Advent
- Jerry Witham
- Nov 16, 2008
- Series: Advent
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What if Christmas looked different this year? I know Thanksgiving is still weeks away, but I want to direct your attention to this season that is fastly approaching. On the Sunday before Halloween I was in Hallmark getting some cards with Noah and Grace and the store was all decked out for Christmas. If they can promote the Christmas season this early I think it is more than right for me to as well. On Sunday, November 30 Advent begins. For some this might be new. It was for me and my family a few years ago as well, but it is a season that my family and I have grown to love and enjoy.
The word advent means to come. During the Advent season we celebrate God sending Jesus to earth wrapped in human skin. We also look with great anticipation to the second coming of Jesus, who is coming again for His Bride, the church. In Scripture Jesus testifies that He is the one who is and who was and who is to come (Revelation 1.8). This is what we will be celebrating this coming season. We will be celebrating Advent during our worship gatherings beginning November 30 culminating at our Christmas Eve service.
Last year we joined a movement called the Advent Conspiracy. This season we will do the same. The Advent Conspiracy is a calling to choose compassion over consumption during this season. The Advent Conspiracy is about the following: worship taking a prominent role, resisting the empire’s consumerism, giving ourselves away relationally and redistributing wealth just like God did through Jesus.
Many become very busy and distracted during this coming time of year. Even Christians get caught up in the rush of consumerism. Many become materialistic and more concerned with the right gift than whether or not their heart is right during this special season of celebration and focus on Jesus. Many will become busy and faced with the Mary/Martha tension (spending time at the feet of Jesus or busy with all the preparations and events).
This season we want you to join us in rethinking Christmas with us. Instead of being caught in the rush of consumerism and busyness I pray that you would instead give presence (Galatians 5.22-23). That is what God did for us in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary (Luke 1.35) and coming into this world. The same power that conceived Jesus within Mary lives in those who believe. The Holy Spirit produced the fruit of Jesus in Mary’s womb and the Holy Spirit produces the fruit of Jesus in those who believe. Those who have been crucified with Christ have the Holy Spirit living in them (Galatians 2.20). The Holy Spirit produces in them the life of Christ, which is the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control). I pray that our desire is to give presence this Advent season.
We will be sharing many practical ways that we can conspire this Advent season in giving presence. One of the ways we would like to do this is in our year-end giving. Much like we did last year, we will be sharing a year-end giving goal that we feel that God is leading us in as a body to finish the year well and begin 2009 well. Ten percent of the year-end giving will be given to build water wells throughout Asia. Once again, we will partner with Gospel for Asia in helping people who have spent their life drinking contaminated water in giving them fresh water. Not only that, but these wells will be placed next to churches. Pastors will be able to offer the water as a gift of compassion and build relationships with these people in the villages. We pray that many would come to know the living water, Jesus Christ, through these wells. We will begin our year-end giving on November 30. On that day we will send out as a first fruits offering the ten percent of that goal. We will be announcing the year-end goal in the next couple of weeks. This is just one way that we look to conspire in giving presence this Advent season. For more ideas we encourage you to visit our Advent Conspiracy blog at: theridgeadventconspiracy.blogspot.com.
So we want you to begin now in preparing your heart for the coming Advent season. Begin to pray about what the Lord would have you give throughout this season as you seek to spend less and give more (2 Corinthians 9.6-7). Also, pray how worshiping God and loving others will take a priority this season as well.
