What if Christmas looked different this year?  What if it wasn’t about all the gifts, going to the mall or the rushing around from here to there?  We want to invite you to rethink Christmas with us this year and to experience it for what it was meant to be.

On Sunday, November 29 Advent begins.  For me and my family, this is a season that we 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).  We will be celebrating Advent during our worship gatherings beginning November 29 culminating at our Christmas Eve service.

A few years ago 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. It is about the following: worship taking a prominent role (worship Jesus), giving ourselves away relationally (love all), resisting the empire’s consumerism (spend less) and redistributing wealth (give more) just like God did through Jesus.  I pray that this would not be something we just think about or do this time of year.  I pray that we would think this way and live this way always.

As part of our focus on giving this season, the elders have put an Advent giving goal before us.  The goal for this year is $70,000.  The money will be distributed in a few ways.  First, it will go toward our monthly budget needs, then toward building ten more Jesus Wells in Asia, next to foreign missions to help support the Israel family through the Lottie Moon offering and also Natalie Barnes serving with Mercy Ships and lastly to help with some of our budget shortfall this year.

I pray that you and your family have a joy-filled Advent season.