Let’s face it, Christmas has largely become a frenzied offering to the God of Consumerism.
Shopping, wrapping, decorating, office parties, family parties, neighborhood parties with drinking and eating will all be offered up with a large dose of nostalgia, excess stress and a few reminders of the original “reason for the season.”
How will your families celebrate Christmas this year? Will it be more of the same? A reaction to the isolation? Or has the Covid pandemic nudged us into rethinking what the true meaning of Christmas is all about? Are we finally ready to do some serious re-thinking about how we celebrate Christmas?
As a church leader, you can use the months of October and early November to raise important and spiritual questions that can lead the families around you to find new ways to honor Christ rather than glorify the God of “Buy-more.”
This “season” could be re-named “Pre-advent”, and its aim is to plant some seeds so that when the families get together on Thanksgiving, they have some alternative ideas about how to celebrate Christmas.
Can we all agree that for most people the “Christmas Season” runs from Thanksgiving to the day after Christmas. Long gone is the notion that the Christmas season is only the Twelve Days of Christmas, running from Christmas day until Epiphany, January 6.
The secular world marks this commercial season from Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) to the End of Year Sales that begin the day after Christmas. Many families have packed away their Christmas decorations on December 26 and are into an “After Christmas Sales” and “New Year’s Eve” mode.
So, it does little good to save the Christmas / Gospel story of Jesus and the inbreaking of God’s realm for those twelve Days AFTER Christmas.
If we want a truly powerful Advent, an Advent that is a dynamic exploration of just what “Christ the Lord” and “King of Kings” really means, then we need to rethink our pattern of the Advent/Christmas season. In that pattern, the whole power of the Incarnation is usually reserved for Christmas eve, in the midst of a busy and jam-packed service, and then quickly forgotten.
We need to be telling the Good News/Gospel Story from Thanksgiving onward! This is for two reasons....
First, the month BEFORE Christmas is when people are paying attention and will attend Church activities. (And we all know what happens to church attendance after Christmas Day.)
And Second, people will be gathering in family events, office parties and attending other Christmas gatherings and therefore need to have the deeper meaning of Christmas and the meaning of the Incarnation fresh on their minds. We need to challenge them to strong messages from Thanksgiving to Christmas Day. We need to give them something spiritual to talk about rather than the latest fashion and toy trends, the football games, or the recurring spreads of food and drink.
So here’s some suggestions for this “Pre-Advent/Advent Season”
First of all, during “Pre-Advent”, use at least three or four Sundays to talk directly about Christmas planning.
Challenge people to think about their Christmas decorating and shopping habits. Is the Manger scene in a prominent place in their home? Are there Christ-reminding decorations on their Christmas tree? Have they looked at spiritual preparation practices such as prayers, crafts and foods that will remind us of Christ, God and the Holy Spirit? (There are lots of ideas out there, we just need to start thinking about them earlier.)
Are they setting aside some family-talk time to share what it means to have Christ present not only on earth, but with us every day, every moment of our lives? Are there ways to see God’s “Heavenly Realm” all around us, both in city and in nature, as we live in a “heaven on earth” given to us spiritually in the presence of Christ?
Are there ways to reach out and include others in the “Christmas joy” by hand writing notes to relatives, friends and others who may not have a family near for Christmas and inquiring about their lives while sharing ours. Are there ways to live into the incarnation of Christ by volunteering to help others, caring for a lonely neighbor, and/or raising funds for a worthy cause?
All these ideas need to be surfaced BEFORE the busy aforementioned “Commercial Christmas Season” of Thanksgiving to December 26 so that plans can be made and families have time to rearrange their schedules.
Publicize your church (and any other related “Meaning of Christmas” events) BEFORE Thanksgiving. People need time to get organized! And remember to publicize them REPEATEDLY so that the events get through the blizzard of advertising that happens in November and December.
Early on, lift up such themes as: “Christmas is not your Birthday”, an “Alternative Gift Market” and “The Advent Conspiracy” (Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, Love All), among others. Use them as a major focus for your church. Have an “Angel Tree” for those less fortunate, a major “Giving to the Christ Child”, or “Time of Sacrificial Giving” to underwrite a significant project for the benefit of others.
Do a study on what the Incarnation means to us in the light of God’s inbreaking Realm / Kingdom of Heaven. Do we really claim St. Paul’s description of us as “citizens of Heaven”? (Phil 3:20) Are we really transformed by Christ? ...or do we simply watch from the sidelines?
Publicize an “Advent Calendar of Kindness” and highlight other activities that delve into the deeper meaning of Christmas such as a “Las Posadas” Sing-a-long and Fiesta, Church parties with “Impromptu Nativities”, Christmas Caroling outside our homebound neighbors, and other Christ-centered activities that all point to the inbreaking of Christ into our lives.
Sing the “Advent hymns” in November, making it a true time of preparation and prayer for the “December” Christmas season that people are going to celebrate anyway, but now fully prepared with the spiritual grounding they need to withstand its full-throated storm of the consumer splurge onslaught.
And when Advent arrives, focus your Sunday messages on Christ, the Christmas story and the meaning of Christ to us with sermon series on “Christ in our Lives”, “The People around the Manger” or “The Christmas Gifts of Christ.” This will offer the congregation some real “meat” to share during all the cultural feasting.
Note: If you want to preach on the traditional Lectionary themes of Advent, (Signs of the Kingdom, John the Baptist, Isaiah, Mary’s Magnificat and Elizabeth, etc.) then move them to the end of October/early November, setting up to finish this preparatory “season” with the traditional Reign of Christ/Christ the King theme on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, as a fitting introduction to the renewed and celebratory “Holiday (Holy-day) Season”.
By having this “Pre-Advent/Advent”, the church is now free to fill December with all the feasting, joy, and many Children’s activities that you normally do, but now redirected to the deeper reason we celebrate the birth of Christ in the first place.
This “Pre-Advent” season allows the church to be in harmony with the people in their festive and celebratory mood, rather than fighting to hold back singing Christmas Carols with unfamiliar Advent hymns. And it infuses the whole time with the power of God’s presence in Christ.
And while we have the congregation’s attention, we proclaim the Good News that Christ and the whole Realm of Heaven is with us, transforming our Lives. Christ is truly our Lord, and we are living out our lives as heaven’s citizens.
It’s about time, isn’t it?
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