about Jesus’ and ‘Jesus loves you’ on the other side. Lots of people chatted to us about our outfits and were asking for pictures, this provided a super easy way to start conversations that lead to sharing the gospel. I even managed to use the line ‘if you were eaten by a shark where do you think you’d go’. 

We spoke to a mix of students and non-students who were going out, spoke to tons of them about the gospel, answered lots of questions about Jesus, prayed for so many people and even managed to pray for some homeless people and get them some food. 

We already know the openness of people today, especially young adults, so it just felt wrong not to use an opportunity like Halloween to glorify God and share him with everyone we can. We’d all been praying about it beforehand and it really felt like God was with us and speaking through us to the people we were talking to."

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What missional opportunities are there on your doorstep?

How could you use Christmas, New year, Valentines day, Easter or your every day ordinary as a key missional opportunity to reach a generation of students who are curious about faith in Jesus.