"Buddy the Elf, What's your favourite colour?"

What's your favourite Christmas movie? Did you watch it more than twice this year? I was surprised to see "Die Hard" by Bruce Willis picked as the best Christmas movie. Hardly the family one to watch with the kids. Mine at the moment is "ELF" with Will Farrell as Buddy seeking to reconnect with his human family having been adopted by the North Pole elves 30 years ago. The film falls apart in the last 30 minutes, partly, as in all Christmas secular movies, the premise is weak.
But the underlying tension in the movie is the reaching out of Buddy to his birth father whom he has recently discovered. The movie connects because of the resonating longing in all of us to reach out and put back relationships the way they are supposed to be. We also sympathise with the dad who's resistance resonates with our uncomfortable state with the inadequacies of human nature in others - it's easier at times to be isolated, though to our detriment (that's the moral of the Christmas Carol movie).
Built into our DNA, our code is a relational gene that if unfulfilled stunts us. It's the 'created in the image of God' part of us - the Trinity's character of relation is in us too. Thank God He reached out to us at first Christmas to put things back the way they were supposed to be. That putting back together just happens to be in community, not individualized.
And we as the Church, in community are living out and figuring out the stuff of relation as the foretaste of God's Kingdom. 'Simply Christmas' is more than an exercise in self-discipline. It moves and ends with us reaching out - to the balance of the Body, to the Body-to-be in our neighbourhoods.
Merry 12 Days of Christmas everyone!

Simply Christmas Year Round

Karen, I agree with the last thought of your blog. One thing Simply Christmas has done is show how hard it is to fight the habits, the culture, and the need to fit in.
'Simply' has been good to describe the situation and draw me in a little further in seeing that there is something better but it's going to take more than 5 weeks to change.
Naaman comes to mind. After God heals him of his leprosy Elijah accommodates his wish to take back a mound of dirt from Israel to the old country. This way Naaman can worship the God of Israel on the soil of Israel. In his culture, the god of the land is only powerful within the boundaries of that land. Naaman extends the land to his backyard. Elijah pastorally takes Naaman's faith where its at.
So we too, have cultural affectations on our faith. Our faith and culture mix in places, and God graciously is patient with our mistakes.
1. I must keep from castigating myself re: not being Simply Christmas enough. This borders on legalism.
2. I'll keep it in mind as an object lesson of identifying the accommodation and making the long term adjustments needed to extricate where possible.
3. Simplifying to make room for 'Worship fully, spend less, give more, love all, reach out' is a good self reflection tool for the coming year.

Not my favourite

I confess that Christmas is not my favourite time of year. I don't like tacky decorations. And I really don't like images of angels and Santa Clauses. I don't like the stress of preparations and buying things for people who won't like them or need them anyway. Maybe it's because I don't always enjoy hanging out with all my family - but they're the family I've got and once I'm there, it's usually okay. I do enjoy giving presents to people who I know will like them - you know, the gift that's perfectly suited to the person. This year, I'm making most of my gifts and that has been fun. So I've avoided the shopping malls!

Christmas isn't about presents and eating too much and stress, although that's always part of the picture. It's purely a celebration of the coming to earth of the Creator God, Holy God, All Powerful God who, incredibly, loves His creation so much that He came to live with them for awhile. THAT is the celebration. I find it difficult to get into that spirit of celebration because I've experienced Christmas every year for many years and it's not real fresh anymore. So how do I separate myself from the hustle and bustle and stress of everything and allow the real celebration to sink into my soul? That's the challenge! It may have to wait till after Christmas Day, when I can just be God's child and stop doing for awhile.

Simplicity Part 2

Last evening's news announced the tragic details that occurred in our church neighbourhood. No one is an island and the loss hits home to our schools and congregation. Through the day we have been busy handling details for the God Rocks concert while in the background there's a sorrowful note playing. Ironic isn't it that juxtaposed with this news, we celebrate this month The good news to all people.
Last blog I mentioned the spiritual gift of simplicity - making room in our lives by consciously ceasing in consumerism's push on time and resources. But making room and simplifying is only good if there's a goal in mind. In a sense, there's a similarity between Hugh Hefner and Scrooge - both are incredibly self-centred in their choices, one uninhibited or restrictive - both selfish. So, Simplifying needs an other-centre. This is the second and valuable spiritual gift of the 21st century - hospitality. We simplify to give more - more of our time, more of our resources, more of our home to those that Christ came to reconcile to God.
Even as a congregation, how do we open our resource of this church building, of our volunteer hours, simplifying our structure and programming so that we have room to give more? As I have been personally mulling it over I realize that profound structural changes need time to make things change. What are you thinking?

