A couple of nights ago we offered free babysitting for parents who wanted a night out. The parents could go on a date, wrap presents, or finish up shopping. Whatever they wanted to do. We made ginger bread houses with the kids, crafts, and read story books. My favorite was reading, A Tale of Three Trees. The older kids (mid-elementary) took turns reading the pages to the younger kids. In the spirit of my manifesto of approaching Christmas with a child-like spirit, I played duck, duck, goose with some of the kids. I don’t think I will ever forget one of the 8 year old’s comments, “It’s funny watching old men run around playing duck, duck, goose.” It was a joyful evening and a win/win for parents and children alike. I think I particularly love the fact that it was a very intergenerational evening. There was no television or electronics, just children and adults joyfully interacting.

This past week we also opened our home to our congregation in several ways. Our church board members, called the Session, and their spouses came for dinner one evening, the Choir came the next night for a potluck, and the youth came on Sunday. I feel that many seeds of hope, love, and joy were sewn in our time together. There is something about eating together that is so very binding for a family of God’s people.  Jesus chose a meal to be the foundation for one of the sacraments. He gave it to us to nurture us in our faith and draw us together as a body. Sitting at table with one another is a very good thing.

Tonight I shopped for my family. I can’t say much about what I got just yet, but I can  my gifts are very motivated by my manifesto intention to buy gifts that honor God and to make some hand-made gifts. Tonight I bought gifts for my children that will help them grow in their faith.  I will be personalizing them and enhancing them  I don’t want to say more than that just yet, but will share what I did after Christmas.

Lastly, I have been very intentional about greeting as many strangers as I can with a wish for a Merry Christmas.  Many seem to appreciate it.  Also, I have continued to read and journal daily on stories about Jesus.  A daily dose of Jesus, not just scripture, but specifically reflection upon Jesus has been wonderful and I am seriously considering making this a regular part of my devotional diet once Christmas has passed.

I know none of these actions are very earth-shattering.  Nevertheless, cumulatively they have made my experience of Advent more full of love, peace, hope and joy.  When all is said and done, I think this will have been an Advent where I have experienced and hopefully offered many touches of grace.  This Advent has been more Jesus full.  What more could I ask for?  Advent blessings to you.

For those of you who haven’t read my Christmas Manifesto, click here.

Today was the first day of Advent and my first day of living The Christmas Manifesto. Here’s a brief update.

I posted the manifesto on my bathroom mirror and read it allowed this morning. I will read it again tonight before I go to bed. I can already tell that the Manifesto is reach going to reach further into my life than I had anticipated.  For example, during our hymns in worship I thought of my intention to carol with “boisterous gusto.” It changed the temperature of my singing. I pumped up the volume and was more engaged in the hymn. That was an unforeseen benefit.  Similarly, when I did a little last minute shopping for my son’s birthday I opted to by a gift that would honor God.  I bought him a book of inspiring Christian stories for teens.  He fell asleep reading it.  That made my heart smile.

I lived out the manifesto more directly in the following ways.  In order to sow seeds of love, hope, joy, and peace, my kids and I selected a tag from a giving tree at our church.  We are going to be buying a beanbag chair requested by a mentally disabled adult living in a nearby home.   I went and scoped out devotional guides available at  a local bookstore in anticipation of getting some as gifts.   I also, did my first day of reading and journaling about Jesus.  Specifically, I read the first chapter of Matthew.  My journaling prompted insights that I know I would not have had otherwise.  So all in all, I feel like I am off to a good start.  I will continue to share learnings from my efforts to live out the manifesto.  I can already tell that my efforts are putting me in a more positive frame of mind.  Blessing to you on your own advent journey.

In tomorrow’s post I will be sharing with you an awesome video from a website that concisely embodies the spirit of what I was hoping for in my manifesto.

