The Texas branch of the Blackmore family were all dressed up for action tonight and from what we hear, had a great time mixing with families throughout the neighborhood.

Here on Long Island, we spent a couple of hours with dozens of kids from our church at Fun4All, the huge indoor play center in Port Jefferson Station.

Halloween has presented issues for Christian families for years and now that our consumer society has blown it up into the second biggest spending event of the year (after Christmas) and the word “holiday” has actually been attached to it, it may be time to work out some way to live comfortably with this annual festival of costumes, dress and enough candy to sink the Titanic.

Though I may be accused of naivete and over-simplification, I think there are probably three levels to Halloween -

1. There’s a whole Satanic thing that goes on at this time of the year, in dark places and away from public gaze.

2. There’s a whole role playing, costume thing that glamorizes horror, blood, death and darkness.

3. There’s a fun few hours when young children dress up as princesses, pirates or comic book heroes and collect candy from generous neighbors under the watchful scrutiny of their parents.

While #3 could lead to #2 and in turn #2 could become #1, that is not necessarily the way things progress.

We each choose what we do about Halloween, if anything … and if you choose #3 I think that’s a good way to go.

Spent a good couple of hours with nine other local pastors this morning. we generally meet once a month, drink some coffee, talk about what’s going on and then pray for a while. Nobody’s there to impress, so there are no egos flying around and it’s a comfortable place to share with others who are building church in the Patchogue/Medford area.

Of course, we’re in a different town altogether nowadays, but these are some guys I’ve got close to over the past several years, so the fact we’re in Ronkonkoma changes nothing.

Over the years I’ve had my fill of self-centered separatists who are so threatened by every other pastor on the planet that they fellowship with none.

We all need each other. I was blessed to be part of a small group of well connected pastors back in Scotland and it seems that at last something similar has developed here.

It’s good!

+ Watching Monday Night Football. It’s brilliant to see Brett Favre and the Packers doing so well this season, especially after the universal calls for this champion quarterback to retire after a poor showing last season. This year he’s baaaaack – mark up one for the old guys.

+ Had a quieter day today than expected. Non-stop, but no pressure stuff at all.

+ Visited a few stores with Gill and Charlotte looking for a few things for both our homes. Bought very little.

+ Went to a wake, saw one of the many families that have moved from the Island and out of our church, to pursue life in the more affordable setting of Florida’s sunshine.

+ Ran 6.75 miles on the treadmill this morning and then 1.5 miles on the elyptical. I often reflect on my first visit to the gym almost three years ago now when I used to walk one mile and was shot.

+ Since the Giants played in London yesterday, people are asking me if football is catching on in England. Of course it’s not. They play soccer and cricket over there. There’s only one reason the NFL dragged two teams across the Atlantic on this ridiculous venture – money. Soccer will never be big in the U.S. and football will never be huge over there. Heck, the vast majority of the people don’t even understand the game and see no reason why they need to.

+ Frank taught the last part of our marriage series brilliantly yesterday. He doesn’t teach a lot, but when he does he sure has something to say.

+ Gill’s friend came again. I enjoyed the cocktail party we went to at her house Friday night. She said she wouldn’t tell people there I am a pastor as that makes them act weird (of course she’s dead right).

+ When someone asked me what I do, I said I head up a not-for-profit that operates relief programs in third world countries. All of which is absolutely true! I thought that was funny, but then I’m sick!

+ Still no word on what’s happening at rogerblackmore.com. Glad you found me this way, but traffic is way down. Need to resolve this issue, but can’t get a hold of the guy with the answers.

+ Looks like the Yankees have got their new manager. Looking at the Red Sox this past season, it could be another several years before a World Series games comes back to the Bronx.

+ Meeting a group of pastors for breakfast tomorrow to discuss our final thrust to see the people we want elected to the Town Board.

+ Leaving for India next Monday, so won’t be sleeping as much next MOnday night as I hope to tonight. It’s a 14.5 hours over night flight from NY to Mumbai. Looking forward to seeing the folks over there.

I loved this comment by Rick Warren during an interview by Hannity & Colmes last week. The best-selling author of The Purpose Driven Life had been describing his church’s efforts to assist victims of the California wildfires and had this to say about his own family’s experience during the 2003 fires -

We could see the flames from our backyard. During that fire, our own family was told to evacuate. We were warned a couple of hours in advance, so we had a couple of hours to think about, “What will we take with us and what will we leave behind.?”

You know, we didn’t even fill our car completely. We packed up pictures, and some papers, and our bibles, and some hard drives, but that was about it. We realized that most of it was very replaceable. It is just stuff, that in the bottom line The greatest things in life are not things..

When disasters come along, we realize that our value is not found in our valuables, and that our self-worth is not tied to our net worth. It is in times like these that we realize there’s a whole lot more important in life than what’s material.. The spiritual and relational parts of life are far more important.

