Over 4 decades ago, I was the creative director of a series of “haunted houses.” Danny, my business partner, and I staged dozens of these walk thru attractions throughout the early 1980’s. How did we get involved in this line of work? I’m glad you asked!
Danny’s parents and my parents are good friends, therefore, we were destined to play together as children. We became fast friends and enjoyed growing up together. When we weren’t staging Star Wars figures or playing tennis, we created things: mostly games (that were all named “Darky”) … but occasionally we would design haunted houses that we would force our parents and siblings to walk through.
I don’t know exactly WHY we settled on haunted houses. It certainly was not because we watched a lot of horror movies. I did not like to be scared, and went to the “Casper the friendly ghost” room at the only commercial haunted house I visited in those years – too scared to venture into the real thing.
I think we started making the haunted houses because Danny had a basement, and it was pitch black dark, and (to our 8 year old minds) full of wonder. So maybe it was that … or maybe it was me just compensating for my “Casper Room” performance to regain some street cred. No one knows for sure, and I’m not talking.
Anyway …
At Danny’s house, we could put together the best haunted house walk thru possible for a pair of grammar school kids on a zero dollar budget. The darkness led to many opportunities for scares. Trouble was, we got greedy … we tried to take the haunted house tour on the road to my house. I grew up in a GREAT HOUSE. It had many wonderful qualities, but my 100 square foot room with giant uncovered windows, was simply not a great canvas to work with for our scare fests … especially at 2PM on a sunny summer afternoon! The same things that “worked” in our haunted houses in Danny’s dark basement, were downright goofy in my fully lit bedroom. Discouraged by these failures, we retired from the haunted house business and Danny became a Gastroenterologist and I a Pastor. If only …
That experience taught me something though … the power of the light. When light shines, it exposes what is hiding in the dark. And once exposed, the dangers of the darkness can be dealt with.
Last Sunday at Wildwood Community Church, we continued our series on the Holy Spirit and the believer titled “Fired Up.” In last Sunday’s message we talked about one of the roles that the Holy Spirit serves in evangelism – to shine a spotlight on Jesus and bear witness about Him. This Sunday, in part 6 of our series, we will see another aspect of the Holy Spirit’s work in evangelism: conviction. The idea of conviction is that the Spirit shines His light in our souls exposing the sin and unbelief hiding in our darkness … so that it might be dealt with through the work of Jesus on our behalf.
Join us Sunday in our 8:30, 9:45, or 11:00 services as we turn on the Light together, read John 16:4-11, and learn of the convicting work of the Spirit fueling evangelism and the growth of the church. See you Sunday … and bring friends!