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Advent Conspiracy 2009

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by MadMax, Dec 3, 2009.

  1. MadMax

    MadMax Contributing Member

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    I posted about this last year...happy to see it gaining more and more momentum each year.

    Rimbaud, I hope this is an indicator of the answer to your questions in the other thread.

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    http://www.philly.com/inquirer/magazine/78296577.html

    Preaching a need for 'presence' and fewer presents
    The church-driven Advent Conspiracy spreads the word: Christmas is more than splurging.

    By Jeff Strickler

    MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE

    MINNEAPOLIS - William Doherty wasn't among the throngs in the shopping malls on Black Friday. He was in church.

    Doherty, a professor in the Family Social Science Department at the University of Minnesota, is part of a growing backlash against the commercialization of Christmas. Last year, he helped his church, Unity Church Unitarian in St. Paul, Minn., hold a worship service on what has become known as Black Friday, the official start of the holiday gift-buying bonanza and the biggest retail shopping day of the year.

    This year, he helped launch a similar "Black Friday at Church" event at New Hope Baptist Church in St. Paul.

    The protest against Christmas consumption, organized by the Advent Conspiracy, has become an international phenomenon. The program, created by three pastors in 2006, was being presented this year in as many as 1,500 churches.

    "We don't know exactly how many churches are using it, because we're not in this to make money," said one of the founders, the Rev. Greg Holder from the Crossing Community Church in suburban St. Louis. "The program is out there for anyone who wants to download it [off the Internet]."

    When Unity tried it last year, the church had no idea how many people would come, Doherty said. "We ended up with 300, many of whom called it the best single church experience of the year."

    At New Hope Baptist, the Rev. Runney Patterson Sr. was excited by Unity's experience. It meshed perfectly with his concept of giving.

    "Most of what we consider holiday gift-giving isn't giving at all, it's swapping," he said. "We're just trading gifts. True giving is when you find an individual or a family that is not able to give back to you."

    Before you start thinking this movement is one big "Bah, humbug," keep in mind that no one is trying to eliminate gift-giving or shut down the free-enterprise system.

    "We still believe in capitalism," said the Rev. Mark Kelm, rector of the Episcopal Church of St. John in the Wilderness. The adult forums at his White Bear Lake, Minn., congregation are following the Advent Conspiracy program. "We're talking about giving gifts that matter."

    This year, the creators of Advent Conspiracy published Advent Conspiracy: Can Christmas Still Change the World? ($12.99, Zondervan). The book outlines four basic steps: Worship fully, spend less, give more, and love all.

    How can you give more while spending less? It starts by giving time.

    Instead of giving presents, "we talk about giving 'presence,' " Holder explained. "We talk about investing in relationships. On Friday, I plan to enjoy being with my family, spending time with my wife and kids, and not spending time in line at a store."

    He suggested giving one fewer gift and redirecting the money that would have been spent on it to charity.

    "We're not saying spend nothing on gifts, we're just saying spend a little less," he said. "Let's rebel against this idea that the best way to express the Christmas spirit is to spend more."

    Kelm's church has designated Toys for Tots as its primary charity. "Look around; your kids probably already have plenty of toys," he said. "Take some of the money and give it to someone who really needs it."

    For many churches, the objection to Black Friday goes beyond the money. It's about confronting the shopping malls that have, in Holder's words, "hijacked Christmas."

    "We need to recapture Christmas and bring it back to the church," Kelm said.

    The fact that the Advent Conspiracy has caught on in other countries shows that it's not just about American consumer culture.

    "We've heard of churches [using the program] in the Philippines, India, and Africa, and we even heard of one in Moscow," Holder said. "This is resonating with people all over the world. It's time for churches to start actually acting like churches. Let's celebrate the gifts that God gives us."
     
  2. Supermac34

    Supermac34 President, Von Wafer Fan Club

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    I have very mixed feelings about this program. Our own church played the video before we were let out of church last Sunday. I am totally for the idea of helping others and being charitable, and finding the true meaning of Christmas. In theory, this is a great program.

    However, in the long run, will this help the 10% unemployed, by cutting back on shopping during the Christmas season? Won't this hamper economic recovery? I am not advocating spending beyond your means, and I am certainly not advocating not being charitable, but I also don't think its a bad thing to go shopping during Christmas either.

    I find it hard to articulate my feeling on this particular program, as I agree with it in principle.
     
