76 days until Christmas

Today, I shot a video with our church's leader promoting "Christmas in Walnut" which will happen on December 10 this year. Last year's Christmas Store, Christmas Craft Fair, and Breakfast were a big success, so we're going to do it again this year! Selling toys at a reduced rate at the Christmas Store helped parents in need do the shopping for their own children and put those gifts under the tree themselves. It was a way to empower parents; a way of giving that included dignity as a part of the gift. (pictures and stories can be found in the December 2010 blog archives)

But for me, there is something even more important happening during this three-fold event in Walnut. So often people are generous in their giving at Christmas, but the gifts are often given in an impersonal context: from "us" to "them." The divides that separate "us" and "them" are many- rich/poor, haves/have nots, black/white, Waterloo/Cedar Falls, churched/unchurched. These divides are wreaking havoc for people in our community.

The event in Walnut began to do the very thing that Jesus came to do...to bring people together across divides into a "we". I loved Christmas in Walnut last year because it drew people together in community and began to give us a picture of what "we" together might look like without the divides-people caring and sharing and experiencing Christ's neighborly love one with another.

Christmas. We celebrate the Kingdom of God drawing near in Christ as He comes to reconcile the world to God and one another.

Christmas in Walnut. We come together to express such a Kingdom.

I hope you'll mark your calendar for December 10!