Our New Christmas Direction

This year we are spending less on Christmas presents for our children, instead we are giving them money... that they can give away to bless others in our community or around the world. Let me explain.

I love how God combines things in my life, converges them from different ideas into a single idea or direction.  Of late, this is how God has been teaching me. Let me tell you about the 3 converging themes / ideas which has led to our change this Christmas.

First, I'm not really a fan of Christmas. There, I've said it. Really, though I love Jesus and I love the epic-ness of the Christmas story.  I love how the whole of history prepared mankind for this moment of our redemption by God. Like the stories of Noah or Moses, Ezra and Nehemiah or Ruth, I love how God shows himself plainly and redeems his people. What I don't like is the commercialization of Christmas - I don't like what we've made it into, and what it makes my children into if I am not careful. I simply believe that greed was not designed to be a part of the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

Second, a few years ago at New Minas Baptist Church we taught through the Advent Conspiracy movement. For me, this has wrecked the material version of the Christmas celebration.  And why shouldn't it? Again, greed and Christmas - they simply are not compatible in my opinion.  The main premise of the AC movement is that we should give time and relationships not money - presence not presents. Then, instead of using the money we would have spent on ourselves, we should give it away to others in a life impacting, world impacting way. The first year as an extended family we did a little of this, several people gave others gifts from Compassion Canada.

Third, and truly this theme came after we made our family decision, but the impact was a clarifying one for me. This theme made clearer what and how we feel we are being called to teach our children. In a recent NMBC staff meeting and later in a sermon, Pastor Bob shared the key statement from an Andy Stanley book: "Your Direction, not Your Intention, Determines Your Destination." Essentially, where you are currently headed determines where you will end up, not the good ideas you have of where you'd like to go. For example, if you want to have a great relationship with your family, but yet you are not spending large amounts of quality time with them, the likelihood of you having the relationship you desire is very low.


So here is the convergence - a change in our family celebration of Christmas. Every year we have had a set budget for what we spend per child at Christmas time. This year as we talked about Christmas with our children we saw the ugly head of greed show itself in some of their comments. Not in blatant ways, but more subtly. We decided that to arrive at the destination of our children seeing Christmas as being about the generosity of God in the gift of Jesus, that we needed to change our current direction.

Knowing that there are people and families in our world with much [much!] greater need than our own, and knowing that Jesus and greed cannot be celebrated together, we've made this change:


Instead of spending our whole budget per child we are dividing it in half. We will use half of our budget per child and give gifts to them. The other half we will help them to give away. They can choose to give it to a specific need, person or family in our community, or to a cause which is making a difference in another part of the world. They can choose to give it to something themselves, or they can team up with other children in our family to have a larger pool of money for that person, family or cause. We will help them decide what to do and how to do it. When we discussed the idea with our children they became very excited! Immediately, our Christmas celebration has taken on a different flavor, we are heading in a different direction, and, with God's help, we will arrive as a family at a different destination in terms of our celebration this Christmas.


This Christmas, rather than celebrating Jesus and greed - which we all do so well in North America - instead, let's teach our children about generosity. Let's help our children to understand God's amazing gift of Jesus Christ, his son, and our redeemer.

A Bloodied Sword and My Integrity

Yesterday when I was picking up something in Walmart I saw something which solidified my feelings on the celebration on Halloween.

My issue with the day has never been its roots. My issue is its present.

A mom and her young boy were shopping and he was carrying an addition to his costume - a 18 Inch long sword covered in blood. As a culture, something is wrong with that. Very wrong. And so I looked through the costume isle - and I saw many similar things. Princess costumes which would cause my little girls to look like hookers, ghoulish masks which would frighten my younger boys, various knives and swords and other weapons covered in fake blood, severed arms with bone and blood coming out, and more.

My choice was again solidified. I've been wrestling with the issue of Halloween for weeks, I've read dozens of articles and engaged in several conversations. I have searched the Bible for wisdom.

I cannot participate in a celebration of these things. As a parent I cannot look my children in the eye with any form of integrity and say that this is either normal or that they should overlook it and carry on. I feel that this is not normal, it is not ok to look passed.

And so, Halloween and I have parted ways. I have great memories of it as a child. I will make great memories for my own children as we enjoy family time and as I teach them to stand against those things which should not be considered normal.

