I am so excited that our church community is participating in the Advent Conspiracy this year. AC is a grassroots movement of churches who believe that Christmas can still change the world. Together, we are following the lead of our Savior who came into the world to give Himself away. Here’s a brief introductory video explaining AC:
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I’m always humbled and amazed at my daughter’s love & generosity. She recently won a gift certificate for a free In-N-Out burger from our local library for completing a reading program. The first thing she wanted to do with her certificate was give it to a homeless person who was hungry.
Unfortunately, the fine print on the certificate specifies that she must be the one to use it (and be accompanied by us, her parents). So, I asked her what she thought of using the money we would have spent on a burger and put it toward something special our church community will be doing this Advent.
This year, our church will be participating in the Advent Conspiracy (AC). My daughter and I talked about what Advent is (the four week season of repentance, reflection and preparation leading up to Christmas) and why our church is participating in the AC this year.
We talked about how close to 1 billion people around the world don’t have access to clean water (more global water facts here from charity: water) and how our little community’s AC offering would be able to help people finally get the clean water we all need. My daughter thought about this for a minute and then said:
We’re lucky. We have a place to live and we have clean water.
We’re really lucky.
She agreed that we would put her offering together with ours to make a difference for people without clean water. I feel like the lucky one, privileged to watch my daughter grow in the love, grace & compassion of Jesus everyday.
What does it say about the loss of play in our culture that it takes an automobile company to bring it back?
While it might lack the immediate appeal to adults or older kids that, say, VeggieTales might have (with their Monty Python-referencing irreverence, snappy one-liners and fully-orchestrated songs), we have found that the little ones in our church enjoy Max Lucado’s animated Hermie series. My six-year old daughter was pretty excited to receive our copy of Skeeter and the Mystery of the Lost Mosquito Treasure for review.
This insight has stuck with me since The Idea Camp in Irvine:
Open source is about making it happen for the kingdom, not about getting credit for it.
Charles Lee embodies this principle in so many ways. One of the many movements he helps lead, JustOne, created an initiative called the Laundry Love Project as “regular opportunities to help people who are struggling financially by assisting them with doing their laundry. Relationships are built, and LLPs become small communities of common concern in which participants often find that they receive assistance and benefit with other areas of their lives.”
Our church community initiated and participated in our first LLP on Saturday, June 6th. I was so encouraged to hear about other communities around the country also hosting LLPs — check out this great photo of a standing-room only crowd in Arkansas and this site setup by a group in Red Oak, Texas.
San Diego, because of its temperate climate, has a large homeless population. Many within our church have struggled with the idea of how to make a difference for members of the homeless community beyond giving a couple of dollars here & there when we see them panhandling at major intersections near church.
Laundry Love gave us a venue for listening to individual stories and establishing relationships while, at the same time, offering practical help. Our church might not be very big in numbers, but we have a huge heart! Most of our church members are not likely to strike up a Jesus-conversation with a stranger seated next to them on an airplane, but they are more than willing to get their hands dirty and serve like Jesus. Laundry Love is a great fit for us, and we’re hoping this will be the first of many. I’ve cross-posted the following from our church’s site:
headsparks* 