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?