Advent, Christmas, and Traditions

If I were to simply ask how many of you are aware that we are in the season of the church year called Advent, how many would have a positive response?  If ever there was a season of the church year that seems to get overlooked, Advent would be that season.

Part of the reason for this lies in how many Christian churches approach the various seasons of the church year.  To many, following the seasons is too much like the "Catholic" way that so many broke away from in the 1500s.  Observance of seasons and the like are seen as remnants of the past, and tie the hands of their pastors too much in terms of what they would like to preach on.  So many Christian churches have simply dropped their observance of the various seasons that have traditionally been part of the church year.

We are also in a society that places far less emphasis on things Christian.  If you were not raised as a Christian, what would be the point of observing a season such as Advent?  In many ways, special holidays would be for others to observe, and so you might be ignorant of the fact that Christians celebrate specific holiday seasons.

And then, you get to the massive influence of marketing and economics.  Even as early as Halloween, Christmas things have started to appear in stores.  Once Thanksgiving passes, all restraint is released.  The blitz toward Christmas begins, and the whole focus is on getting those deals for those Christmas presents, even though Christmas is still four full weeks away.  So, from a marketing and economic standpoint, there is no point to Advent.

And yet, Advent remains a significant part of the church year.  For the Christian church, it is actually the beginning of a new year.  Since Christmas is the observance of Jesus' birth, we back up four weeks to see and hear about God's careful preparations for that birth.  That is what the season of Advent is all about.  It is about preparing for our celebration of the birth of Jesus by hearing about God's preparations for that birth.  In that time, we see God's patience as He arranged the world so that His own Son would be born at just the right time, in just the right place.

There are a number of traditions that are related to the season of Advent.  I'll be sharing a few of them over the next few days.

Recovering from Thanksgiving

I was perusing my facebook page updates, looking over the various things that my friends were putting as their statuses, when one caught my eye the other day.  It said something along the lines of, "Isn't it ironic that we Americans give thanks for what we have one day, and then the next day is dedicated to greed and getting more?"  That's not an exact quote, but the thought was very much along those lines.

That got me thinking.  How thankful are we really?  I realize that there are so many times that I take so many things for granted.  On "Black Friday", my wife and I stopped at Old Navy.  They had some jeans on sale, and I was in need of some new jeans.  I have two pairs that have the knees ripping out of them, and they could use replacing.  So we went in and found two pairs to replace the ones that I will have to get rid of.  Only, now as I sit back and think about it, I wonder how thankful I am, not only that I live in a country where you can get so many jeans for such cheap prices, but that I even have a single pair of jeans.

That seems to be the problem to trying to recover from Thanksgiving in this country.  We're immediately bombarded with the message that we now need more, and that the stores will graciously discount some of the things so that we can get them cheaper.  As I recover from Thanksgiving, I really do wonder: do I need this stuff?  Sure, it might be a great deal, but am I going to suffer without it?  Is it really necessary?  It may be a great deal, but I save even more money if I don't spend any on the thing in the first place!

The kind of recovery from Thanksgiving that I would truly love to have is one that reminds me that I have so much to be thankful for, and that I then become even more thankful for what God has given me.  Recovery isn't about wanting more just because it's discounted, but realizing that I have so much more to be thankful for, and then actually being thankful for it even more than I was before I thought about it.  That's the kind of recovery I'm going to aim for following this Thanksgiving.

Black Thursday/Friday

In some ways, I'm a bit of a traditionalist.  It just seems wrong to me that stores should start opening up late on Thanksgiving Day with their special "Black Friday" deals.  I know that more and more stores are staying open on holidays, and sometimes I have been thankful for that (especially when I've forgotten something for the meal!), but I still lament the fact that some people have to work while most of the rest of us take time to eat and be lazy.

