It’s done. After weeks and weeks of preparation…it’s over. It’s kind of like cooking Thanksgiving dinner- you spend HOURS and HOURS shopping, preparing and cooking. Then, everybody sits down at the table…and 11 minutes later, everybody’s done! Christmas is much like that!
Now, don’t misunderstand- I LOVE Christmas. And this was a good one! Our Christmas Eve services were great! We had great attendance and the services were very special. And then, Christmas morning, it was awesome to see so many people come to church. You might think, “Well, it’s Sunday. Of COURSE they came!” But it simply doesn’t work that way when Christmas falls on a Sunday. There are lot of folks who are either out of town for the holidays or they have Christmas Day traditions that take precedence. And to be honest…I get that. So it was great to see so many folks come to church on Christmas morning.
In the end, we offered 3 worship services in 14 hours. And nearly 400 folks worshiped with us over those 3 services. The music was great. The prayers were powerful and heartfelt. And the fellowship was top notch!
The church we currently serve started a new Christmas tradition this year. We called it The Reverse Advent Calendar. If you know anything about Advent calendars, they are usually built around taking something OUT every day during the Christmas season. Our Missions Team talked about creating something that would be built on the notion of putting something IN every day.
After a great amount of discussion and prayer, we settled on…galvanized buckets. Yep- you read that right: galvanized buckets! Every household in the church got a 4″ tall galvanized bucket on Sunday, November 27- the first Sunday of Advent. They were encouraged to put it somewhere in the house where they would see it every day. And when they saw it, they were to drop their change in. That’s it. Easy, peasy, one, two threesy! 100% of the money that was raised would got to The Heifer Project- buying animals for folks in need around the world.
Then, on Christmas Eve, everybody was encouraged to bring their bucket with them. (If you were out of town that night, you could either bring it in before you left or after you got back.) Late in the service, we took Communion. And as people came forward for Communion, they brought their buckets with them. There were LARGE galvanized buckets down front. As folks passed them, they dumped them change in the big bucket and then added their little (now empty) bucket to the stack. We won’t know for a few days how much we raised, but the buckets were so heavy we struggled to move them at the end of the night!
I love it when we think outside the box and try something that A. has the potential to make a big impact and B. isn’t something we’ve always done! Based on what I saw, The Reverse Advent Calendar was a huge success! Through the ministry and the generous donations of those who participated, lives will be touched around the world. And for my money…it just doesn’t get much better than that!
Thanks for stopping by- I pray you have a blessed day! Please make sure and come back again tomorrow, and stick with Jesus!
Stick With Jesus 