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." (Philippians 4:8 ESV)

Story-Training

Could there have been a better way for God to reveal himself to humanity than through story? Is it possible that in our culture today that we have oriented ourselves toward fact and information and away from story - and therefore, away from God?

Think clearly. When you were a child how did you interact with the world? Was it through lists of facts, collections of information? Or rather, was it through story - those told to you, those you experienced, those you made up while you played?

"Story doesn't just tell us something and leave it there. It invites our participation. A good storyteller invites us into the story. We feel the emotions, get caught up in the drama, identify with the characters..." [Eugene Peterson]

When I speak the name of a person, rather than visualizing their eye color, their weight or their height, you remember their story, and how their story has interacted with your own. When I mention a point in our shared history, rather than remembering the date and location, you focus on how you felt, what you experienced, how the event impacted you and those who were there.

Your mother's name - stories / memories about her, filled with meaning and emotion. Your first car - stories / memories about it, how it smelled, the places you drove to, the conversations you had while you travelled. Your wedding day - stories / memories about it, how your spouse looked when you first saw them, the people who came, the party, the night after. The first time someone you knew died - stories / memories, both of them and their life, and also of you and your emotions.

In our haste for information, in our tweets and status updates, as we read for facts and not for experiences, as we distance ourselves from story... have we also lost our ability to connect with God?

Will you children, when they are older, remember facts about you or will they have stories / memories which connect them to you? Will they have only facts and information to base their faith in God upon? Or will you immerse them [and you!] in the stories of God - in the Bible - complete with memories of what He has done, and the hope of what He will do.

Are you story-training your children? Are you story-trained?

Defining Sabbath

This summer at my church we preached through the 10 Commandments - we called the series Live the 10.  It was a really challenging series.  As we reflected at the end of the summer we were caught off guard by two things: how difficult and challenging the messages were to prepare and preach, and how much feedback we received about God's work through them in people's lives.

On July 24 I had the privilege of speaking on the topic of Sabbath keeping [you can listen here].  Honestly, I knew in our planning meeting back in the early spring, as we started to choose who would speak on which weeks, that I would have this topic.  I knew that God had much to teach me about it.

While this blog post isn't intended to cover again the content of my message, I'll simply say this about Sabbath: Its not about having a list of rules to follow that result in our having a feeling of meeting the requirements of our religion.  Sabbath keeping isn't really about rules or religion.  The Sabbath was created for us [not us for it as Jesus pointed out] and it is a gift from God.  The gift is this: Sabbath is about having a rhythm... a rhythm in our week that orients us toward God.  Sabbath is about relationship with God. Therefore not practicing Sabbath in our lives lands us in a place in our relationship with God where we may be missing him.

One of the comments I made and thought about as I preached was this: As a pastor, Sunday isn't really my Sabbath. A funny comment, perhaps, but anyone in pastoral ministry will understand the context.  When I come to church on Sunday, I come to work.  I come with a hundred things on my mind, people to connect with and pray for, programs to run. My focus on Sunday is on serving God, but not on spending time with just He and I. And so, since this summer I have wrestled with the concept of Sabbath as rhythm in my life.  How and where do I place the rhythm in my own life, as a pastor of a growing and busy church?

This week I began a Sabbath experiment. On Monday afternoon for two hours I spent time alone with a book about Jesus and my relationship with Him.  I read, I wrote, I reflected some and prayed some.  These two hours were my Sabbath this week.  As a result I came away from this time with much to think about. My thoughts since then have been caught up in what God taught me.

Why am I blogging about this? For two reasons, I suppose. I want you to know that Sabbath rhythm is vital in your life. I want you to know that I don't simply say that, but that I am learning how to practice it. And, I want you to hold me accountable for this Sabbath experiment goal. Ask me about my Sabbath, as I would ask you about your's.

How is your relationship with God? Where in your life is Sabbath rhythm?

Bath Time

I was getting Jordan (age 4, child 4) out of the bath this morning after the 3 school children had left on the bus. Most of the others had bathed last night, but he was asleep at that time. When I got him out he looked at me really excited and said:

"Dad! I had my own bath!" (... All by himself, with no other kids.) Probably hasn't happened many times for him I suppose.)

Large families are fun!