Tags

, , , , , , , ,

imagesCANFGEDSThis blog is from Pastor David Hershey (Korean Church of the Lehigh Valley).   It is a beautiful reflection on Advent.

The holiday season started with gusto on Black Friday (or was it Thursday?) as crowds of people shoved and fought there way through Wal-Marts, Targets and even Victoria’s Secrets in search of low-priced deals.  You do not have to look far in the virtual world we live in to see videos that could lead a rational person to wonder if this is the downfall of western civilization.  I’ll spare you by not offering any links other than this one that mentions a few horror stories from Black Friday, including shootings and an abandoned child.

Many conservative Christians, assuming they are not joining in the pushing and shoving for deals, spend a large portion of the holiday season complaining over the word “holiday.”  Wish such a person “Happy Holidays” and risk getting a sharp response reminding you that they are celebrating Christmas.

I am all for getting back to the real meaning of Christmas.  I think too many people in our culture are obsessed with the wrong thing, primarily getting more and more stuff.  Americans spend about 450 billion dollars on Christmas each year.  With  much of that ending up on credit cards, many exit the Christmas season with a lot of new debt.  But I honestly don’t think it matters whether a person says “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas.”  You can say “Merry Christmas” all you want and still miss the point of the holiday season.

This is why I am so grateful to have learned about Advent Conspiracy in the past couple of years.    Advent Conspiracy is “a movement designed to help us all slow down and experience a Christmas worth remembering. But doing this means doing things a little differently. A little creatively.”  There are four principles of Advent Conspiracy: Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, Love All.  Many churches spend four weeks teaching through these four principles, and the Advent Conspiracy website offers some helpful resources for that.imagesCAGPH89E

I work as the part-time English Minister at the Korean Church of Lehigh Valley right outside of Allentown, PA.  We are learning about these four principles during Advent this year.  This past Sunday we spent time talking about both spending less and giving more.  At first glance, these two principles may seem to contradict each other, how do you give more if you are spending less?

The point comes when you realize how many of the gifts you buy people, you only buy out of necessity.  You often buy a gift for a person because you feel like you have to, even though you know it is not something they want or need.  We can all remember receiving gifts that we pretended to like.  That is if we remember the gift at all.  It is a struggle to remember the gifts we got just last year, let alone many years ago.

This comes home to me as the parent of a nineteen month old.  My world revolves around my daughter.  As she grows up, do I want her Christmases to be all about the myriad of presents she gets?  Will I teach her that life is all about what you can get?  Or is there something I can do to teach her the value of giving more, while at the same time spending less.

One way to give more is to get creative.  Instead of just buying a gift card for someone so you can check them off the list, what is something you can get them that shows you care?  I know that the best gift I could get my dad would be tickets to a baseball game and the promise of father-son quality time together.  But if you’re not creative, don’t worry, you can Google “creative Christmas gifts” and get all sorts of ideas.

A second way to give more is to give money in a way that will change a person’s life.  This is something my wife and I have tried to do for the last few years.  We were the weirdos in our family that gave people a card saying, “A goat has been donated in your name to a family in Uganda”.  But most people in our family really appreciated it.

The cool thing is, there are so many ways to do this that are much more meaningful than just giving money.  Many relief organizations have gift catalogs, so you can look through there, with your children if you have any, and decide what gift you want to give.  It could be school supplies to a girl in Pakistan or a cow to a family in Zaire.

Another way to give is micro-finance loans.  Here you do not just give charity, you empower someone to start a business.  I first did this a few months ago, motivated by the amazing book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Half the Sky.  Through an organization called Kiva, I contributed $25 to a woman in Tajikistan so she could buy some cloth to start a business.  Then a few months later I got an email telling me she had repaid the loan!  Here I was with my $25 back, so I made a new loan.  It is so awesome not just to give money to an organization, but to give it to a person and then see how they use it to change their lives.

As we put more thought into the gifts we get for those close to us and as we make an effort to give more to those in need around the world, we are joining the conspiracy.  We are breaking free from the bondage of consumerism.  We are encountering some of the deepest beauties of Christmas.  When God visited this planet it was in the form of a helpless baby born to an unwed peasant teenage girl.  Yet through the smallness of this act, the world was turned upside down.  We renew our commitment to Jesus and learn that small acts such as spending less and giving more can change our lives and the lives of others for the better.

In other words, a truly fulfilling holiday does not come from fighting through crowds at Wal-Mart or from all the presents under the tree, it comes from a life centered on the one whose birth we celebrate and a life lived in seeking to give love to others as he gave love to us.

Places to give:

[Read also:  “Consumption:  New Religion During Christmas Season?”]

___________________________________________________________________________

MeDave has worked as the campus minister with Christian Student Fellowship at Penn State Berks since graduating from seminary in 2005.  He also works part-time at the Korean Church of Lehigh Valley leading the English ministry. Dave and his wife Emily live in Wyomissing, PA with their 19 month old daughter, Junia, and three-legged dog, Skippy.  You can read more of his blogs on – http://davehershey.wordpress.com/

Advertisement