So when I was hearing about all these stores opening up or starting their deals at times such as 10:00 PM on Thursday, I felt bad for a number of families.  How many people had to change their usual schedule of Thanksgiving simply because they had to work.  Granted, many of them may have been thankful for the extra hours, especially if they got holiday pay, since so many in our nation are now struggling to make ends meet.  I just find it sad that it comes at the cost of a time that is supposed to be dedicated to thankfulness and family.

Yes, my wife and I made our way to one of the local stores that started their deals at 10:00.  Really, there weren't that many things that we wanted.  In some ways, we really wanted to see what the crowds would be like.  And wow, were there ever crowds.  I have never seen that particular store as busy as it was at that time.  Even with our skills at finding the couple of things we were looking for and picking the short line, it still took about 45 minutes to get in and out. 

I recognize that many families need to look for good deals because money is tight.  But in the back of my mind, this whole Black Thursday/Friday thing seems much more about greed and covetousness than about saving money and being thankful.  It seems much more about profit and money than anything else.  And when Jesus said that a person cannot serve both God and money (mammon), I find it sad that so many people are bowing down to the almighty dollar.

Will it change?  I seriously doubt it.  When stores and businesses realize that there is money to be made, they will probably find it irresistible.  A few will probably try to hold out, only to realize that their profit margins start slipping, and then they have to fight for those customers.  But in the end, the thing that really seems to stand out in all of this is the love of the almighty dollar, and bowing down to false gods and idols of our own making.

Building Community

As I've let you know over the past few days, this is a new theme and challenge that I am taking up for myself.  Today, I want to focus for a moment on the second word of this theme: community.

What is a community?  In a very general sense, it is a gathering of people in some form.  I use this definition because you can have a local community made up of the people around you, or you can have a specialized community, such as a community of faith.  It doesn't merely have to be people in a physical proximity to one another, either.  I have a couple of online communities that I am part of.  I also have a community of runners, and a community of people at the gym, as well as a number of other smaller communities of which I am a part.

While there is some distinctiveness to each of these communities, one thing that they all have in common is people.  You simply do not have a community without people.  And so, as I am looking to be about the business of building community, that means that I am striving to bring something of value to that particular group or gathering of people of which I am a part.

That also means that there will be some specific things that will "build" each of those communities.  What would be needed in my local neighborhood would not be the same thing that would be needed with the runners that I know.  A community of faith may have significant differences in a community created around food.  In a way, this means that, if I am to build up each community that I am a part of, I have to know what particular skills or words or actions will serve to build up that community.

I know, it sounds like so much common sense.  However, I have seen it happen way too often that someone is part of several different type of communities, and yet they apply the same criteria for building up those different communities in all situations and circumstances.  While there may be a number of things that each community needs in common, very few communities are such that a one-size-fits-all approach will work.

A Couple of Thoughts on Building Community

A couple of days ago, I introduced something new that I see myself doing in life, "Building Community."  When you first read it, that may seem like a rather vague notion.  What do you do to build community?  Which community?  How do you build something that is a bit of a vague notion in the first place?  So today I wanted to think about those for a few moments.

I see several avenues of building community.  One is in the church that I am part of.  One thing that God makes very clear is that He wants His people constantly working on how they live their lives together.  We all have times where little squabbles break out, or where we want to see something done while another person wants something else done.  Being human, it means that we will inevitably sin against one another and hurt one another, and so those kind of things need to be dealt with.  That's one avenue.

Another one is simply being a good influence and participant with those people with whom I come in regular contact.  There are a number of places that I go to quite regularly, and I see some people in those places quite often.  Getting to know them, finding out what is important in their lives, and if there is anything of value that I can contribute to their lives are ways of building up community.

There may also be ways that I haven't previously thought of to be active and at work in the overall community in which I live.  Part of this challenge may be to identify areas of the community in which I can participate, and then find ways to interact with the people of the community to make it a better community.  Part of this involves the discovery of what needs to be done in the community, and then figuring out where my gifts, talents, and time could best be invested.

