Christmas

Yesterday was one of the greatest Christmas celebrations I've ever had. Our church participated this year in the Advent Conspiracy - a movement to try and reclaim Christmas from the busyness and commercialization that it has become. So my wife and I set $50 limits on what we would spend on each other. With a little bit of money and a lot of creativity, we decided to make gifts for each other. She ended up making me an "inspiration board" with several of my favorite quotations from some of my favorite books. It is awesome. I purchased a nice frame, and then drew some pictures and gave it to her. It made her cry, so I guess I win. Haha.

Our church raised over $1600 for the Advent Conspiracy - more than three times bigger than any offering we have ever taken. According to the AC website, it costs $10 to provide clean drinking water for one child - for life. So Story Church gave 160 kids life this year. That's what I'm talking about!!! And the coolest thing for me as a dad - my six year old daughter has been saving change all year. She was able to give more than $30 toward our offering. My six year old gave three kids water for life. HOW COOL IS THAT??

Anyway, Christmas yesterday was really a great time. We opened presents in the morning (even with cutting way back, there was still plenty to go around), then I got to work cooking a big breakfast. My wife's family came over around 11am and we ate like crazy. We played a fun gift exchange game, laughed more than I've laughed probably all year, and played some games. Then everyone left for a couple of hours and we rested and got ready for round two. Dinner was at Kimi's sister's house where we had lasagna and fondue, followed up by more games.

I think the AC movement really enabled me to just enjoy my family and friends this year and to really rest in the idea of Emmanuel - "God with us."

I've already got my idea ready for next year's Christmas. It's gonna make her cry again. Yes!

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Prayer

Just a quick post because it's all I have time for. We are less than 30 days from the launch of Story Church. There is so much going on I can't believe it. Here's the quick list of what this week entails: picking curriculum for kids ministry, establishing some kids ministry policies, planning for our 12/20 preview, preparing my message for Sunday, writing our Bylaws and Constitution, getting funding in place from our friends at the ARC, accounting, planning teaching for the new year, trips to Guitar Center, creating ads for Facebook, creating slides for Sunday, meeting with people regarding a potential new location for Story Church, keeping in touch with supporters, getting background checks done, working on our website, and the list goes on.

Pray for me this week. Pray for Story Church. We've been talking about really slowing down and trying to embrace Christmas and it's kind of hard when you are trying to launch a church at the same time.

In addition to my pastor/church planter hat there's the husband/dad hat which is really the most important to me. Last night we went to dinner which we haven't done in months as a family. That was nice. Today I went and sat in on my daughter's class just for fun. That was nice too.

Trying to keep our family number one during this time is a challenge. Not impossible, but a challenge. Pray for us!

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Spend Less. Give More.

As a church we are celebrating advent by participating in the Advent Conspiracy. It's a movement of Christians that have decided that the consumerism that comes with Christmas isn't the best way to celebrate the birth of Christ. But it's more of a movement for something, rather than a movement against something. It's not a movement that is worried about whether you say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays". It's not a movement about Jesus vs. Santa. It's a movement that is encouraging people to give more of themselves at Christmas. The idea is to give more relational gifts, that maybe cost less in dollars, but more in time. It's about spending time together, creating memories and traditions. Many of us are making homemade gifts this year. Some are simply choosing to spend less on things we don't really need and instead to do something together as a family. In the end, we will be giving the money that we would normally spend on needless gifts to people who truly have needs. Locally, we'll be coming alongside a school and providing for families that really have needs. We are volunteering our time to help in classrooms. And globally, we'll be helping to build clean water wells that will literally save lives and rescue people from disease.

To learn more about the movement check out www.adventconspiracy.org.

For creative gift ideas this Christmas check out www.rethinkingchristmas.com.

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