One day Jesus had to rebuke His disciples for shooing away the children who were trying to get to Him. He said to let them come, and pointed out their simple faith. That simple faith is a golden opportunity for soul winners.

Sometimes we are fearful of what the parents will say and hold back from handing tracts to children. But there are occasions and techniques that have been found to work. Halloween is one of those occasions. With the focus on the children, it simply begs to be used and thousands of soul winners have recognized the opportunity to drop a powerful gospel tract into the kids' bags along with the candy.

This is the one chance of the whole year to evangelize your whole neighborhood at once. Many have written Chick Publications tracing their introduction to the gospel back to a tract in their trick-or-treat bags.

Sometimes, soul winners are reluctant to hand tracts to children, fearing that the parents might object. Tim Berends, whose goal is 300 tracts a day given out on the streets of Las Vegas, Nevada, decided long ago to take the risk. "I was saved at five years old. My father used a gospel tract to explain why I needed a Savior. The tract was hard to read but it had a picture that I never forgot. It showed a sailor in the bottom of the sea tied down with an anchor. On the anchor was the word 'SIN.'

"He explained that everyone needed a Savior from their sin and I gave my heart to Jesus. Right away, I went out to my sister, one year younger, who was climbing a tree. I told her she needed to get saved and took her to my dad. So she got saved the same day."

"I look at children on the Las Vegas Strip and think that, if they have reached the age of accountability they will go to hell if they don't get saved. So I give them a tract, anyway. Occasionally the parents will refuse me, but I usually say, 'Be sure you show this to your parents.' That way they know that it's not porn."

Statistics have shown that the number of people who accept Jesus falls off sharply after early teens. For a 70-year-old to get saved is very rare. So, we need to reach them as early as possible and Tim Berends' testimony proves that it can be done.

It was a picture that stuck in his mind and effectively communicated the gospel. Chick Publications has received many testimonies of people who first understood the gospel through the illustrations in Chick tracts. Years later, they cannot get the picture out of their mind of the angel dropping the person over the cliff into the flames below. It becomes a powerful force pushing them to accept Jesus.

Do we, like Tim Berends, look at children and think about their eternal destiny? The witches and goblins who show up at our door on Halloween provide us a golden opportunity to introduce them to Jesus.

But what about the rest of the year? Do we watch for other ways to get tracts to them? In today's pagan culture, you might be their only opportunity for the rest of their lives to hear the good news.

Current tracts available for Halloween include titles for different ages: Best Friend, Little Ghost, Little Princess and  Stinky for the younger ones; and Happy Halloween, Boo, Some Like It Hot, and Bewitched for the teens.