It's an adventure and a challenge.  As with so many things recently, it also reminds me that I cannot do all of this myself.  That's the critical thing about community.  Sometimes you even have to build up a community to support you in the various things that you seek to do on a personal level.  A challenge, yes.  But one that I really look forward to engaging in!

Building Community: My new personal theme

Every once in a while in life, I find myself in need of a new challenge.  There's a lot of regular stuff that happens in life, both at work and in my personal life, which just seems to be the same from week to week.  While it's nice to have a somewhat regular routine, there are also times when I need something to light a fire underneath me and give me something to work toward.

So over the past week or so, I've been giving a lot of thought to my new "challenge" to take up.  What I have come up with is the title of this blog entry: building community.  I have been seeing the need for something like this both from a professional and a personal standpoint in life, and so I am taking it up as my challenge.

So what does it look like to build community?  Well, that's the kind of question I will be trying to answer.  In some ways, it will shape how I approach my work.  I find that it's necessary to work intentionally on building community when it comes to God's people.  God doesn't put us alone in a vacuum when we become His child, but He instead puts us into a community of faith, the "body of Christ", to borrow from the Apostle Paul.  While that community does happen as a result of faith, it also takes work to connect the body to one another, and to discover how everyone interacts and works together and builds each other up.

I'm also looking at what that means for my personal life.  Maybe it will find some application in my running, as I regularly talk to a few people to get them excited about running, and maybe even will lead to the creation of a small running group (or at least a group that does a few races together!).  Maybe it will find a place in my love for playing board games.  I'm not exactly sure, but I do know that it gives me something to think about and strive for, which I have found to be an essential part of my life.

Being Noticed

"Thanks for noticing me."  Eeyore

"Let the one who is taught share all good things with the one who teaches."  St. Paul

I have to admit that there are a lot of things that I do in life that very few other people ever notice.  In some cases, I really don't want or expect to be noticed for them.  An example of this is when I change one of the candles at my church every Saturday morning.  It's a small task, and one that relatively few people notice when we worship, but I just enjoy doing it.

However, there are also times when I do something and hope that other people will notice.  It's not necessarily that I need an ego boost or something like that, but that it's just nice when it gets noticed.  When I cook a nice meal for my wife, or when I do some of my regular chores around the house, it's nice for me when she notices and tells me that she appreciates what I do.  (I should also remark that she does this quite often and quite well!)

I believe that we all want to be noticed at certain times in life.  Maybe it's for something that we do, or maybe it's because that person is very important to us.  We may not even want to be noticed ourselves, but sometimes we only want others to notice what we did.  Hearing a word of appreciation for how clean the kitchen floor is may be just the thing that we want noticed, rather than personal notice for ourselves. 

Since God created us to be in community with one another, noticing each other and the contributions that each of us bring to the community are important parts of our life together.  When we do as Paul wrote and share good things with one another, we notice them as people.  We notice that they are important to us.  When we do this, we also notice that they play an important role in our life.  This makes our life together very personal, and shows us the importance of being in the community and being a part of the community.

Who can you notice or share something with today that just might be waiting to be noticed?

How literal are you?

"It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"  Jesus

How literally do you take people when they talk to you?  How literal do you tend to be when you talk?  I've had a number of occasions over the years that have made me think about how we often use words that carry different meanings, and how much we say things that we don't mean to be taken extremely literally.

For example, this morning my wife finished with her shower, dried off, and then commented to me that she forgot to turn the thermostat up for some warmer air.  I happened to be lying in bed at that time, and I continued to do so.  A few moments later, she asked me specifically if I would go turn up the thermostat so that she wouldn't be cold.  As I thought about it, she didn't literally ask me to turn up the heat when she made her first comment, but it seems that her intent was for me to go do that.  However, literal me took her statement as merely a statement, which meant that I waited until she literally asked me to go turn up the heat.

This seems to be something we do quite a bit.  We'll say something and hope that the other person responds, even though we may not have asked them to do something specifically.  A comment like "The trash is overflowing" is far different from "Will you take the trash out?"  If we look at the first one literally, there is only a statement of fact.  The second one is the one that contains a specific request in it.

