Join the Advent Conspiracy!

This week in LIFE Groups, we're continuing the conversation we started a few weeks ago about Advent Conspiracy. With the Season of Advent just around the corner and Christmas only about six weeks away, now is the time to be making those decisions about how to celebrate Christmas differently, in a way that truly honors Jesus' birth. For starters, how about this...?

• Worship fully.
• Spend less.
• Give more.
• Love all.

We've issued a challenge: to celebrate Christmas more simply this year by spending less on Christmas gifts for friends and family -- and then to match that amount, dollar for dollar, with a gift to help provide clean, safe, reliable drinking water to people in a developing country. It looks like we're going to help build a well for a school for orphaned children in Uganda... more about that project coming soon.

In addition, we're talking about ways to be in service right here in Portland in the month of December. It's going to be fun, we promise.

So here's our Christmas pledge:

Believing in the true spirit of Christmas, I commit myself to:

• remember those people who truly need my gifts
• express my love in more direct ways than gifts
• examine my holiday activities in the light of my deepest values
• be a peacemaker within my circle of family and friends
• rededicate myself to my spiritual growth

Join the Advent Conspiracy!

Join the Advent Conspiracy!

As a continuation of our discussions of wealth and poverty, as a community we've decided to respond by making changes in the way we celebrate Christmas this year.

We're joining the Advent conspiracy.

Check out this video we watched in last week's LIFE Groups...



Can you believe that in the United States alone, we spend $450 billion a year on Christmas? As a community, we've committed to the four principles of the Advent Conspiracy:

• worship fully
• spend less
• give more
• love all

As part of our preparations for Christmas this year, we're going to support a project that provides access to clean water for people who have none. Specifically, the challenge we're undertaking is to give to this cause the same amount we spend on gifts for family and friends -- that is, to match our spending dollar for dollar. Most likely, that means spending less on gifts, since few of us can afford to double our typical Christmas spending, but it also means being more generous. We may also support a local cause as well -- that's a conversation we've just begun.

What do you think? Wanna conspire with us? Join the Advent Conspiracy!

Incarnation

The Story of Christmas is the story of the incarnation, the story of God becoming human. It is amazing to me that God entered into a woman's womb. Two years ago during Advent I was pregnant with Rachel and walked through those days understanding Mary's experience a little better. I also understood at a much deeper level the way humans grow from conception to birth. It is an amazing process, which these photos demonstrate.

The story of the incarnation is that God experienced ALL the stages of human life from the very beginning. I'd invite you to let yourself enter the story and take in these pictures and imagine God being human--God entering our world in all its messiness. God growing into a baby, into a child, into an adult--just like we all do.

Philippians 2:5-7

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. Being found in human form.

Take some time to look at these images. Imagine the miracle of God becoming human.

The angel coming to Mary to ask her willingness to carry God in her womb.

Question to ponder:


How would your life be different if you let God be born in you today, and tomorrow, and the day after that?