I don’t want to be passive about Advent and Christmas.  These holy days are not just going to  happen to me. I want to live them intentionally.   I read a Facebook status post this morning that said, “I guess I am showing my age. I love the holidays but everything has to be a hassle, decorating, cooking, work, go here go there. I don’t want to grow up. I want to be a kid again.”  I bet many people can relate to that feeling.  Well, I don’t want this season to be a season of getting run over by commitments and obligations. If it truly is about Jesus, then it’s hard for me to believe he would want us to celebrate his birthday by being manic.  So this Advent I am on a quest.  A quest to push past all of the commercialism and hype.  I will slay the beasts of busyness and bah Humbug.  I will instead embrace peace, hope, love and joy.

So here is my self-imposed 8 intentions for an amazing Advent and Christmas.

1. I will give gifts that honor God. I am not quite sure what that means yet. Maybe I will buy some daily devotional books for people for the new year. I would love your suggestions on this. Some gifts that come to mind are: study Bibles, devotional books, Christian artwork or jewelry to remind people of God’s presence, a donation in honor of someone to my church or a mission.  I won’t do this with all of my gifts, but at least a portion.

2. I will hand make gifts. I won’t make all my gifts, but I will be very intentional about making some.  Last year, I bound 101 blog posts from The Practical Disciple for my family and a few friends. One year I made pajamas for my son and a duvet cover with matching valance for my daughter. These gifts were far more meaningful for both me and the recipients.

3.  I will carol with boisterous gusto. I have at least two opportunities to carol this season.  I am going to sharpen up my Christmas caroling guitar skills and come as full of Christmas spirit to those activities as I possible can.

4.  I will read and write every day about Jesus in my prayer journal. Since He is the reason for the season, I want some daily focus time on Jesus so I don’t loose sight of Him.

5.  I will create blog posts that help you have a more meaningful Advent and Christmas.

6.  I will approach Christmas with a child-like Spirit. Specifically, I want to reread the Jesus’ birth story with a sense of awe and wonder.  I want to be joyfully creative as I wrap gifts.  I want to playfully bake with my children and play some games that cause us to laugh uncontrollably.

7.  I will sow seeds of peace, hope, love and joy every day. Each day I will strive to take intentional actions that produce these four results.  I will start by making a list today so that I am armed with ideas to begin the season.

8. I will read my manifesto daily. I cannot count the number of good intentions I have held that have gone unrealized.  In order to prevent this from happening with The Christmas Manifesto, I am declaring it here publicly and will read it each day aloud.

So this is “The Christmas Manifesto.”  I will be sure and share the insights and learnings that come my way as I live out the Manifesto.  Blessings to you this holy season.

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I must have given her that Bible over twenty years ago. I had completely forgotten about it. Several weeks ago another person, roughly from that same time period, told me they still had the Bible I had given them. It was their first Bible. I do remember it distinctly. It prompted me to recall several other Bibles I remembered giving away. I don’t want you to think I was just willy-nilly handing out Bibles all over the place, but God tugged at me around certain people and I responded. The gifts where all unique and usually very intentional. Several of them had extreme personal value. I gave my study Bible to one young man when I moved, filled with many notes and memories. I gave another young man the Bible I received when I was confirmed.

I had no idea of the long term value of those gifts in the moment. I just really loved those kids and wanted them to get into God’s Word. I felt a tug or calling specifically around them.

Now some 20 years later I am realizing how significant a gift like that can be. It’s inspired me to take a look around me and consider who needs a Bible. I am going to put some prayer around that and if I feel led to I will be Bible shopping later this week. I will only do this though if I feel compelled around someone specific. I think part of the power of those earlier gifts is that it wasn’t some kind of program. I wasn’t looking for a notch on my discipling belt. I didn’t have any agenda other than a heart-felt expression of love. This needs to not be contrived, but genuine care and love.

I would encourage you to prayefully consider to whom could you give a Bible. Give one of your own that is meaningful to you or splurge and go out and get a really nice beginning study Bible.  You don’t have to go crazy though.  One of my most used and treasured Bible’s was a paper back, good news version, New Testament handed to me by a stranger on campus as I rushed to class.  I still have it somewhere.  At one point it was the only Bible I had left because I had given all my others away.  It looks like trash, but I still keep it for some reason.  I think it is a reminder to me of one of the most faith transformative periods of my life.  That is the amazing thing about giving a Bible…It keeps speaking, teaching, comforting, convicting, consoling, uplifting and a host of other “ings” long after you may be out of the picture.

