It ended with a challenge to their congregation on what Christmas would look like. It challenged my views of what Christmas should look like.
Jenny and I began discussing Christmas that week. We are that weird. I wouldn't shop until Christmas Eve, but I'll talk about it in June.
Tonight, we finished our "Christmas List." If you can call it that. It is titled "Re-Claiming Christmas While Empowering Giving."
That's right, our list has a title. That's when you know you are in for trouble. Here is the first half as a tease.
Re-Claiming Christmas While Empowering Giving
Jenny and I have a different desire for our Christmas celebration this year. We are hoping that this helps us to reclaim for ourselves what we envision Christmas to be about, while also allowing people to give in the fashion they desire.
Our belief is that the greatest gift we could ever have been given was given in Christ himself, his birth being the reason for Christmas. We also believe that God gives us gifts (blessings) so that we can give gifts (blessings) to other people. Our desire is that our celebration of Christmas reflects these truths in our context today.
We want our Christmas to be about us being a blessing to other people. Therefore, instead of a list of things that we want for ourselves, Jenny and I have each chosen an organization that we feel blesses others in a way that moves our hearts. A little bit about these organizations and how to give to them can be found below. It is our hope, that you will consider giving to these organizations instead of searching for some material possession to give Jenny or myself.
At the same time, Jenny and I have experienced the joy of finding a gift that you know is meant for someone you care about. Because of this, we hope no one feels obligated to give to an organization if you would rather give us the gift you found or thought of for us. The experience of giving is a powerful one and we don’t want to take that away from anyone. We just hope that any gifts we receive come from that notion, and not the notion of obligation. Trust that we will be extremely excited about donations made to these organizations.
Jenny and I have a different desire for our Christmas celebration this year. We are hoping that this helps us to reclaim for ourselves what we envision Christmas to be about, while also allowing people to give in the fashion they desire.
Our belief is that the greatest gift we could ever have been given was given in Christ himself, his birth being the reason for Christmas. We also believe that God gives us gifts (blessings) so that we can give gifts (blessings) to other people. Our desire is that our celebration of Christmas reflects these truths in our context today.
We want our Christmas to be about us being a blessing to other people. Therefore, instead of a list of things that we want for ourselves, Jenny and I have each chosen an organization that we feel blesses others in a way that moves our hearts. A little bit about these organizations and how to give to them can be found below. It is our hope, that you will consider giving to these organizations instead of searching for some material possession to give Jenny or myself.
At the same time, Jenny and I have experienced the joy of finding a gift that you know is meant for someone you care about. Because of this, we hope no one feels obligated to give to an organization if you would rather give us the gift you found or thought of for us. The experience of giving is a powerful one and we don’t want to take that away from anyone. We just hope that any gifts we receive come from that notion, and not the notion of obligation. Trust that we will be extremely excited about donations made to these organizations.
1 comments:
Oddly enough, I had started thinking about Christmas in May and hadn't brought it up to Nate until that night in June. I was joyfully surprised to hear that he was thinking about it as well. It is crazy that now Christmas is, yet again, not so far away.
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