Should a Christian Celebrate Halloween? With Ken and Tabatha Claytor

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I learned biblical principles of how to serve her , honor her , love her , and she did the same for me , and now we're best friends and we get to do this podcast together today , and so welcome If you are new to our podcast we're so pumped to have you .

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If you want more information about that , you can check out our website and try to get your tickets before they're sold out , and so we've got a special show for you all today . Man , we're going to get into a topic that might be controversial for some , but I think our heart is just to give different perspectives . You know we love the conversation .

We started this podcast because we want to help you grow closer to God and the people that God's placed in your life , and to be able to sometimes grow in God .

We have to have challenging conversations and even question some of our own behaviors and patterns and customs that are in the world and say what is God's will for us , and so I'm going to give them the title and you can just . I feel like I'm talking , so I'll let you just jump in . It's today's title is should a Christian celebrate Halloween ?

Should a Christian Celebrate ?

You know what are we doing here , you know and I think it's important .

But then after that there's gray areas and it's what we call conviction , and some of us God has convicted to certain things and some of us God hasn't . You know what I mean . And so there , like for me , I personally I don't watch horror movies and or anything even a little bit scary . I'm just not going there . I can't do it . It is a conviction for me .

Like no , I know , I'm not supposed to go there , I can't handle it . I will have nightmares , dreams , I just can't go there . But then I have other people and I know of other people who they can watch whatever they want to watch and they don't have nightmares and they're okay . Now , that's my conviction . Yeah Well , I wouldn't recommend that .

So we live inside of a healthy tension , I believe , of okay , here's what leads our life . Number one the word of God . So if the word says this , I'm going with that . Number two we have the Holy Spirit , which there's some things that the Bible isn't clear on . That's why we need a relationship with the Holy Spirit .

Romans says that the sons of God are led by the Spirit . But number three we also have godly leadership , and the Bible talks about how we have leaders Hebrews 13 , 17, . I believe that talks about how they watch over our souls as one who might give an account .

The scripture , Hebrews 6 , 12 , says follow them that , through faith and patience , have inherited the promises . And so those are the three major ways . Now the word of God is above them all . Then you got the Holy Spirit , where the word of God is not clear .

Then you have leadership , and I think that those are three ways that God has given us to try to figure out what's right and wrong . And I think sometimes there are some who , yes , the Bible is not clear about this . The Holy Spirit has not spoken to them about this .

They're not even really following leadership a certain way , so they don't have the convictions , maybe , that they could have or should have . And I think that sometimes there's a tension there of man , you come on , you are a believer , you have light living on the inside of you but you're watching the Exorcist all day long .

The Bible does talk about the sin of sorcery and witchcraft and occult practices , and you're being entertained by that , and so we do live in a tension , and I think it's okay to say that's a tension , and so I'll give a disclaimer to this whole Halloween thing .

This is not going to be the segment where Tabitha and myself try to tell you exactly what to do , but what we will share with you as a part of our viewing audience , and we just consider you family .

So the way we like to do a podcast is that we're creating just a spiritual family where we can have conversations and dialogue just to be a little bit better , to be a little bit more like God , to love people a little bit better . We don't have all the answers , but we're trying to figure it out along the way .

So we're not going to be perfect , but we will share our life with you . We will share with you how we've done what we've done to have 25 years of marriage and to have good fruit of disciples being made and different things like that . It's not perfect .

So , my disclaimer for today is this is that I want to share with people our perspective concerning Halloween , maybe even other holidays , what we've done to raise our children , how we view particular things , and then let our audience take the meat , leave the bones and let the Holy Spirit jump on whatever he wants to jump on to bring enlightenment to people .

I've talked too much . What you got .

There was a town parade that people dressed up and you know you , if you were in costume , you had a section where we get into the parade and we have a Halloween parade . There was parties , I mean , we had schools , we had school parades and it was like a whole thing . We decorated the house , everything .