  3. Shovel Face

    Shovel Face Member

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    People should buy each other more presents for Christmas, not less.
     
  4. Air Langhi

    Air Langhi Contributing Member

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    For better or worse consumers drive the economy.
    The dream of excess fuels the american dream.
     
  5. MadMax

    MadMax Contributing Member

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    spend the same amount of money you would spend on "exchanging gift cards" on a donation to a nonprofit or buying directly for someone in need.

    the point isn't that it's bad to shop...the point is that the point of Christmas has been consumed by consumerism. that Saturnalia has taken back Christmas :)
     
  6. MadMax

    MadMax Contributing Member

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    I'm not asking this of people who aren't Christians. I recongize there is a completely separate and secular holiday that shares the same name. It's how the CHURCH celebrates Christmas that concerns me.
     
  7. Shovel Face

    Shovel Face Member

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    Somebody needs a whambulance for Christmas.

    Christmas lights, PRESENTS, Santa Claus, some old school rock and roll and some alcohol. It rules the way it is.
     
  8. MadMax

    MadMax Contributing Member

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    celebrate it however you like.
     
    1 person likes this.
  9. Shovel Face

    Shovel Face Member

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    Great, delete the thread.
     
  10. MadMax

    MadMax Contributing Member

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    yeah, because you weren't the intended audience, i'll delete the thread. :)

    Happy Festivus, Shovel.
     
  11. Beck

    Beck Contributing Member

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    why so intolerant?
     
  12. MadMax

    MadMax Contributing Member

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    So amazed at the coverage for Advent Conspiracy this year. Saw it on CNN and Yahoo.

    http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6779021.html

    Reclaiming Christmas from the malls
    Church-based initiative that was born in Houston spreads to 5,000 churches nationwide

    By MIKE TOLSON
    HOUSTON CHRONICLE
    Dec. 19, 2009, 8:49PM

    Linda Davis, with daughters Emily, 10, and Grace, 5, is a member of the Advent Conspiracy at Terrace United Methodist in west Houston. Advent Conspiracy is a church-based movement that aims to reclaim Christmas from over-the-top commercialism.

    Making a list, checking it twice, checking a third time, then a fourth, marking names off, thinking about how much she'd spent and still had to spend — all of it got to be too much for Linda Davis.

    Finally, she'd had enough. This was not Christmas. This was a seasonal burden laden with anxiety and void of real meaning.

    “It was maddening, overwhelming,” Davis said. “It was taking the joy out of what was supposed to be a joyful season.”

    So this year she quit. Introduced to a movement called Advent Conspiracy at her church, Davis, her husband and three children joined the ranks of those who have dedicated themselves to rethinking Christmas and reclaiming its original intent, which has little to do with credit cards and shopping malls. And she is far from alone. The church-based initiative has spread like a viral video since a Houston pastor and a few fellow ministers came up with the idea four years ago, with more than 5,000 churches across the nation participating this season.

    The Advent Conspiracy was born of a common complaint: There was too much time and money spent shopping, too little time spent enjoying family and friends and almost no time devoted to the Scriptural messages of service delivered by the one whose birth is celebrated on Dec. 25.

    “I was sitting around with some buddies, all of them church pastors, and one of them said, ‘I hate Christmas,'” recalled Chris Seay, the pastor of Ecclesia, a multi-denominational Christian church in Montrose. “We understood immediately what he meant, and we decided that we should quit, just opt out. It came to us that we had two choices — we could go on sabbatical at Christmas, or do this.”

    The four tenets
    A minister abandoning his congregation at Christmas would not have a church for long, of course. So “this” came to life: a four-prong approach to the holiday designed to push followers away from mindless consumerism and toward a celebration filled with purpose.

    The four legs of their Yule chair were simple. Worship fully, not just a quick trip to an overcrowded sanctuary on Christmas Eve. Spend less, not avoiding gift-giving but rolling back the extent of it. Give more, both of your time and your resources to help others. And love all, with a special consideration for those in the humblest of circumstances.

    This was not a hard sell to their congregations. Each led an outside-the-box Christian church tilted toward younger worshippers and older ones who had not found mainstream, denominational churches to their liking. But what surprised Seay was how much churches of all sorts responded. Big churches, small ones, across all “isms” and doctrinal stripe.

