Halloween is this weekend! My favorite holiday. I love the creativity and artistry that goes into costume design. I find that the costume-wearing community (often known as cosplayers, for costume play) are a friendly and enthusiastic bunch.

In the past, I’ve made a variety of my own costumes — Cap’n Crunch, Cyborg Pirate Ninja Jesus, Mini-Me, and others.

Some people consider it odd that as born-again Christian like me is into Halloween and similar events. But I don’t see it as a problem at all — costumes are sometimes a part of my ministry. Science ficiton, games, costumes, technology, cartoons, and other “geeky” activities are celebrated by thousands of enthusiasts in cities all over the world. Wearing a costume sometimes opens metaphorical doors for me that would sometimes be hard to get into. It allows me to have conversations that may be hard to arrange otherwise.

Here are some of the Christian geeky groups that I’m involved in:

• Christian Gamers Guild, focused on tabletop games such as board games, card games, and roleplaying games
• Game Church, focused on electronic games
• Fans for Christ, encompassing all of fandom, from costumes to comics to games to anime (now defunct)
• Grave Robbers, focusing on Christian goths and punks
• CrossCon, focusing on information security professionals, aka “hackers”
• Costumers for Christ, because dressing up is fun

And some great people / groups / media that I keep up with:

• Geek Preacher, a Methodist Minister from Tennessee, and all-around nerd
• MJ Young, gamer, author, and chaplain
• Steve Racer, actor, author, and cosplayer
• Hackers for Charity, security experts who support and train Uganda street kids
• Geekdom House, Kyle Rudge’s outreach from his church to the geeks
• The Dice Steeple podcast about board games and card games
• Saving the Game, a podcast about roleplaying
• Game Store Prophets and InnRoads Ministries, a podcast about Jesus and gaming
• Christ and Pop Culture, examining overlaps and conflicts
• Strangers and Aliens, a podcast reminding us of our true home
• Geek Orthodox podcast
• Hacking Christianity, extracting truth nuggets from the Word
• Geeks Under Grace, uniting in differences

In a week, I’ll be preaching at Wizard World’s Louisville Comic Con. This is my first time preaching at this particular event (only in its second year here, although Wizard World has been running events in other cities for a long time).

This sermon will be Ghostbusters-themed, as a tribute to my friend Ryan Kemp.

Here are some fun costumes I’ve come across over the years: