Celebrating Change by Tami Cinquemani

This has been a very odd Christmas for me. My daughter got married in June, so this was the first year of “sharing” the season with my new son-in-law’s family. When the newlyweds asked if we would mind having an early Christmas this year, my husband and I assured them that we would be willing to adapt to whatever they wanted to do. We were determined to be good in-laws. Besides, our family is always looking for new things to do – so celebrating Christmas the week before Christmas sounded like a good plan . . . well, at least when we made that decision . . . back in July.

We had our early Christmas, and it was wonderful! Family, food, presents, music – the whole nine yards. Then, a couple of days later, my daughter and her husband left for Georgia, where they would spend the rest of the holiday with the other side of the family. Christmas 2010 was over . . . for us, but not for the rest of the world. This became very apparent when talking with friends, watching television, and walking through the grocery store. The excitement was all around us, and it was . . . depressing.

I thought I came up with the perfect solution. If being surrounded by Christmas only reminded me of what I missed this year, then I should put Christmas away. So on Wednesday morning, December 22, I packed it up. That’s right – the decorations, the music, even the tree – wrapped, boxed, and stored back up in the attic. I felt even worse.

It wasn’t until two days later – on Christmas Eve – that I had an epiphany. I began to realize that traditions, celebrations, and the sacredness of certain days are extremely important, but I also understood that circumstances change, and life experiences sometimes take you in new directions. I had a choice to make: To mourn what is in the past and be stagnated by the loss of what is familiar, or to embrace the life change as an opportunity to intentionally plan and initiate new traditions.

I came to the conclusion that there is sacredness in family tradition, but it’s not the specifics of the tradition that are sacred – it’s the value of the time and effort the family members are willing to invest.

So we’re embracing the life change. We’re experimenting with new traditions. And we’ve decided that Christmas 2011 will be a great opportunity to try some new things!

Tami Cinquemani

Christmas Means the End of Religion As We Know It by David Achata

With only a few days to go until Christmas, my kids are getting amped up to see family, open presents and eat sugar. My daughter has even designed a calendar (pictured above) that looks like a Christmas tree. On it she’s put numbers that count down how many days are left till the big day. I’m excited too.

This year, however, I’m excited less about gifts (although I’m anxiously awaiting what my wife will unveil this year) and excited more about what Christmas represents. Christmas represents something I want to be a part of. Simply put, Christmas represents the end of religion. What do I mean?

John 1:14 says that the Word “became flesh and dwelt among us.” This is John’s nativity scene. Literally, this says the Word “tabernacled” among us. This is meant to refer us to the Exodus narrative where Moses wants to see God, but God says—“You can’t look at me or you’ll die.” (Exodus 33) So God comes up with a plan that was a foreshadow of the real plan: “Build a Tabernacle, and I’ll reside there. This way we can be together.”

Thousands of years later, Jesus shows up in the real “Tabernacle” of his body so that we could see His Glory, God’s Glory. (See John 2:19-22) This means the end of religion as we know it. Why? Because, unlike many other world religions, Christians have no temple – we have Jesus. We have no priest; we have Jesus. We have no sacrifices to make; Jesus was our sacrifice. All these religious methods are gone because we don’t get a religion. Christmas means we get a person!

In his book, The Barbarian Way, Erwin McManus writes, “Two thousand years ago God started a revolt against the religion he started. So don’t ever put it past God to cause a groundswell movement against churches and Christian institutions that bear his name. If he was willing to turn Judaism upside down, don’t think for a moment our institutions are safe from a divine revolt.” (p.114)

Isn’t this wild? God causes a revolt against the religion he started? How confusing, exciting, ground shaking – how threatening! Like C.S. Lewis said “He is not a tame lion.”

I’ve recently been enjoying a TV show on hulu.com called “Bully Beatdown.” Basically what happens is people write in and tell Jason “Mayhem” Miller (Mixed Martial Arts Fighting Champion) about the people who are bullying them. Miller then invites them to be on his show where he challenges them to a fight. If they win, they get a bunch of money. If they lose, their victims get a bunch of money, and they have to apologize at the end. The bully always loses.

Watching this show has taught me one thing. When a bully gets beat by an MMA fighter, he is always humbled. Why? Because the MMA fighter could kill him but he isn’t allowed to. It’s humbling when salvation comes from the place least expected.

Welcome to Christmas. How humbling: the all-powerful, almighty God humbling himself, making himself vulnerable (Phil. 2). What does this all mean? It means the end of religion as we know it. In Jesus we don’t only get a teaching to follow, we get a person to know. Even more humbling, in that person, salvation comes from a most unexpected place – a baby.