Go bless someone with a Bible as soon as you get a chance.  You just have no idea what it may lead to.  Peace from the Practical Disciple.

In the post prior to last,  I talked about strategically placing objects in your life to remind you of spiritually loaded moments.  These moments of remembering enhance your faith.  One reader, Gene in Indiana, noted crosses that his children had made for him that hang from his rearview mirror.  Then it struck me, duh, objects that teach are great gifts.  I should have thought to mention this; particularly, when my own story was of a cross given to me.

Here are 9 tips for making the most of giving spiritually meaningful gifts.

1. Commemorate an event. A baptism, confirmation, getting married, completion of a major accomplishment such as graduating, an anniversary of recovery, a retreat, etc.  Give the gift as reminder of God’s involvement in those events.
2. Give a gift they will regularly encounter.  Three types come to mind: a) items you can carry– i.e. jewelry, key chain, coin, pocket cross  b) items you display– pictures, carvings, decor  c) items you use–a tool, a bible, a prayer book
3. Personalize it.  Engrave it.  Sign it.  Date it.  Sometimes the spiritual significance is in the relationship that is remembered.
4. Make it. Handmade items always tend to be more meaningful.  As you make it be in prayer for that person.  We do this at our church with quilts for cancer patients.
5. Give it publicly. Some gifts are more meaningful when a person is recognized publicly.  We use to have monthly birthday meetings in a recovery ministry.  We gave out coins that commemorated significant milestones in people’s recovery.  It was a powerful thing to honor the accomplishment publicly.
6. Make the gift from a whole community.  Receiving something from an entire community makes a person feel a part of the body and has an intrinsic value of feeling supported.
7. Scripturize it.  Okay, I don’t think “scripturize” is an actual word, but the point is tie the gift to a scripture.  God’s Word is powerful and God is likely to speak through that Word in just the right moment.  This may occur many years down the road when you are long gone.  I reconnected through Facebook with a woman whom I gave a Bible to when she was a youth over 20 years ago.  When we reconnected one of her first messages to me was that she still had that Bible!
8. Give something that is personally meaningful to you. When I moved from one community, I gave away what had been my own study Bible full of my notes to a young man.  In another instance, I gave a youth the Bible that had been given to me at my confirmation.  He ended up giving me his confirmation Bible.  I think of him every time I read it and that was also over 20 years ago.
9. Give a gift with eternal value.  Consider a gift that will grow their faith.  How will your gift help them be closer to God?

Lastly, I will close with a God-incidence story around gift giving.  One time I stopped in a video store and my son ran into a friend from school.  I didn’t know the boy’s mother so I struck up a conversation with her as we waited in line.  I found out that she was staying in a drug rehab house not far from our church.  She happened to have just come from an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where she celebrated her one year anniversary of sobriety.

I called my son over and sent him out to the car to get a small sack sitting on the front seat.  I happened to have a bought an entire sack full of coins like the ones pictured above earlier that day. In fact, the ones above are what are left from that very sack.  Most of them were coins with prayer hands on one side and the serenity prayer on the other.  I pulled one out and put it in her palm and said, “Happy Birthday.”  She cried tears of joy.  She later came to our recovery group.

You never know how a simple gift that is given out of spiritual concern and love will be used.  Consider someone who could use an uplifting gift and go give one today.  Here are 3 ways you can apply today’s post.

Application Opportunity #1
Purchase a sack of scripture cards, tokens, bookmarks or small items that you can have handy in your car or office.  Your local Christian bookstore will have tons of these items.  Prayer that God will give you an opportunity to give these to someone who really needs it.  Then, watch for the opportunity.

Application Opportunity #2
Give an object that teaches for the next gift you give.  Who’s birthday is coming up?  What can you give them that would be spiritually meaningful?  Who is moving away?  Going off to school?   Getting married?  Think of the next gift giving opportunity you have and make a point of applying one or more of the tips above to make it a gift that keeps giving to them and has eternal value.

Application Opportunity #3
Carry a pocket cross with you at all times with the intent of giving it away.