In my line of work, I have encountered something like this that comes up with some degree of regularity.  A person or a group of people want something specific of me, but, rather than directly approaching with what they want, they drop a few hints about what they want, and hope that I will catch on.  That kind of approach leaves all sorts of room for misunderstanding and confusion.  I have become convinced that a more direct approach, a more literal one, clears up potential confusion.

Yet, when it comes to matters of faith, we can also have a difficult time with this whole literal or not discussion.  Take the verse that I listed at the top.  How literally do we take this?  If we take it completely literally, all followers of Jesus "live" by every word that comes from the mouth of God.  Does this mean that we, in a literal sense, eat the pages of the Bible?  Not only are they not very nutritional, but the ink might cause problems.  Is it merely a figure of speech?  How literally we take words such as these determines much about what we think about God and life.

Personal Growth

There are times where I wish I could be like Jesus, knowing everything, having everything under my control and direction, and knowing exactly what to do and say at the proper time.  But I have been repeatedly reminded in life that I am not that all-knowing, or perfect, and that there are many times where I mess up, sometimes in a rather large way.

This is the case for every single one of us human beings who inhabit this earth.  And what this means is that we all have room to grow.  Some of us are really good at task items, while being somewhat deficient at people skills (or vice versa).  Some of us are really good with planning, and others are really good at following through.  Some of us are really great at listening, and others are really good at prodding others on to something more or better. 

It's very rare to find someone who does all things well.  In fact, in the history of the world, only one person/being has ever NOT had room to grow, that being Jesus.  This means that every single one of us has things about us which would greatly benefit us and others if we would put a little work in on improving those.

For me, personally, one of my areas for growth is in interacting with, listening to, and being in touch with people.  Because God has made me with what I consider to be a fairly good mind, I naturally find myself gravitating toward study and learning, books rather than people.  At times, I have realized that this tendency has had an effect on people, who may see me as somewhat stand-offish or lacking people skills.

Over the years, I have made various attempts to grow in this area.  One of my favorite books is written by Dale Carnegie quite some time ago, entitled "How to Win Friends and Influence People."  I typically read this book 1-2 times each year as a reminder of my need to grow in how I interact with others, and to also give me reminders of how I can go about that.

I honestly don't know that I will ever become a completely people oriented person.  In some ways, I am thankful for that, since that doesn't seem to be where God has gifted me.  At the same time, I also recognize that it will be a lifelong effort to keep that reminder that people are important, and that I need to grow in how to interact with them.

Picking up the phone

One of the things that I have realized about myself over the years is that I almost always need to have a reason or purpose for doing something.  The good thing is, if you can convince me that there is a good reason to do something, I'm likely to be swayed.  It also helps keep me focused on what needs to be done, and gives purpose to the things I do.

However, this need for purpose can sometimes keep me from doing some things that would be great to do.  For example, one area of my life where I struggle is simply calling people to see how they are.  I often fail to pick up the phone and call someone because it seems so trite to just say, I was thinking about you and wondering how you are.  I feel that I have to have a reason to call, whether to set up a time to visit together, or to see about something getting done.  Simply picking up the phone to be in touch with someone seems, well, purposeless.

But I have started to change my way of thinking about this.  Over the past few months, I've actually tried simply calling people just to see how they were doing, or just to talk to them for a few minutes.  And in the process, I've come to realize that this, also, has a purpose.  Building up relationships and developing connections with people is always good.  And discovering this has led to a change in my way of thinking about picking up the phone.

I will probably never be the best at simply calling up someone to shoot the breeze.  I'll probably always feel that I need to have a purpose to make that call.  But, as I think about being a person who builds up the community, suddenly picking up the phone is something that has meaning and purpose.  And I really hope that it leads to me doing this more and more in the future.  So don't be surprised if one day I suddenly give you a call, and have nothing more in mind than just saying "Hi!"

