Halloween is a fun time for the youngsters, but you can double the fun by using it to saturate your neighborhood with the gospel, right from your front door.

Once each year, little costumed beggars show up demanding a treat and promising mischief if they don`t get it. And what better treat can you give than the message of eternal life.

Many methods have been devised by creative soul winners. One family sets out a table with an assortment of tracts so the trick-or-treaters can choose a title that catches their interest.

Current tracts available for such an  assortment includes titles for different ages: Best Friend, Little Ghost, and Little Princess for the younger ones; and Happy Halloween, Boo, Some Like It Hot and Bewitched for the teens. Children are told they may have two apiece.

While they are pondering their choices, the soul winner explains the difference in the tracts and suggests that the parents review them when they get home. When there are several kids from one family, they suggest that each take a different title and trade them.

One family went beyond and dressed as angels around a judgment seat with a judge. Children who came for treats were asked their name and an angel looked to see if it was written in the book of life.

When it was not found, a tract was given with a warning to read it carefully to see how to get their name listed.

If your church has a special event on Halloween, you can still reach your neighborhood.  Prepare sandwich bags of candy with a tract and leave them in a basket by the front door with a "free, take one" sign. One family put a subtitle on the sign: "If you take more than one, the devil will get you!"

Not content to just hand out candy and tracts at the door, one family went out into the street yelling to the crowds of kids: "Free comics! Free comics!" Several dozen tracts were taken in just a few minutes. Some families have reversed the process and go door-to-door saying, "trick or tract" and then give the tract to the homeowner.

The whole season of Halloween can be used to get the gospel out, not just on Halloween night. For weeks, stores are full of ghostly stuff. It is easy to slip one of the Halloween tracts into plastic jack-o-lanterns, costume pockets, face masks and candy boxes. Schools make a big deal of the season, so children can pass tracts to their classmates in the halls and at recess and lunch time.

If church members have businesses in town, they can get a small, plastic, display with a "FREE, TAKE ONE" sign on it to place on a counter in their stores.

The display rack is available from Chick Publications. People are especially ready to receive the gospel because the season already has a spiritual overtone.

Hand out tracts to everyone coming out of a haunted house or pumpkin lot and put them under the wiper blades of the cars in parking lots. Try to get other Christians involved by giving them a stack of tracts and challenge them to pass them out. Some churches even buy a quantity of tracts and supply them free to church members.

Most people are caught up in making light of the devil and his crew but the tracts can remind them the devil is real and God is serious about their spiritual destiny. Stock up early with enough tracts to take full advantage of the season.