And so , growing up , for me , like for Halloween , and my mom was really creative and like she knew how to do all the arts and crafts and that's where I get it from .

But , like , I remember being a witch , I mean , and I was maybe like 10 years old , eight , nine , 10 years old I was a witch , but I wasn't like a oh , that's a cute little witch , I was a get you witch , like I will get you okay . I had green skin . You know , I had a nose like a clay molded nose on me and warts on my face .

I mean I had messed up teeth , the hat , the broom , everything . I mean I was going to get someone . I remember that . I remember the worst costume I was was like this . I was supposed to be a ghost , but now I call it a demon .

I was a demon you hear me , because I had like this white sheet on and I had like red blood all over me and my skin was white and gray and black and I had one eye . I could only see out of one eye because it was covered up in this stuff and it was like gross and I had these teeth . I was horrible .

Because back in the day I mean I guess that was wanted to be a punk rocker . Because back in the day I mean I guess that was it . It was a punk rocker .

I remember being like , oh , I wish I didn't wear this now , but I look like a prostitute right , like as a 12 year old anyway , that was Halloween for me . It was a big , big deal . Um , and then I also grew up , uh , watching , I mean , we had a little witchcraft mingled into , you know , in beliefs , the Ouija board , spells .

I did spells and stuff , you know , to overcome like warts that I had on my body and stuff . We believed in demonic forces and darkness . I watched all of the movies Exorcist , the Evil Dead , you know all of this stuff and so I had this , like foundation of evil was glorified and you did it for fun and you did it , you know , for whatever .

So whenever I got saved , right , I had to , I mean , I had to be delivered from like the spirit of depression and demonic , you know things .

And so when I got saved , I had such a turnaround of being , you know , brought out of darkness into the light , literally , that I will say , and this is like conversation I went so hard on the other side , I acted like Halloween did not exist , I felt . And I had the same view toward Christmas as well . It was just like somebody told me about Santa Claus .

They said , well , why would you celebrate Santa Claus ? I was like because he's nice and he's wonderful and whatever . And they were like Santa is Satan spelled if you rearrange the letters . That was terrible . Now that's the dumbest thing ever . But you ran with that . Yeah , because then I found out it's St Nicholas , you know what I mean .

And then I found out it's St Nicholas , you know what I mean . And then I did the history . So , but I , for years we didn't have kids or anything . So I was like Santa is the devil , you know what I mean .

So I went so hard to the other side um , without being informed , without being educated , without knowing what the word says and all of that , you know as a new believer , because I just didn't want to be wrong . Okay , you know what I mean , I just wanted to do the right thing , and so I think that's where a lot of believers are .

I mean , and yearly I get asked this question Pastor Tab , do you celebrate Halloween Because you have a life and then you meet Jesus and you're like I don't want to be wrong . What's the truth ? What should I do and what shouldn't I do ?

It can be prosperity , and somebody does something wrong , and it's about money and it's about cars , and then we overcorrect and like we don't want to hear anything about it . But why do you have a job ? Then we understand God , you know , takes pleasure in the prosperity of his servant .

So you've overcorrected , and I think that that's what , when the scripture says that you have zeal with no knowledge . That's what happens when you're a new believer and you need time to be able to balance out .

So you went from dressing up like a witch , green skin , practicing sorcery and different things , found Jesus , and now you're like I hate October , st Nicholas and the Easter bunny , throw it all in the trash . It's Easter , the goddess of Easter dropping eggs , and if you do that at your church , you're a heathen , and so forth , and so on .

Okay , so where do we fall in all of this ? And so what I've seen in our journey is that I'm glad that we have deep convictions . I am so glad .

Now , this is what over the years and I have people come to church and they say , well , do y'all celebrate this ? Almost like if we celebrate that , they're out . It doesn't matter that we led 6,000 people to Jesus this year . It doesn't matter that we baptize almost 1,000 people this year .

It doesn't matter how many miracle signs and wonders and a woman got healed from cervical cancer . That doesn't matter If we're going to celebrate this . I'm out Now and what I've learned in my studies is that many times Christians would put a holiday around a pagan holiday to be able to win people .

So even if you look at the history of Halloween and maybe we can get into that a little bit . There was . It first started off as like a Celtic thing that had some really pagan roots to it , but then there was a Pope .

That kind of made like a time where you're supposed to celebrate dead saints or those saints who had passed away which isn't biblical anyway , which ain't biblical either , and so they tried to put something that was went from all hollows Eve to all saints something that was a little bit Christian around , something that was a little bit secular , and but you can see

that in many different , many different holidays .

can . It's almost like there's a Christian holiday that's put around , something that's pegging , and I think the idea was to use our light in darkest times to try to win people to Jesus . So , as a believer , we got a couple of things we can do . We can say oh , it's dark out here , everybody run and hide .

Because when it comes to Halloween , I mean just share with people , because we've been up and down on that thing . I mean we have a 19 year old , a 15 year old and a 13 year old , and really one of the months that I don't like the most is October .

Come on , because when October comes you can't go into the Walgreens , the CVS or the drugstore without some witch , some ghost , some goblins and we cast out demons . I don't- .

Also , it is the time we have a live conference , so it's a time of great impartation for our church . But then when we come to the end of the month , we got this Halloween where everybody thinks it's okay to dress up as ghost demons , goblins , witches , warlocks .

I mean we , we went and we evangelized as Christians , we evangelized the pagans . You know what I mean . So we made them believers and I see how we went to all saints and said , okay , we're going to make this good and I get that , but it's still not biblical . There's nothing good about it , okay .

October 31st is the biggest , most celebrated holiday for those reasons and for people who practice the occult Right . And so that's number two . That's why I don't like it . Number three I just don't like the spirit behind it and like why we live in a nice neighborhood and we just moved and I'm really excited , you know . I'm like , yay , you know .

But there's one of our neighbors it's this beautiful house , right , and they started like like September 1st , okay , decorating for Halloween , and it was like , oh , that's cute , but they have a whole graveyard , there's a whole graveyard in their front yard and there's like skeletons and spiders and like demons . Like that's what I don't like about it .

Like I am not going to glorify evil .

I expect the world to behave like the world . But the problem is for those of us who say no , I believe in Jesus , that he's the Lord . That word Lord means master , ruler and controller . That means old things have to pass away .

And behold , there needs to be some new behaviors , perspectives , new philosophies , new traditions , and we really got to put under a magnifying glass some of the things that we participate in .

So there is nowhere in my theological understanding or spiritual past of 23 years walking with Jesus closely , where I think that celebrating the dead , black magic , voodoo , sorcery , witchcraft , the occult Ouija boards or any of that is okay for a believer . I'm telling you , you're opening up a door to the demonic .

Like , oh , there's a demon , oh , I'm in a haunted house and somebody's jumping out at me . I'm going to be afraid , and here's the reason why I cast out devils . That's my job and so I'm going to share this experience . So I have had several experiences with just deliverance . I've had several experiences with , you know , just deliverance .

One experience in particular I remember the most , because it kind of made me angry and a little offended and I had to , as a minister , kind of like , okay , it ain't about me , this is about Jesus , you know .

But in the moment there was a person who had been manifesting and this person had many demons that we cast out and at one point they were screaming obscenities , profanities and like convulsing and everything .

And at one point it threw the person on the ground and they just laid on the ground like they were dead , I mean just laying there , and I became very concerned like , oh my gosh , she was . They were just tripping and going crazy .

But now they're just laying there flat and I just looked there for a second and I didn't say anything and the demon spoke through this person and said ha ha , I win , you lose . I had never been so infuriated and angry and righteously indignated , I mean , in my life . And so I just shared that little adventure . We cast that devil out .

