‘The accent in the church today,’ says Leonard Ravenhill, the English evangelist, ‘is not on devotion, but on commotion.’ Externalism has taken over. God now speaks by the wind and the earthquake only; the still small voice can be heard no more. The whole religious machine has become a noisemaker.”
- A.W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous
————————-
Bright Lights and Bulging Christmas Programs
Giant choral productions. Living Christmas Tree extravaganzas. Rehearsals and extra rehearsals for the over-booked, super-inflated Christmas program.
More seems better for contemporary Christians. Keep the frantic tradition alive so we don’t have to ask why we’re doing all this .. . and if it’s really all that effective. Just keep the ministry machine in high gear: “If the devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy.,” an old lady once said. We stuff more into our holiday programming than the Grinch stuffed into his bulging pooch-drawn sleigh.
Motion without meaning.
Frenzy without fruit. (This, by the way, is the futile nature of event-based, rather than relational, Christianity.) We’re always gearing up for the next big thing that will over-promise and under-fulfill. “This Christmas season will be different,” we tell ourselves … again.
Ironically, we talk about the Prince of Peace –The unassuming One who did nothing to market himself or his ministry; and lived simply with his nomadic band, often avoiding the crowds. How would Jesus spend Christmas? If churches answered this question honestly, the changes they could make would produce more of what they really hope for this season. Is all this for Him, or to help us compete for the ‘Best Christmas Program” trophy?
Do our people really want all this Christmas chaos, especially from their churches? Why do we preach about priorities and restoring ‘margin’ in our lives, only to blow it all during the giant ramp-up to Christmas? Why do we admonish our people to find balance during the busy holidays in order to focus on the true meaning, while simultaneously creating a very unbalanced, over-programmed holiday schedule for ourselves?
Perhaps our bulging blowouts are indicative of another, deeper crisis: We’ve succumbed to American consumerism and its “never-enough” mantra, rather than planning for simplicity during Christmastide. What would it look like to plan for simplicity this holiday season?
Helpful resources for simplifying Christmas:
. Christmas - A Candid History, by Bruce David Forbes. This accessible book tells us how the whole holiday came into being. Did you know that the “early Christians in the first two or three centuries did not celebrate Christmas?” Also, Forbes points out that former President Franklin Roosevelt “changed the date of Thanksgiving in order to lengthen the Christmas shopping season.”
. Hundred Dollar Holiday, by Bill McKibben. A short, but filling little book that also traces the roots of the holiday, and includes great practical ideals for a more meaningful, simple Christmas.
I’ve written approximately half of my upcoming book, Recover Your Good Heart, with large chunks of other chapters already written.
I’ve put together a short quiz, the answers to which may really surprise most Christians. Many of us feel guilty as Christians because we don’t feel different from anyone else. We know we’re “supposed” to be different, but have little clue as to what that really means. The answers will bring you hope.
Lulu is a marketplace for independent authors.
*Send Jim an e-mail
Click to read excerpt.
RSS
