Give More to Family and Friends

It is possible to spend less and give more. Sometimes shopping is the least effective way to truly give at Christmastime. Here are some suggestions for giving more this Christmas, or add your own ideas as a comment to this post.

• Express yourself. Write cards or letters to family members, and tell them how much they mean to you.
• Give photos, family mementos, or small items with symbolic significance. Many years ago I gave my wife 2 playing cards, a king and queen of hearts. She still has them.
• Give time instead of money or material goods. Make plans as a family to spend time together over the holidays. Give cards that say "free date night" or "Dad and son outing."
• Give interactive gifts. You can establish a rule in your family that gifts must be something the family can enjoy together. Board games and puzzles make for good family time over the holidays. Moives can be a good choice. If you go electronic, Wii sports, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Dance Dance Revolution are good options.

Give More to Neighbors and Strangers

Many of us already give charitably at Christmastime, but often our kids are not involved and may not even be aware that we gave. Choose options for giving that allow the whole family to get involved; remember, this is not just giving it's also teaching. Our kids need to learn the value --and experience the fulfillment--of giving at Christmastime.

Depending on how you've decided to Spend Less this Christmas, you can choose as a family to take your savings and give it to others. Here are a few options (or make your own suggestions as a comment on this post):

• Identify a single mom, widow or widower in your neighborhood and give them a gift or service for Christmas.
• Deliver cookies or hot chocolate to your neighbors.
• Prison Fellowship's Angel Tree program (www.angeltree.org)
• Samaritan’s Purse (www.samaritanspurse.org)
• Prepare care packages for soldiers who are away from their families this Christmas.
• At the Springs, we're collecting gift cards for families in Galveston devastated by Hurricane Ike. Bring your cards to our Family Christmas Celebration on 12/21. Kids will have an opportunity during the service to decorate and personalize an envelope and Christmas card to put the gifts cards in when we deliver them.

Worship Fully

There are many worship gatherings and special events you can attend in our community, and I encourage you to do so (the Springs Family Christmas Celebration is 12/21), but don't let attending an event be the beginning an end of worship for your family this Christmas. Here are some suggestions to help you and your family worship fully this Christmas (or add your own as a comment):

• Have a birthday cake for Jesus at your Christmas table.
• Read the Christmas story on Christmas morning (Luke chapter 2). You can divide it into parts and have family members take turns reading. With a little preparation you can attach each portion of the story to a figure in a nativity scene.
• Pray on Christmas morning, giving thanks to God for the birth of His Son.
• Sing a Christmas carol together.
• Talk about what the birth of Christ means to you.

A Partner in the Community

It's been our dream from the beginning to be a church that is perceived--and actually is--a partner in and with our community. I've learned the hard way that people outside the church often shake their heads at the church's insistence on 'doing its own thing.' We prefer to partner with other people and organizations in our community if possible, and not just because we're small. If we're huge one day, we still won't want to fly solo.

Some recent developments are encouraging markers on the road to community partnership. The first is that I've been asked to serve on the Bay Area YMCA's advisory board. During the interview process, we talked about our church's partnership with the YMCA in our community. I am still amazed at the generosity and support of the Y, without which we would probably not have been able to get off the ground. We hope to add significantly to the few things we have done to support their efforts in the community in the months and years to come. The other board members told me that several YMCAs in the Houston area have churches that meet in their facilities, but few of them would consider those churches to be partners. The relationship tends to begin and end with paid rent and facility usage. In our own case, that is a scenario we cannot afford and do not desire.

We're also joining Heritage Park Baptist Church on November 30 at 10:45 AM to worship and usher in the holiday season. I suppose logistics tend to get in the way, but I still don't think this kind of thing happens enough. We are not 'this church' and 'that church' in our community, we are THE Church in our community, and we seldom look like it. I've often wondered how people who are not a part of the church process this. "Let's see...my neighbor John is a Christian, and my other neighbor Sam is a Christian, but they go to different churches, and they seem to have no connection to each other because of their faith. Hmmm..." Frankly, that stinks. The relationships between fellow Christians in the first century was the single greatest attraction factor for the early church, and we suffer for the lack of it today.

Another development is our entry into the League City Holiday In the Park Parade on December 6. This is one of our best opportunities so far to say to our hometown, "we're excited to be a part of this community!" It's also an opportunity to say that we like to have fun, which is no small point to make. We'll be decorating a flatbed trailer to pull in the parade, singing Christmas songs and passing out candy as our community celebrates the holiday season. It would be fun to be at the parade even if we didn't have a float, but I'm really excited that we'll be full participants as Church @ the Springs. We'll be living out our core values this way, much more than in preparing our own Christmas celebration and trying to get everyone to come. Maybe one day we'll do both, but I hope we never stop jumping in with our community whenever we can.

Hope In the Real World

Hope, like many things, is different for suburban Americans than it is for others in the world. We have many things in our lives that often appear to be dependable, in which we are tempted to place our hope. This temptation is a luxury most people never experience. If you've never had a nice house, if you've never seen a grocery store with all the shelves full, if you've never had the chance to make more than a few dollars per month and your government is a military dictatorship, then you're not tempted to put your hope in the economy, the government, or even in yourself.

Sunday's message was definitely directed at us American middle class folks. Even the great kids' book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, which we read on Sunday, assumes a level of financial and political security most kids in the world do not enjoy. For Alexander, a bad day meant no racing stripes on his new shoes. For many kids in the world, it means no shoes at all, and perhaps no food, and perhaps an illness with no medical care. All this begs the question: does hope work outside the American suburban bubble? Is hope in Christ realistic for people who live in poverty or oppression, or is it just a by-product of the fact that we've lived all our lives in a place where it isn't silly to expect that tomorrow will be better than today?

My wife directed me today to a post on one of her favorite blogs, which champions hope much better than I can. If you're not familiar with this blog, "Pioneer Woman" is a suburban professional who fell in love and married a cowboy she calls "Marlboro Man." The post you need to read is called "A Tale of Two Houses," and is a report from Marlboro Man's trip to the Dominican Republic with Compassion International. Click this link and scroll down to see the post:

http://thepioneerwoman.com/confessions/

Hope is powerful, even in the real world.