So no , because every devil is a liar . It got cast out in the name of Jesus and that person was set free the same night . But here's my point how can I have the authority to cast out demons when I am afraid of them at the same time ? Do you know what I mean ? I can't watch this movie .

I can't drive past my neighbor's house saying look at the nice little demon over there . That's outrageous to me from my perspective , from your perspective .

You know we got a lot of friends . I even have friends that are pastors and I get on Instagram around Halloween and I see people dressing up and everyone has different things that they believe . You know , we do an event called Light the Night where we allow people to come and dress up and it's solely to try to win the world in light the night .

But I see people that , based upon my convictions , I feel like , man , you guys are taking it pretty far , and so I know that I'm not here once again to say , hey , that's evil , that's wrong , you're right . But I think your background is interesting . So mine is like this I grew up see , you grew up unchurched . You got saved when you was 24 years old .

I expect that I grew up in a very traditional Protestant church and I remember that we would go trick-or-treating sometimes . I remember dressing up nothing like witches and warlocks for the most part I can't even remember . I don't feel like we made Halloween a big deal , but this is what I do remember .

I remember that my church would have a haunted house in the church and they would have it up there in the hallway on the second floor and it was a big thing as a little kid . And so we would have a Halloween party and kids would come . They would be dressed up like witches and warlocks and everything .

They didn't put out any kind of statement like , hey , you can come , don't dress up . They didn't say anything like that . So people would come and I remember we would go upstairs and we kind of walked through the dark and this is in the church , in the hallway , people be grabbing our legs and we'd be running through and everything you know .

And later on , after I really rededicated my life to the Lord and God , filled with the Holy Spirit , I said you know what ? That probably wasn't a good thing for a church to do . That probably wasn't .

Now I love my church , I love the people , but I do think that we all have to grow in understanding and I do feel like there's a lot of people that believe in Jesus but they don't understand the realness of the demonic . Now , this is what we know that everything that we see comes from an arena that we cannot see .

So the natural is not more real than the spiritual . The spiritual is more real than the natural , and there's a scripture that says that we wrestle not against flesh and blood , but powers , principalities , rulers of darkness , spiritual wickedness and high places . Those are four hierarchies of demons . The Bible says that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal .

That means they're not fleshy . They're mighty through God , through the pulling down of strongholds . That means that there is a spiritual war that's happening that people can't see , and people who are hearing this and say I've never heard anything like that before . Yeah , you're not going to find this on Fox or CNN . We're dealing with spiritual problems .

See , you do not win spiritual battles with natural means , and there's a lot like poverty is not just a natural problem , it's a spiritual problem . You can't just fix it by throwing money at it .

We wrestle not against flesh and blood , but against powers and principalities , and I think that , as a believer , we need to lean in to the spirit arena to understand angels , demons , god , satan , the authority that God's given us and the power that's in the blood . So we've seen a lot of people get delivered in our church lately Every Sunday .

After every service , demons are being cast out . Because we're not entertaining demons , we're casting them out . And I think that's the proper posture for the believer , same as it is in our home . There can be a scary commercial that will come on in between the game . We'll get our control Turn it off . Turn it off .

You're not because I can feel it on my arms , like when the commercial is coming on . I can feel the demonic . I don't play with that , we don't play with that , we don't play with it . So our encouragement to you , as believers , would not be to project our convictions , but just to say think about it .

Just think about the things that were entertaining that secular , ungodly , dark magic , black magic , occult . And I even feel like somebody's going to get set free today , as you make a decision that I renounce that wickedness that was in my life in the past . But I do want to talk a little bit because you so . You started off as a dress up like a witch .

You got saved . You went way the other way . Then we had kids then we had kids and having kids created a different thing because , like , they want to go to the party at school . And I remember years that we was like , hey , we're not going to do halloween , so we go to the movies .

Okay , I think , first of all , what we did and I think this is key is that we educated our children . Okay , so we would and age appropriately , we would say , you know , if they're like seven , eight , hey , this is what Halloween is . Um , it has , you know , a bad background . People did bad things on that day .

