Center Presbyterian Church’s Annual Haunted House

The church’s pastor, Rev. Dr. Jon Faraone, wrote about their event:
With Halloween just around the corner and the preparations for the annual Haunted School Scarathon on Oct. 21-22, 28-29 to raise monies to feed the hungry during the Christmas Season, some may not realize that Halloween was first known as All Hallows Eve which is the day before the celebration of All Saints Day on November 1.
Its origins began even Before Christ came with the Celtic tribes far from Jerusalem, Rome and the Roman Empire. Known as the “Samhain”, which in the Gaelic language means “summer’s end.” From a resource, I learned “The Gaels believed that beginning at sundown on October 31, the boundary between the dead and alive thinned, and the dead would return home seeking hospitality among the living. If the dead were not appeased, they would wreak havoc on livestock and crops, causing sickness and famine. On October 31, the Gaels would don costumes, light bonfires, and imitate sorcery practices in order to ward off evil spirits and appease the dead.
In the 8th century, Pope Gregory III set up a chapel in St. Peter’s Basilica for all the saints and set November 1 for the day of celebration and remembrance. Two centuries earlier, Pope Gregory I sent word to Bishop Militus in the Celtic regions of England and Ireland to incorporate and supplant non-Christian worship with Christian worship. As a result, All Hallows Eve served like Christmas Eve to prepare the celebrations of the Saints who served the church, though many of the “Samhain” traditions continued. Trick or treating was practiced when people went from house to house for bread treats in exchange for prayers.
Center Church uses Halloween as an opportunity to raise funds to purchase groceries for over 100 needy families in the Tellico Plains, Monroe County area during the Christmas season. This fund-raising event has been taking place for over 40 years with the same people who came years ago now bringing their children and grandchildren out to have some fun mixed with a line fear acted out by the same families who continued for a generation to fix up the old school house, make and sale the bake goods, put on the costumes, run the chain saws, shoot the shot guns, and ride the lawn mowers in clown suits which is in itself scary to think about. I don’t understand it, but I know God uses it to raise monies to feed over 100 needy families,
Happy Halloween
Jon