NewCelebrations NewsLetter 2018-3

New Celebrations:
Alternative Resources for Discovering and Celebrating Emmanuel
Throughout the Year #3


Welcome to New Celebrations Newsletter 2018-3!

Thank you for reading this modest newsletter.
My intention is to periodically send you some articles, links, and resources that you may find stimulating and suggestive -- articles that promote more simple, more faithful, more perceptive celebrations for the holidays and events we and our culture deem appropriate.

In his book Hundred Dollar Holiday and in his workshops, Bill McKibben reminds us: 
"The reason to change Christmas -- the reason it might be  useful to change Christmas -- is because it might help us  to get at some of the underlying discontent in our lives.
Because it might help us see how to change every other  day of the year, in ways that really would make our whole  lives, and maybe our entire 365-days-a-year culture,  healthier in the long run....

If there's one way in which the world has changed more than any other since 1840,...it's that we've become such devout consumers. That consumption carries with it  certain blessings... and certain costs...
 
 [T]he greatest cost may be the way it's changed us, the  way it has managed to confuse us about what we really  want from the world.We weren't built just for this life we find ourselves  leading - we were built for silence and solitude, built  for connection with each other and the natural world,  built for so much more than we now settle for. Christmas is the moment to sense that, the moment to reach for the real joys.”

Perhaps some of these suggestions will prod your thinking.
You are urged to explore some of the resources in this edition of NewCelebrations Newsletter.  My wish is that, this year, you and your church will have the most meaningful Christmas celebration ever: that many will come to see, to know, and to celebrate
Emmanuel in their lives as never before.

I would hope that you feel free to copy some of these resources and circulate them among your church friends and other acquaintances. 
Clyde Griffith

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 Christmas Planning Workshop

Good for an early fall event to explore the church's role in celebrating Christmas.
Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli suggest the following format:

 1.  List the church's traditional Christmas activities and consider these questions:
      Who is responsible for planning and carrying each one out?
      Who is each of the programs designed to benefit?
      Which work well?

 2.  What should the church's goals be at Christmas?
      Take some time to dream about creative ways the church could be a more
        positive force in restoring the meaning of the celebration.
      How well do your current holiday activities further your goals?

 3.  Formulate specific ways to reach these goals.
     You may wish to take these questions into consideration:
      How can the work involved in these activities be redistributed to relieve
        hardworking church members and include new, lonely, or single people?
      How can ongoing church responsibilitiesbe reduced so that church leaders
        can spend more time with their families?
      How can church sermons and education classes reinforce the ideas
        generated in this planning session?
 
(From Unplug the Christmas Machine: A Complete Guide to Putting Love & Joy Back Into the Season -- explore this idea and many others in the book.)
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 New Christmas Celebrations

Here are just a few of the ideas presented in Unplug the Christmas Machine that churches around the United States have come up with to make their church programming more consistent with the spiritual meaning of Christmas:

    Make Large Poster of Christmas Pledge. Encourage members to sign.
    Decorate Tree.
        Begin the season with an undecorated tree.
        Each family that does an act that expresses the Christmas spirit is
        entitled to bring an ornament to put on the tree.
    Christmas Past.
        Have children interview grandparents for stories of Christmas long ago.
        Print the stories in special church newsletter.
    Father-Children Gift Wrapping Session.
        Ask all the fathers and their children to bring family presents and wrapping
        paper to a special gathering.
    Change Gift Giving Day.
        Encourage the exchange of gifts on St. Nicholas's Day, December 6,
        rather than Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, to save the true holiday for
        religious expression.
    Cut Christmas Expenditures by 10%.
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Check out our webpage: NewCelebrations . . .