But we do understand that people are , you know , having parties and they're going to go out and have fun , and so we can go out and participate , you know , and have a little fun , and even now , like that feels really weird for me to say that , but I have to begin to educate my kids to say no , we don't celebrate Halloween . We don't celebrate Halloween .

participation , and if yeah , my problem with that is that when you so , number one , I don't want to make my kids weird and I'm not saying that them living wholly and being separate is weird , but what I'm saying is that sometimes we can do that we can actually separate them so much from just friends , camaraderie and fellowship that you create a kid that doesn't

know how to be in the world , but not of it .

I'm going to teach them holiness and godliness , I'm going to raise the level of their conviction .

Then I'm going to give them some freedom to make some decisions , still with my coaching and still with my guardrails , and I'm going to teach them not to run from the world , but to be the light in the middle of the world , and so for what that meant for us , is that okay , maybe you can dress up like a superhero .

You're not dressing up like nothing black magic , sorcery , witches , warlocks , any of that but if you want to dress up like Mickey Mouse or if you want to be like goofy or somebody I mean they do that when they go to Disney- Princess yeah . They do that when they go to . If you want to be Dora Dora the Explorer , okay , well , that's fine .

Okay , but I'm going to continue to have conversations because that's just for fun , okay . So that is one of the positions that we take . Like it or leave it . That's just a position .

If you want to go out and get some candy on our street or go to a church that's doing a hallelujah night or light the night or something like that , okay , you can dress up like something that's harmless . We're going to go out and have fun . We can bring your other friends along with you . We're not going to run from this night .

We're actually going to go and be in the light in this night . We found that that kind of gave our kids history space to make good decisions . And now , as they grew up , like we have a 19 year old and even when she was like a senior in high school , she'd be like , well , my friends are having this party , she might go for a minute , then leave .

Our kids are like very uninterested in it . You know what I'm saying Now ? Kids want to have fun .

And so I think , even with our kids , and deciding what we're going to do on this Halloween all throughout their childhood is , we always had to kind of balance that into that . I'm not going to hide in my house and be afraid of what's going on in the world .

In fact , if this is the darkest night of the world , I need to be out there shining my light and letting people know about the truth and about Jesus .

And so when we did take our kids out or participate in little things and or let them dress up , we were never participating in like evil , like you know , scary stuff , but we did go to festivals and festivities or going around the neighborhood with the other kids and stuff as a light in the darkness , and that's a perspective that some people don't like , but we

just had to . We , we want to shine our light okay , and why did you say that ?

There are so many people who don't know Jesus , there are so many people who , you know , have never been to church , been to church , and so to have something where we maybe engage culture more not celebrating Halloween , but being a light in the darkest night to say , hey , instead of going there or there , come here .

Well , we're going to give candy to your kids and we're going to have bounce houses and rides and things like that and have a great time , but we're also going to connect with you and give you Jesus . We're going to provide an avenue for you to grow closer to God . I think that's great .

It's there are people who are out in our cities that would never come to a church service . But if you have a community event , they might come on the property . And if they come on the property , we're going to try to show them the love of God and give them an opportunity to hear the gospel .

And we've seen so many hundreds , if not thousands , of people come to Jesus Over the years .

We've been off and on with it because it's a very , very expensive event to do with the way that we've done it , but it's our way to take something that's bad and do something good with it , and so for me that's been a great alternative for our church to have that for our kids .

It's just one of those times that I wish that we can pray away , but instead we've just decided to say OK , let's be a light in a dark place .

It's so fabulous . So I decorate for the fall where it's just a happy fall . Y'all and the neighbors love it . And again , it's just a way to be a light and a way for our kids to be happy to decorate and just do some fun stuff .

What would be your words of advice concerning Halloween and any other holiday that has , you know , when it comes to the Easter bunny or it comes to Santa Claus ? You know we can have all these different opinions and perspectives about it , but what would be your leaving ?

