New Life Assembly

The "6 days until Sunday which is also Christmas Day" Monday Reflections

It's less than a week until Christmas and 12 days until the start of a completely new year, which is pretty hard to imagine.  I imagine I'll probably take the week after Christmas off from the Monday reflections, as we will be having my in-laws visiting from West Virginia for a week, and then sharing Christmas celebrations with the Connecticut McNamars on the day after Christmas. 

This past Sunday at New Life we continued through the process of unwrapping Christmas from the extra packaging that gets in the way of truly experiencing Christmas as the miraculous, life-altering, birth of God's Son into the world.  This week's packaging was simply what I called "following" - following the dominant world culture especially when it comes to Christmas which pulls at us to go along with the flow of working for the rich, the powerful and the prestigious.

But when we think about the rest of Jesus' life, when we even think about the way that his birth was first announced to the shepherds in the fields, we start to understand that Christmas is, at its core, about unfollowing the world and its system, and instead choosing to follow Jesus into a different way of life.  While we're being constantly told that we should give to those who can pay us back, and serve those who will one day serve us, God is doing something completely different.  He enters the world and establishes, from the beginning, that his kingdom would be about the poor, the oppressed, the captives, the ones who don't have and that he would send the rich away empty handed.

Not only is this what Mary sang in her well-known song in Luke chapter 1, but it was the way that Jesus lived his life.  I have a suspicion that he meant for those of us who follow him to follow in his footsteps when it comes to this, so when we spend our Christmas season fully participating in all the culture-following, I wonder how pleased he could be with that?  So this week I challenged us to spend the time pushing back against that culture, pushing the "unfollow" button on the endless stream of ads and messages telling us that this is how to celebrate Christmas.  Instead, perhaps we could click the "follow" button to Jesus' way, listen to what he has to say about why he came, and find the heart of Christmas there to be more powerful than we've ever known it to be before.

Next weekend will be our Christmas services - one at 7 PM on Christmas Eve, and a second at 9 AM on Christmas Day.  The services will be essentially the same - readings from the Christmas stories, traditional carols and a brief (I promise) message.  Please join us along with your family and or friends for either of these services to celebrate the birth of our Savior!

 

 

Unwrapping Christmas: Un-Following

This week's message reminded us that even though the heart of Christmas is often obscured by the packaging of following our culture, when you unwrap it, you find Jesus coming to create a new kind of culture that would turn ours on its head.

PDF: Download Un-Following

The "Minimalist Christmas Monday" Reflections

Last night we had our family Christmas decorating night, which apparently reveals to my wife on an annual basis just how ridiculously perfectionistic I can be about certain things.  Having grown up in a home where our Christmas trees were an annual festival of colored, flashing, bubbling lights with lots of ornaments all over the tree, I've become much more of a minimalist in my tree decorating as an adult.  I like white lights, with a few ornaments, and I like them to be neat and orderly.  Last night this meant that it took me about an hour to put the lights on the tree while Rita silently endured the torture and tried to keep the kids from killing each other.  Ahhhh, the Spirit of Christmas!!

But as with my Christmas trees, as I've grown older I've also come to value a simpler, more minimalist Christmas celebration as well.  Yesterday as we talked about unwrapping Christmas from the consumer packaging that has obscured the heart of Christmas I felt this again so powerfully.  While culturally Christmas has been reduced to an excuse for us to buy gifts we don't need with money that we don't have, my hope is that within the community of people who are following Jesus we could resist that pull.

Underneath the consumer problem we have at Christmas time is a larger, deeper problem:  it's a worship problem.  Designed as we are to find worth and value outside of ourselves, during this season the culture provides a powerful place to worship - the retail altar.  We convince ourselves this is a good thing because we're going to buy gifts to give away to others, but when it's about the gift exchange and the feelings that brings, then we're missing out on the heart of Christmas.

As we read about the Magi who came from the east to visit Jesus, the heart of Christmas was not the gifts that they brought to him, but the desire to come and worship before the king of kings.  There is nothing wrong or sinful even about the exchange of gifts, but there is something wrong when that activity pushes the worship of Jesus to the fringes of our lives and leaves us worshipping the accumulation of stuff that will never really satisfy our hearts. 

When we refocus our attention this season on Christ and the gift of his presence with us, then we are moved to worship him more deeply than ever before.  This Christmas take some time to reflect on the idea that God has sent his son into the world as the King of a kingdom not of this world, and that action alone means we are being called into worship and obedience to this king.  If everything else that clamors for our attention now takes away from our worship, then perhaps it's time to simplify again.

Next week we'll explore the idea that we don't have to follow the culture at Christmas, but that in Jesus' coming he was establishing a new kind of culture in the world.  I hope you and a friend will join us here at 10:30!  The week following will be our Christmas services - this year we will be holding service both on Christmas Eve at 7:00 PM and Christmas Day at 9:00 AM.  We would love to have you and your family join us for one of these services.