Simplicity part 1

While dropping the kids off at school this morning we were listening to the radio. The superfluous topic on the phone-in-show was the discovery of the talking baby doll that subliminally says 'Islam is the light'. It seems that consumerism, a bane and bedfellow of Christianity in North America, has hit the Muslim faith.
Apparently there is a game our minds play in which we can hear what we want to hear in otherwise unintelligible gibberish. But the profound thing to hear out of this is the way consumerism accommodates itself to our beliefs, trivializes and uses them to accomplish its objectives. (Muslims have big families, can we sell more dolls?)
So how do we respond, how do we counteract consumerism's gravitational pull? I've been considering the discipline of simplicity - the act of ceasing stuff for the sake of readjusting what/who rules in life. It's more than just buying and spending less or owning less things; I suspect it's about time too. In a sense, I will be less efficient - do less and spend less, to say no to 'getting and spending' (stuff and ideas)every once in a while and take back my brain and life. For me, it might mean doing less at work and school - to be able to respond to God's leading and pulling. Simplicity in effect strips down the excess to make room for God.
Now the danger is that simplicity for myself can become stinginess - my very own Scrooge! There has to be something more to simplicity and I sense that it's the most valuable spiritual gift of this century...

So why Celebrate Christmas?

If you’ve been at church either of these last two weeks you’ll have picked up on the Clarkson “Simply Christmas” theme. In line with Andrew’s challenge to think about Christmas and to try and simplify how our families approach it this year, I asked myself this question: What is the real significance of Jesus being born that should cause us to celebrate?

I did a bit of reading and came across this quote from NT Wright: “Take Christmas away and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have Christianity; and as Paul says, you are still in your sins.”

Not a good start! But as I began to think I realized that Wright had explained for me what Christmas is not about. If the start of Christianity, the forgiveness of sins, the writings of and in the New Testament are all tied up in Easter; they can’t be the central theme of Christmas. OK, back to my original question, what is the significance of Christmas?

I went back to those two chapters at the start of Matthew and Luke and in particular, to what Mary had to say, because if anyone should know what Christmas is about it should be Mary right. I mean, she was the one who was pregnant; she was the one who got it straight from the angel’s mouth so to speak.

In Luke chapter 1 verse 49 onwards we have Mary’s song of praise to God for the child she was carrying inside her womb. Mary’s people, her community, her nation were in a mess, and they’d been in this ethical/financial/political mess for generations. But they had hope, a promise from their God YHWY, that He would send someone to save them. As I read through this song I realized that this song is about beginnings, it is about the start of something, is all about that hope.

Mary couldn’t see what would happen further down the road, she couldn’t see how her life and the life of her child would end up; she couldn’t see Easter. But she believed that the child she was carrying was that special someone, that special someone who was going to save and to bring hope.

Christmas is about hope for me this year. And I don’t want to spoil it by moving on too quickly to Easter. I want to stay here at Christmas, where God has acted and hope has come into the world. I want to think about what that means, and I want to hope for something that doesn’t just end at Easter but that can go on beyond Easter, that Easter is maybe a door through which all hope can be fulfilled.

Philip Chester

My advent song!

As the Advent season unfolds, one song is playing over and over in my mind.  It has become my Advent theme song:

"I don't need anything this world says I do.  I don't need anything but You.  I don't need anything that I can't afford.  I don't need anything but You.... I just need your presence, your life-giving love.  I don't need anything but You.  You are my ever-present help.  You are salvation from myself.  You are my comfort and my joy.  I don't need anything but you." - Brian Doerkson (from "Holy God")

I truly believe the marketplace is a war.  The enemy's weapons are lies and his battlefield is our mind.  In this season more than ever we can't neglect the armor of God and our arsenal, the TRUTH and PRAYER!

boy in the striped pajamas

Last weekend I went with one of my daughters to see the movie "Boy in the striped Pajamas". It's a powerful story based on a novel from an Irish author that is a text in some school systems. It deals with an awful lot of subjects including the holocaust, ethics, mixing church and culture. (Check the reviews that you trust before you go). As we drove home we talked about where Christ was in the story, and the difficulty of ethics - living out faith in very practical ways and at times costly ways.
I was also thinking of how to 'worship fully' in those circumstances. If I was in a concentration camp denied all rights and daily needs how would I - how could I worship fully? Part of that conversation went to realizing that worship and emotional highs are not the same thing. Worship is acknowledging the presence of God, (which the movie alludes to) even in the darkest spots. Worship involves obedience and trust, worshiping fully is fully obedient and trusting. The only person to make that happen has been Jesus, fully reliant and trusting of the Father. Which I guess is the Christmas story - the beginning of a life lived in full obedience to the Father.

I was working late last night on a paper for school and listening on the headphones to a live Newsboys song that was rocking. The combination of extra coffees, being tired, and a great tune, got me into the song and praising God while typing away. I imagined the front of that concert and the mosh pit, people abandoned in dancing and singing (perhaps like David), and wondered about me in that picture. Last time I 'moshed' with my daughters in the kitchen I tripped and hit my head on the cupboards knocking over the OJ. Perhaps those days are beyond me. But when I think of worshiping fully I think of the energy and enthusiasm of a concert.
So how do I do that for Advent? I suspect it has to do more with my 'full being' involved through the day, rather than an emotive / spiritual spike. I suspect worshiping fully will weave its way through several portions of the day - the dinner table conversation with the kids, on my walk with the dog in the morning. I imagine it's taking every thought captive - the conversations and the media blitz, the carols on the airwaves- and redeeming those events by asking some simple questions about what's real.

Side note: Has anyone seen the movie "Boy in the striped pajamas" yet? Juxtapose that movie with 'worshiping fully' - I am mulling over how that can be.