I thank God for ministry gifts and things that lead us in the right direction , but I would say , to get the information that we gave you today , find out more information for yourself . Ask questions to people that you trust .

So get information and then take it to God and go with what he says . Go with your conviction .

You should have strong convictions for you and your house , and even if you go to a church that does something like a Halloween event that you don't particularly enjoy , just skip it and then come back next Sunday with the right attitude and start making disciples and do everything else you don't enjoy it . Okay , that's fine . Maybe it's not for you .

I mean , I can actually , as a pastor , tell people that this is not for you . Like . We want you to come and serve . Please donate some candy . This is a very expensive event that we do . It's about $20,000 at each campus and we have multiple campuses . You know what I'm saying .

Please get behind it and bring your unsafe friends , but if you don't like it , please don't judge everything that we do and say based upon an outreach event that we're trying to have , and so for me , there's a level of becoming all things to all men to win some .

When I look at Jesus , he ate with tax collectors and sinners and drank and they said he was one . So I saw him as a man who knew how to engage culture . Even the woman who was , by the well , the Samaritan woman she had five husbands before the man she was living with wasn't even her husband . She was a woman and she was a Samaritan .

He had to literally send his disciples away to have a conversation with this woman because he would have been so ridiculed . Jesus had a way of knocking down what everybody else thought to get the people he wanted to reach , and I think that if we take that posture , yeah , we might have Santa Claus here , we might have an Easter Bunny in the parking lot .

That is 100% for the people who don't normally come to church . But when we come to church we're gonna give them Jesus developing the fruit of the spirit , the gifts of the spirit . And other people might not have that conviction . That's okay . You have liberty to have your own convictions . So I never want other people who do something different than me .

But I'm a challenging person . That's one of my giftings . That God is say okay , how are we doing this ? Could we live more holy ? Could we live more blameless ? But at the same time . I never want to overcorrect and everybody else is a demon and I'm the one with the answer . I think you've missed the point then .

Anyhow , I think we're done for this for today . I hope you guys enjoyed it . Okay , you have light the night coming up in seven days . Hey , I wanna pray for you , though I really believe that there's someone who's listening to this that you've been involved in black magic and didn't even know that it was a problem .

You know , tabitha has went through years of renewing her mind and even receiving deliverance and inner healing from the demonic doors that were open in the past , and she's passionate about holiness and passionate about standing and keeping the enemy against her feet , and I know you can hear that in her voice .

But there's also an anointing that God's given us to be able to set the captive free . And , without question , if you've been involved in even things as light as horoscopes , anytime that you're trying to get spiritual answers without the Holy Spirit , you might get an unholy spirit .

And if you're here and you've been following , you believe in the evil eye , or you've been looking at your horoscope , or you've been calling witch doctors , or you've been trying to summons the dead or going into palm reading , tarot card reading .

I want you to know that is a demonic door that you want to renounce and close right now , and so , if that's you , could you just pray this prayer with us and just say Father , in Jesus name , I renounce the working of darkness , sorcery , witchcraft and evil , supernaturalism . I renounce it right now . Come on , say that I renounce it right now .

I'm done with those things . Fill me with your Holy Spirit . Sweetheart , would you just pray for the people ?

We pray for just wisdom , understanding and knowledge to begin to take place in their heart , Father , so they can take the right steps , go through the right doors , close the wrong doors , and that you would lead them into the right paths in their life . In Jesus' name , amen .

If this podcast is a blessing to you , you consider yourself a part of our online family , we would love to get to know you , hear your story , hear your testimony , so that we can share it as well . We have people writing in all of the time and some people even binge watch it .

Go back , listen to things that we did last year and we hope that it brings great value to your life . Okay , and our show notes is a lot of connections to our websites , other products that we have , information about our church in Florida , also a live conference coming up every October in the second week .

And just know that when you get better , the marriage , the relationship will get better , and so let's keep journeying together . We'll see you next week , peace .