“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” (Romans 11:33)

Merry Christmas everyone!

David Achata

Workin' It Out by John Monday

Yesterday our church family decided to forgo our normal worship service in lieu of serving our community. We gathered together, prepared for service in 16 different places, dispersed throughout the city, served and then returned to share our experiences. I’ve never been happier with or more proud of our church than I was that day.

We volunteered at the Track Shack 5K Reindeer Run at Sea World, at the Hemophilia Foundation Holiday Walk at Lake Eola, and at the Orlando Children’s Church. At least three different groups went caroling at Florida Hospital while children and their parents visited 170 cancer and NICU patients, bringing them bags filled with blessings. We wrote letters to military personnel, tilled gardens at a local school and cleaned carpets at a community center. Four hundred plus members of the Florida Hospital Church served the city, and if we’re not careful we could actually be deluded into thinking that we did a good thing.

As Christians, we are convinced that our salvation, our redemption, our future, our life, our eternity, our very existence is completely dependant on Christ. We hold that our actions, our deeds or misdeeds, our morality or lack there of, is as filthy rags in the presence of a Holy God. It’s the distinguishing doctrine of Christianity. We are not capable of doing any good thing.

It's not to hard to get most Christians to agree that we don’t do anything to affect our own salvation, but we can be quickly tempted to believe that our actions have an eternal effect on others. It’s sort of crazy; we think that, while our good works do nothing for our own salvation, without our efforts others will never be saved.

So what's the point? Why get up at 5:00 am and pass out water to runners? Why pack bags with books and snacks and deliver them to cancer patients? Why clean carpets for people we’ll never see or know?

I began to understand the value of our service the first time my four-year-old son helped me wash my car. His help cost me time and resulted in a worse job than I’d have done alone, but the thrill of having a son that wants to help his father is hard to explain, and the value to the son is incalculable.

God, in his infinite grace, has allowed us to help him in his work - but remember, when we serve others, it’s not an act of our graciousness. Our service is an act of God's grace to us. I’ve no doubt that God could more efficiently complete his work without me, and I’m certain that Christ will accomplish what he has intended to accomplish. But yesterday he let me and four hundred of my friends help, and I’m as proud and happy as a four-year-old washing his Daddy’s hub caps.

I want to do it again - how about you?

John Monday

To Pray or Not to Pray by Andy McDonald

Let me begin by telling you that I am a praying person. I believe it is important for us to pray. Scripture is filled with the prayers of faithful followers of God. When Jesus was on earth, he taught his disciples to pray, and he was often in prayer. The Bible also tells us that we don’t know what to pray for as we ought, and so the Holy Spirit interprets our prayers into some heavenly language. We are counseled to pray for the sick, to be unceasing in our prayers. The Bible is clear in its directive that we should pray.

While I believe in the importance of prayer, I must be completely honest; I don’t have a clue as to how it works. God is present everywhere and is all knowing, so when we pray for a sick friend undergoing surgery, we certainly aren’t informing Him. We don’t catch God off guard making Him say in surprise, “Really, your friend is in the hospital?” Undoubtedly, he already knows. Also, God defines himself as love. So the God who is perfect love loves the person we pray for even more than we do. It doesn’t seem, then, that we are talking God into “saving, healing, protecting” or doing something for them that God wouldn’t want to do whether or not we intervene.

I think about poor John the Baptist in prison. Jesus isn’t that many miles away, and John sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he is the one they were expecting, or should they look for another. Maybe John’s faith is slipping a bit with prison life. Jesus isn’t rescuing him. Surely John prayed for safety, protection, escape, but he died. Was God less faithful to the beheaded John the Baptist than to the apostle John who is only banished to an island prison? However it works, it’s different than a vending machine where we put in our prayer and get our blessing. It is different than some benevolent Santa Claus-like God to whom we send our list of blessings desired, and he delivers them on just the right day!

When we start trying to figure it all out, the web only seems to get more tangled. Maybe we do best when we pray, trust and endure whatever comes because Jesus has conquered death and hell. All the things he said and did in his life, and the sacrifice of himself in death, were authenticated with the resurrection. It is that resurrection reality that validates all the claims of Christ and initiates the Christian church. Regardless of whether or not we “get our answer” or a seeming silence or even a no, the reality is we still go on trusting that, in his time and from his perspective, the resurrected Christ will set all things straight. In the meantime, with a word of courage and hope, we are changed as we support one another with our prayers. It’s the right thing to do!

Andy McDonald