    And so a few hundred churches quickly became thousands. As the message continues to spread, Advent Conspiracy is certain to keep growing. Seay said the reason is not complicated. People respond to it almost intuitively, he said. They feel something is wrong and that it needs to be fixed.

    “I decided to ask some friends what they got for Christmas last year,” Seay said. “Almost none of them could remember. The best way to see the ghost of Christmas past is by walking through your garage. We are not trying to be the new Scrooge. We're just saying let's grab that dial and turn it way back.”

    Davis needed no persuasion. Her church, Terrace United Methodist in west Houston, was introduced to Advent Conspiracy this fall through its youth minister. The kids, especially those past the Santa years, latched on quickly.

    “I was always left with an empty feeling after purchasing all these gifts,” Davis said. “These things will not make anyone happy. Christmas has become retail-driven. People spend money they don't have to buy things people don't need.”

    Merits of disappointment
    Her oldest child, John, 14, was on board from the beginning. A freshman at Memorial High School, he had rarely been comfortable with the huge pile of presents stacked beside him on Christmas morning. But his 10-year-old sister Emily was a bit taken aback by the prospect of a leaner Christmas.

    “Her first response was, ‘We're not getting any gifts?'” Davis said. “We explained that she will get gifts, but perhaps not as many. If she's disappointed, that may be a good thing. And if our 5-year-old is disappointed, that may turn out to be good, too.”

    Linda and her husband, J.D., figure that the leaner Christmas ultimately will turn out fuller. By cutting their spending on presents in half — “It was a lot easier than I thought,” she said — they were able to give the other half to the church, which means a substantial contribution to Living Water International, the charity of choice for Advent Conspiracy.

    ‘Not about saving money'
    Living Water, a Houston-based organization, drills water wells in Third World countries so that people in rural areas can have clean drinking water. It had already grown into a major operation in recent years, and the contributions spawned by Advent Conspiracy promise to take it to yet another level.

    “It's generating income in the multiple millions of dollars,” said Living Water President Jerry Wiles. “It's a very effective way of getting people involved and creating awareness there is a global water crisis and that people can do something about it.”

    The goal of Terrace Methodist is to generate enough money to sponsor two new water wells. Pastor Allison Cambre said he does not expect the additional donations to cut into money the church customarily gets to support other charitable and outreach endeavors. He said one is rarely disappointed when they give people the opportunity to do good.

    “It's not about saving money,” J.D. Davis said of his family's embrace of Advent Conspiracy. “It's about making Christmas better. We will be spending more time with family and close friends. And we are moved to doing something financially for Advent Conspiracy. It's amazing what even $10 can do.”

    They'll be giving more than that, of course, and he won't think twice about it.

    “God placed this on my heart,” he said. “I had never felt that way before.”
     
  13. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"

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    Why do Christians hate America? :mad:

    j/k. I do really love this movement and am even volunteering this Xmas with Mrs. B-Bob to deliver meals to isolated elderly people.

    But the name... not catchy. MadMax, do you know where the name started exactly?
     
  14. pgabriel

    pgabriel Educated Negro

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    what is your issue with this thread, do you think Christmas is about supporting American industry?
     
  15. Pushkin

    Pushkin Member

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    I agree great concept, horrible name. I have asked many people about the use of the word "conspiracy" and nobody knows the reason. I am an attorney so maybe I have been prejudiced against the term, but I cannot think of a conspiracy as anything other than an agreement of two or more people to do an unlawful act.

    I think using that term hurts the concept.
     
  16. Shovel Face

    Shovel Face Member

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    I think Christmas is great the way it is, no need to change it. Wanting to change Christmas is plain stupid. Buy people presents and have fun and enjoy the season. It's not complicated. People just have to complain about everything. These churches make me puke. I hope these smug assholes get ran over by a snowplow.
     
  17. MadMax

    MadMax Contributing Member

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    yikes! :) i'll watch out for snowplows this season!

    no one is trying to change the way you celebrate Christmas...it's an attempt to change the way the Church celebrates Christmas. or at least to stop and think about it.
     
  18. Rocketman95

    Rocketman95 Hangout Boy

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    good thread max. i too hope you are murdered for wanting to help people.
     
  19. MadMax

    MadMax Contributing Member

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    given your service to underprivileged kids, i'm plotting your destruction, as well.
     
  20. Buck Turgidson

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    As far as smug assholes go, someone should invest in a mirror.

    Max, do you know anything about the Living Water organization?
     

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