When we sat down in January to talk about what we felt we should cover in our teaching this year, it was Lesaya who suggested we do another marriage series (we did one in the Spring of ‘05) and she got it absolutely right.

You would not believe how many people are giving us positive feedback from ONE – Building A Marriage That Lasts, which comes to a conclusion tomorrow morning.

I maintain that since there are only 52 Sundays in a year, it is vitally important that we address the issues that matter most. Now that means obscure traditional areas of interest among Christians don’t appear on our radar too often. There’s nothing to stop anyone pursuing those incidentals themselves, while we concentrate on essentials – of which marriage is one.

I know I’m the most recognizable public face of our leadership team, but pastoring this great church is very much a joint effort. I appreciate each individual God has brought alongside me and the unique gifts they bring to the table. So our planning is a shared venture and of course our teaching is too. We do better together than I could ever do alone.

Our marriage series illustrates this.

Great call Lesaya!

I’ve had more emails from local pastors this week than I generally have from them in a year and it seems as if there is a major problem about to hit Long Island this weekend.

All these guys are freaking out because the north east Witches Conference will be held in our area tomorrow and they are recommending steps to take to minimise the impact of these purveyors of darkness. Seems like their visit has got people running scared.

Quote:
For the past year and a half, the Lord has revealed to me that the devil was sending witches and satanists from all over the world to this area to try to stop the move of God on our island.

Okay, let’s pause here for a second.

Witches and satanists coming from all over to stop the move of God.

Like they can?

Can anyone stop God?

I kind of feel sorry for them, because not only are these folks misguided, they’re also wasting their hard earned cash traveling to this neck of the woods to try to do something that doesn’t stand a bat’s chance in the other place of succeeding.

This reminds me of a story of an uneducated but very powerful English preacher from the last century Smith Wigglesworth. In his biography there is an account of a time when Wigglesworth woke up in the night and sensed something strange in the room. Looking at the foot of the bed, he saw a manifestation of the devil right there. The preacher commented, Oh, it’s only you and promptly turned over and went back to sleep.

Seems to me that there was a man who knew how big his God is.

He knew God’s promises too – after all the Bible does promise that the Angel of the Lord camps around those who fear Him and delivers them.

There’s a call for Christians to converge today on the same hotel the witches will be using to set up a wall of worship to protect the Island. I think that’s an excellent idea! – It’s always safe to have a backup plan just in case the Angel of the Lord isn’t up to the job.

Personally I’m going to a cocktail party.

If God isn’t looking after us, we may as well all give up. If he is – here’s what Paul says in Romans 8 -

I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Although I am putting quite a bit of effort into getting key people elected on November 6th so that we get a new Town Board that will change the town code to clear the way for us to build, I must admit I love doing church in a movie theater.

A pastor told me this week that we have perfected the art, but I am sure there are a lot of good churches out there doing theater church even better than us.

I like the neutral ground.

I like that it’s not a religious environment.

I like that our total overhead for a building is our weekly rent.

I like stadium seating.

I like cupholders in every seat.

I like all the space we get to use.

I like that there is still plenty of space to grow into.

I like milking the movie theater theme.

I like being different.

I like the huge screen that is provided for us at no extra cost.

I like being on a major road with high visibility.

I like the casual environment.

I like doing something that’s pretty unique on Long Island, even though its commonplace elsewhere.

Some people can’t get their heads around the idea. Some pastors can’t either, but for those of us crazies who are doing it all around the country, theater church is the way to go!

If you found me today you did well.

People who usually access my blog through www.rogerblackmore.com are probably more than a little confused as that link is not working today.

I’m wondering if the domain name has expired, but have failed to make contact with the guy who bought it for me and set things up so that it forwarded traffic here.

The wonders of technology!

I’m lost in cyberspace.

If the Town of Brookhaven that we live in was a city, it would be the 33rd largest metropolis in the USA, bigger than places like Atlanta, New Orleans and Miami.

And two weeks from today the half million people who live in the townships that make up Brookhaven will have the opportunity to elect a new Town Board. Incredibly few more than 25% of them will actually show up at a polling place.

When I was learning the right answers for my interview with the INS to determine whether I could become an American citizen, I read that the top response to the question “What are the benefits of becoming a U.S. citizen?” is expected to be “Having the right to vote.”

Seems like thousands of people have lost sight of what a privilege it is to live in a democracy, but with a lot at stake for churches in this area, I hope that churchgoers at least will not be found wanting.

I spent an evening with the Republican candidates tonight as a guest of Robert DiCarlo who is standing for Supervisor (that’s like the mayor to the uninitiated!) and had a good chat with several of them. I am very impressed with Roberta Owens who would become the first African American member of the Town Board and who is also a very committed Christian.

I can’t vote for her as she’s not in my district, but I’m not complaining as we have a great candidate in our district – Jane Bonner.

I voted already as I will be in India on election day, but you can be sure I’ll be impatiently awaiting word of the outcome.

This from my friend Gary Lamb, church planter, radical and thoroughly great guy fromCanton, GA -