One more thought on Justice and Mercy

On Monday, I presented a scenario in which your kid has been stopped by the police for shoplifting.  I want to change that scenario a bit for today as we continue to think about justice and mercy.

Your kid was once again stopped at the door for shoplifting, and the police are involved.  Let's say that it was for a game that your kid has really wanted for his/her gaming system, but cost too much, and you as the parent thought it was too violent for them to have.  So you are once again on your way over to see what needs to be done.

When you approach your kid, he/she tells you that they really wanted the game, and that they knew there was no other way that they were ever going to get it.  There's a hint of remorse there (maybe only from getting caught, but you aren't sure), but there's also a bit of defiance involved.  He/she knew you didn't approve of this game, and not only did they seek to get the game, but to do it in an illegal way.

What is the appropriate balance of justice and mercy here?  Obviously, there needs to be some form of consequence.  This child did something knowingly that was wrong and against your wishes.  At the same time, there is also a degree of recognition that he/she was wrong, and a bit of remorse.  In this situation, what is the balance of justice and mercy?

This is where things get tricky for us as humans.  I would dare say that there is not a blanket, one-size-fits-all balance.  Balancing justice and mercy in this situation depends on how you know your kid.  This may be the first time your kid has ever tried something like this, so you may think that it's appropriate to nip this in the bud, so you choose to be heavy on the justice aspect.  Or, you may know that your kid will be very humiliated to have been caught breaking the law, and that the damage to his/her reputation may be fairly significant in his/her life, so you show more mercy.  On the other hand, this may be something that isn't unique in the kid's life, and so it's time to show that justice has a great price for breaking the law.  Or your kid may be defiant about it, in which case a greater dose of justice may be called for.

The thing I most want to point out in this situation is that it requires knowing your child to know what will be appropriate and effective.  That's the thing with justice and mercy.  In many cases, the balance of these two depends on how you know the other person.  While it may be the case that there are some common points in which justice needs to be administered (he/she did, after all, break the law by stealing), the balance of mercy and justice depends greatly on how well you know your child, and what affects them the most.

This places a great deal of responsibility on all of us.  It means that we probably are not the best ones to determine the balance of justice and mercy on those that we don't know.  But it also means that, if we want to have the right balance toward the people we know in our lives, we need to take the time to get to know them, so we know what will be best in our connection with them.

The differences between justice and mercy

Justice and mercy are two words that really intrigue me a lot.  We seem to want these, though we tend to want them on somewhat of a situational basis.  When someone wrongs us, we want justice, and we want it now!  But when we are the one who did the wrong, we really hope that the other person responds to us in mercy, and may actually get upset if they call for justice.

The balance of these two is difficult, both in the lives we live as we encounter other people, but also when it comes to our faith in God, and in what God has done for us in Jesus and the cross.  In our own lives, we may wonder if we should demand justice in a certain situation, or if we should show mercy.  And maybe a small illustration will help us as we consider this.

Let's say you are a parent.  Your child calls you up one afternoon because he/she has been caught stealing a movie from a local electronic store.  For the moment, this is all you know.  What are your initial reactions?  We might be angry at the child.  After all, we taught him/her that stealing is wrong.  Even as we get into our car to go over and pick this child up, we may be thinking about the appropriate punishment and consequences to their actions.

Now, here is where I could ask this question.  How many of us would first of all think about showing mercy to the child?  Would we think that, even if things are as bad as we are thinking, we should show him/her mercy for this trouble?  Probably not.  We think that they should know better, and so it seems that some justice is called for.

So we get to the store.  There's your kid, talking to an office who was called in by the store.  What is going to be your first reaction to your child?  Anger, because he/she should know better?  Anger because they got the police involved?  Anger because it reflects badly on you?  Anger because you had to take time from other things to come get this situation taken care of? 

