The Goodness of Stuff

Circuitously, (that is, via three interlinking paths) found this video this morning. Doug Wilson, minister at Christ Church, Moscow, Idaho, talks with good humour on the way in which we get just a little bit gnostic at Christmas. Only two and a half minutes long, so it won't take up much of your precious spiritual time....

Christmas and falling into sin from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

While it relates to Christmas specifically, the point Wilson is making is worth considering beyond that particular feast. You might also like to make a note of this from Len Hjalmarson: A couple years back I discovered William Cavanaugh and his lucid thinking. Cavanaugh’s book Being Consumed helps us recover the meaning of the Incarnation = God made flesh.

Holidays & Closures

The National Mission Office is closed for the Christmas Holidays, and Mike Crowl is off for a month. There may be some occasional posts here, but for the most part, he'll be forgetting about work and concentrating on some other things.

Please note that the National Mission Office will close for good on the 1st Feb. However, two of the staff will still be winding down the office in the month of February. It's probable that this blog will continue on an irregular basis after the closure of the office, if time allows. The National Mission ezine will also likely continue.

A Nappy Christmas

Running short of an idea for your Christmas sermon? Check out Kim Fabricius' example on the Faith and Theology site. You might not want to copy it intact (though you might) but there are plenty of good lines, and plenty of good thoughts in it to give you something to grab hold of. Here's how it finishes:

Christmas: God’s PowerlessPoint presentation, God’s dressing down, God’s self-demonstration that he has no sense of occasion, that God is God in a messy birth (and, later, in a messier death). And there, I think, is the true wonder of Christmas: the miraculous not in some supernatural phenomenon but in the striking ordinariness of the neonatal (and the finally fatal). And there also is the real hope of Christmas: things are not as they seem; and, more, things are not as they have to be, they can be altogether otherwise. Is a new world possible? Absolutely, because a new world came. And because a new world came, a new world is coming.

I particularly liked the line: a God whose idea of a grand entry is a Nappy Christmas, which apparently he pinched from Godfrey Rust.

Fresh take on the Christmas story

Just before Christmas arrives, check out this great little video of the Christmas story from St Paul’s Anglican Church, in Auckland, New Zealand.



Thanks to Bosco Peter's Liturgy site for making us aware of this.

Twixtmas

In New Zealand, the period between Christmas and New Year is usually a time to catch your breath after a long year, and begin to look forward to the holidays you're just beginning. (I generalise, of course, but this is the norm for many people.)

Andy Wood has a different take on this period, which he's calling Twixtmas. He sees as a time in which it's possible to do some good, reach out to others, make a bit of a difference in the world.

Check out his 'five days to change the world' page to see what he's on about.

Perseverance

Perseverance is not an issue of talent. It is not an issue of time. It is about finishing. Talent provides hope for accomplishment, but perseverance guarantees it. John Maxwell.

Christmas probably doesn't seem like the time to be talking about perseverance, though perhaps for a number of people, persevering through what is for them a difficult time may be all they can achieve.

Maxwell has a story about Vonetta Flowers, the first African-American woman to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics. It may make a useful story for a sermon of persevering - if not at Christmas, at least at some other time of the year (!)

Perseverance means succeeding because you are determined to, not destined to.

But wait, there's more!

WISHING YOU A POLITICALLY CORRECT CHRISTMAS GREETING...

Best wishes to you for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, politically correct, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the summer holidays....

Family First has produced a wonderful piece of PC nonsense, just in time for Christmas (whoops! did I use that word?).

Check out the rest of the message here

Christ and the Tui ads

Most New Zealanders will know of the Tui ads, those clever billboards that have a short statement followed by the ironical/sarcastic, 'Yeah, right.' 'Yeah, right' is a Kiwi being typically laconic.

In the pre-Christmas period, Tui put up one of their latest signs: Let us take a moment this Christmas to think about Christ. Yeah, right. As you might expect it upset a few people around the country (most of them probably weren't Tui drinkers). But Richard Gray, the minister at the First Presbyterian Church in Invercargill (the billboard appeared across the road from his church), said people need to get a sense of humour.

Perhaps some people were upset because the statement is too close to the truth (as most of the Tui ads are). Many around the country won't be thinking twice about Christ at Christmas. In fact there'll be a few who'd be offended at the idea that they should.

Richard, for instance, has come up with a Tui sign of his own. It reads: Drinking Tui in 4008! Yeah right. JC.
Rather than taking this as an offensive statement, wouldn't it be better for Christians to use it as a starting point to talk about Christ and Christmas?