Unwrapping Christmas - Un-Consumed

This week's message reminded us that even though the heart of Christmas is often obscured by consumer packaging, when you unwrap it you find that it’s not about gift-giving, but about creating space to worship the true King of kings:

Podcast:  Download 50 Unwrapping Christmas - Un-Consumed

PDF:  Download Un-Consumed

Disconnected Monday Reflections

I was struggling to write a cohesive Monday reflection, so I thought I would just string together a bunch of unrelated reflections that come from an overcrowded brain on this three-weeks-until-Christmas Monday morning:

• Every Sunday I show up at New Life excited to see what God is going to do that week, and every week I leave with greater anticipation than I had when I came.  I like to think of that as momentum, and have to figure out ways of harnessing that and going where God is leading me (and us).  It's a great feeling to have the momentum, but it's also just a little scary because you never feel like you know exactly where it's going to go.
• This series on Unwrapping Christmas is so close to my heart for what we could accomplish if we as followers of Jesus would be willing to take the incarnation seriously.  I'm trying to fight the pull in my own family life to fill the season with all kinds of extra stuff that's not going to help me and my family appreciate and understand the wonder of what God has done in sending Jesus to the world, and I hope to bring that passion to our church family as well.
• Within about 10 days I listened twice to Andy Stanley's talk from the Catalyst Conference on apprenticing leaders, and both times found myself incredibly challenged and encouraged to make this a part of my life as a leader.  He made a statement in the talk that will probably (hopefully) change the way I lead forever:  I don't have to fill someone else's cup, I just have to empty mine.
• I'm learning that with someone working in the office with me, when I don't communicate and lead well it has consequences that affect more than just me.  It's an area of potential growth for me as a leader, so it's something I really need to get a handle on now.
• I know Mariah Carey isn't exactly the girl I'd want my daughter to model herself after, but I could listen to her Christmas album all day during this season :)
• Our kids at New Life are teaming up with Compassion International to help provide for a needy family somewhere else in the world.  You can find their "catalog" of gifts here:  http://www.compassion.com/catalog.htm
• Of all the things I'm looking forward to at New Life, the one I'm most excited about is our Starting Point group which begins meeting in January.  This is a group whose purpose is to create an environment for conversation about faith and the way that God wants to shape our life stories with his story.  We announced it for the first time yesterday morning and had 13 people sign up with several others expressing interest.  When we first talked about this we thought we might get one group of 12.  Already it looks like we'll need 2 groups - I'm pretty pumped about that!
• This year we'll be holding two Christmas services:  one at 7 PM on Christmas Eve and a second at 9 AM on Christmas Day.  We would love to have you join us for whichever service best fits your holiday schedule.
• Next Sunday at New Life we're going to take on a big project as we try to "unwrap" Christmas from the consumerist packaging that has taken it over.  Hope to see you and a friend there!

Disconnected Monday Reflections

I was struggling to write a cohesive Monday reflection, so I thought I would just string together a bunch of unrelated reflections that come from an overcrowded brain on this three-weeks-until-Christmas Monday morning:

• Every Sunday I show up at New Life excited to see what God is going to do that week, and every week I leave with greater anticipation than I had when I came.  I like to think of that as momentum, and have to figure out ways of harnessing that and going where God is leading me (and us).  It's a great feeling to have the momentum, but it's also just a little scary because you never feel like you know exactly where it's going to go.
• This series on Unwrapping Christmas is so close to my heart for what we could accomplish if we as followers of Jesus would be willing to take the incarnation seriously.  I'm trying to fight the pull in my own family life to fill the season with all kinds of extra stuff that's not going to help me and my family appreciate and understand the wonder of what God has done in sending Jesus to the world, and I hope to bring that passion to our church family as well.
• Within about 10 days I listened twice to Andy Stanley's talk from the Catalyst Conference on apprenticing leaders, and both times found myself incredibly challenged and encouraged to make this a part of my life as a leader.  He made a statement in the talk that will probably (hopefully) change the way I lead forever:  I don't have to fill someone else's cup, I just have to empty mine.
• I'm learning that with someone working in the office with me, when I don't communicate and lead well it has consequences that affect more than just me.  It's an area of potential growth for me as a leader, so it's something I really need to get a handle on now.
• I know Mariah Carey isn't exactly the girl I'd want my daughter to model herself after, but I could listen to her Christmas album all day during this season :)
• Our kids at New Life are teaming up with Compassion International to help provide for a needy family somewhere else in the world.  You can find their "catalog" of gifts here:  http://www.compassion.com/catalog.htm
• Of all the things I'm looking forward to at New Life, the one I'm most excited about is our Starting Point group which begins meeting in January.  This is a group whose purpose is to create an environment for conversation about faith and the way that God wants to shape our life stories with his story.  We announced it for the first time yesterday morning and had 13 people sign up with several others expressing interest.  When we first talked about this we thought we might get one group of 12.  Already it looks like we'll need 2 groups - I'm pretty pumped about that!
• This year we'll be holding two Christmas services:  one at 7 PM on Christmas Eve and a second at 9 AM on Christmas Day.  We would love to have you join us for whichever service best fits your holiday schedule.
• Next Sunday at New Life we're going to take on a big project as we try to "unwrap" Christmas from the consumerist packaging that has taken it over.  Hope to see you and a friend there!

Unwrapping Christmas: Un-Religious

This week's message kicked off our new series, "Unwrapping Christmas" by reminding us that even though the heart of Christmas is often obscured by religious packaging, when you unwrap it you find a most irreligious idea:  that God would become flesh and dwell among his people to bring us to salvation.

PDF:  Download Un-Religious

New Series: Unwrapping Christmas

Anyone else tired of all the extra packaging that gets added to Christmas every year?  Join us for a four week series as we try to unwrap Christmas from all the extra stuff that gets in the way of us truly celebrating the amazing act of the incarnation.