In four days, we'll be celebrating the fourth Christmas in Walnut; a three-fold event with a Christmas Store, a Christmas Craft Workshop, and a pancake breakfast. We look forward to about 1,000 people meeting one another, eating together, working side by side while parents shop for gifts and while children eagerly make and wrap presents for their families.
Goals for the day go well beyond offering parents a bargain toy shopping experience! Christmas in Walnut helps bring people together who might normally stay separate. It works toward building community and capacity so that ultimately, over time, God might develop such a radical reconciling Christian community... such a fresh imagination and bold faith within this community to do justice...that there would no longer even be need for a Christmas Store in the neighborhood! Whoa, what a great God-sized vision!
In the meantime, I'm excited to see all God wants to do this weekend as nearly 400 volunteers and 500+ shoppers and families join for a morning of caring and sharing together. I'm excited for the tangible encounters of Christ's love and joy incarnated and expressed through His people. My prayer is that all who step into Christmas in Walnut will be able to see, hear, feel the invitation for them into LIFE in the Kingdom of God through Jesus!
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