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Practicing a Christ-centered Christmas

Posted by tom | Aug 15, 2007

How does one not become immersed in and pursue a nostalgic, commercialized, feel-good Christmas?   Share the fears, challenges, special moments, and customs of your past Christmases.  Celebrate the Word becoming flesh and blood, and moving into the neighborhood through Scripture, song, and various spiritual practices.  Receive insight to embrace the call and find accountability to reproduce the likeness of Jesus during this upcoming Christmas season.

The above paragraph is the description for the fall adult elective I'm leading at Elizabethtown Brethren-in-Christ Church (beginning Sept 9). One might find it quite a stretch to be thinking about Christmas when the Elizabethtown Fair won't begin until Sunday, but the class was generated by the press of Christmas which struck me when I prepared and shared Christ of Christmas as part of last winter's adult elective Questioning Evangelism (based on Randy Newman's Questioning Evangelism).  I noted the need to get ready, it was heard, so here we go.  I'd love to have your input with regard to materials, practices, resources you suggest I consider incorporating (would love to have practices/traditions from non-Western countries).  Stories to share as ancedotes or case studies would also be great!  Below are some materials I'm building upon:

Walt Mueller's post In Particular: inspirational in framing the questions for the class.

Thank-you to Byron and Hearts & Minds Books for suggesting a number of books.  I'm considering the primary use of one of the following:  Bill McKibben's Hundred Dollar Holiday, George Grant and Gregory Wilbur's Christmas Spirit, Sharon Jaynes' Celebrating A Christ-Centered Christmas.  I'm relying on these as resource books:  Gerry Bowler's The World Encyclopedia of Christmas and Peter Mazav's Winter:  Celebrating the Season in a Christian Home. Still looking over the suggestions for families:  Ruth L. Boling's Mouse Tales:  Things Hoped For (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany), Kathleen Long Bostrom's Waiting for Christmas:  A Story about the Advent Calendar, Noel Piper's Treasuring God in Our Traditions (includes a chapter on Christmas).

Advent devotional recommendations:  Watch for the Light, possibly Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas by Jan Richardson (still need to review this one).  Others I've taken a peak at include  A Christmas Sourcebook edited by Mary Ann Simcoe, John Shea's Starlight:  Beholding the Christmas Miracle All Year Long, David G. Rogne's Advent Serices, Laurence Hull Stookey's Calendar:  Christ's Time for the Church, Robert E. Webber's Ancient-Future Time.

Christ-centered Christmas | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

4 Comments & 0 Trackbacks of "Practicing a Christ-centered Christmas"

    On the subject of celebrating Christmas: A friend of mine has been practicing fasting for Christmas - fasting from activities that she felt were essential, but decided to give up. She invited the rest of us to try it and a number of us tried and found that we didn't miss them at all - and neither did our families! By the way, she eliminates one at a time, not all at once! -- taken from a helpful email suggestion.

    Posted by email corespondent, Aug 24 2007, 20:46

    Dear Tom,
    What a great Sunday School class topic! Two resources we've found helpful -- a little teal colored book "The Advent Jesse Tree" (something we do annually with our children) and another book on the advent (just read last Christmas and found very interesting) by Lisa Welchel. There are other, even better, resources out there, I'm sure.

    A dear friend at our church addressed our women's group last December on this very topic and had collected some practical ideas from some godly families that she knew. Her name is Betsy Munson. If you'd be interested in those anecdotes or a copy of her talk, I'm sure she'd be happy to share . . .

    Blessings to you as you broach such a much-needed topic.

    Nalene

    Posted by Nalene Fleming, Aug 30 2007, 23:40

    Tom, is there any way to get more details about your lesson plans, etc for Practicing a Christ-centered Christmas?

    Posted by Richard, Nov 17 2007, 12:31

    I've started to gather them together at Practicing a Christ Centered Christmas Classroom Materials. Feel free to post questions. The class was developed 'in process' with an overarching vision but attentiveness to questions raised in community.

    Posted by Tom, Nov 21 2007, 15:37
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