So you go over to get to the bottom of the story.  That's when the officer says that they've gotten to the bottom of the problem.  It seems that a couple of your child's friends tried to play a joke on your kid, and put the movie into his backpack while they were in the store.  He/she didn't know it was there, and then, when leaving the store, the alarms went off.  The other kids had already left, which left your kid there to take the full brunt of the situation.  They've looked at the video and seen that your child didn't do anything wrong. 

I think most of us would agree that punishment and consequences would not be called for in this situation (at least, not for your kid, but maybe for the others).  We would probably want justice to be served now on behalf of our kid.  And tomorrow, I'll dive a little deeper into this whole situation.  But as I close today, just a couple of quick thoughts.

First, why do we typically assume guilt before innocence? 
Next, why is anger typically a first response when something doesn't go the way we want or hope for?
Another one: what would justice look like in this situation for your kid?
Final one: would you apologize to your kid for assuming that he/she was guilty, even though you may not have said anything to them about it?

The Importance of Connection

Many of you know that I love to read.  And recently, I read a book by John Maxwell called "Everyone Communicates: Few Connect".  In some ways, this was a challenging book for me.  Being a person who loves to read, and who delights in thinking about things and figuring out things and new approaches, I sometimes lose the people element.

That's why this was a challenging book for me.  In my chosen career, connecting with people is vitally important.  While it is important to know things such as what the Bible says and how my particular church body understands what the Bible says, connecting people to God and to Jesus is what is most important.  It's not a lot of good to know a whole lot of stuff if you never connect with others, so that they see the importance of those things.

In particular, Maxwell pointed out one area in which I have a lot of room to grow.  He makes the assertion that, in order to really connect, you have to understand what the people with whom you are trying to connect really need.  You have to understand people and what their needs are before you can effectively connect with them.

This is where connecting and communicating are two different things.  Everyone communicates.  If my wife tells me something and my response is a frown, I have communicated.  The problem is, I haven't connected.  Or, if I'm watching TV and try to have a conversation with my wife in the other room, we may be communicating, but we probably aren't connecting very well.  And that is the point that Maxwell makes.

Connecting involves getting to know people, finding out what their needs are, and then working to ensure that communication takes place in such a way that it fits what they need.  He uses a lot of examples from his life as a speaker to point these out, and even indicates that it was something that he had to grow into.  And that is where I realize that this book is good news for me.  These kind of things do not come naturally.  I have to work at them.  And as I work at them, it seems a good possibility that I will improve at them.

The master of communicating and connecting is Jesus.  His message of hope and grace, or of warning and consequence, happened to be exactly what those listening to Him needed to hear.  Even from a physical standpoint, when Jesus would heal, He would heal exactly what was needed and exactly when it was needed.  That message of good news is one that all people of this would need to hear.  And that is why Maxwell's book has stuck with me.  I would actually suggest reading it, especially if you find that you don't seem to have good connections with people in your life.

Remembering those before us

There is a somewhat unknown holy day that many Christians observe, but which does not get the attention of most people like Christmas and Easter do.  It's celebrated every November 1 as a day called All Saints' Day.  This is a day where Christians remember those who have lived before them, who shared their faith, and who have now gone on to receive their eternal inheritance from God through Jesus' sacrifice for them.

In some respects, this is a rather solemn day.  After all, on it, we give thought to those who have died before us, especially when we remember people who were close to us.  This may even give us pause to remember the grief of their loss in our lives, as we think about how much we miss them.

Yet, this special holy day is also one that demonstrates the distinctiveness of the Christian faith.  We may mourn their loss, and we may miss them, but the assurance that we have is that our faith and theirs guarantees that we will see each other again, when Jesus raises all the dead, and gives eternal life to all who believe in what He has done for them.  It is a sad occasion, and yet, it is one that is filled with hope and future joy.

While we may be reminded of that every year on November 1, one of the great realities for us Christians is that we have that same hope every day of our lives.  We have a future with our God!  We will see those loved ones who have gone before us in faith!  That is why we can have joy even in the midst of our sorrow and grief.  And that is all possible because of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross and resurrection from the dead.  Thanks be to God, through Jesus!