We need a little Thanksgiving right about now

It's time to take down the ghosts and spiderwebs.  With the mall already decked in evergreen, the pull is strong to go ahead and decorate for Christmas.  I'm here to say, "Hold the tinsel sisters!"  Now this isn't a plea to stop the insanity of Christmas starting in September, this is a plea on behalf of your weary soul.

Maybe, like me, you are entering the end of this year looking back thinking, "Whoa, did all that really happen?"  This year, Facebook feeds and headline news merged more than ever before.  I used to check Facebook for dorky suburban updates, this year I checked it to read the status of friends and their children being shot, dying, houses burning down, diseases out of horror movies, and divorces worthy of Lifetime movies.  My soul is weary.  Is yours?

Last November, a friend of mine, who had had a terrible year, put her Christmas tree up the first week  of November.  She said she just needed something happy to happen in her house.  She needed to sit by the twinkling lights of the tree and try to feel okay.  I get it.  I really do.  Hallmark and Martha Stewart have sold us a story that happiness is available if we just put up the decorations, buy the gifts, and bake the cookies.  If that is true, why not put up the decorations early?  Why not try to find a few extra weeks of peace?  We need it, right?

Well, we do need peace and happiness, but deep down we all know their story is a lie.  Only the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings is going to flood your home and heart with the joy and peace you're looking for.  You say, "That's why I want to decorate for Christmas early - to celebrate Jesus, to welcome the Prince of Peace."

Sorry. Nope. Again, let's be honest.  Scripture doesn't tell us to enter his presence through an evergreen decked door.  How does Scripture tell us we should approach and draw near to Him?

"Enter His gates with Thanksgiving,

and His court with Praise." (Ps 100:4)

We don't need to get tinsel, we need to give thanks.  We need Thanksgiving.  It's through giving thanks to God for our many blessings that Scripture promises us that we will draw near to Him.  It's the true way to the Prince of Peace, regardless of how Hallmark has told us to get there.

So hold the tinsel my friends, and let us enter into a 22 day feast of praise and thanksgiving.  Let us savor each of the next three weeks to count blessing upon blessing, even amidst chaos, and sadness and death (because that too He has conquered).

Instead of covering your house with tinsel 22 days early, cover it in gratitude.  Hang poster board on the walls and let your kids list their blessings. Write the names of every friend, co-worker, church member, neighbor, service provider, teacher, and family member on pretty paper and plaster your kitchen with it.  Make a Thanksgiving Tree (and make it big).  Play contemporary praise music and old fashion gospel.  Read One Thousand Gifts and start making your list.  Take out some lipsticks and write on every bathroom mirror.

For God so loved the world He gave his one and only Son.  (John 3:16)

or

Great is the Lord and most worthy of Praise (Ps 48:1)

or

Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy (Ps 47: 1) 

or

Behold, I am coming soon! (Rev 22: 7)

Friends, will you join me in coating this month in thanksgiving and praise?  When we take the time to count our many blessings, our burdens become lighter and our joy becomes greater, after a season of thanks, I know we'll find that when it's time to hang the tinsel, a true season of joy will be waiting for each of us.
 (Orginally posted 11-2012)

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Raleigh area readers - I would like to invite you to a parent workshop "Putting Christ in Your Thanksgiving and Christmas Celebrations,"  on Wed, Nov 13th at Bay Leaf Baptist Church  at 6:30.  The class is free and childcare is available.  Email me for more info at wschulz@bayleaf.org.  I hope to see you there! 



How low is your bar?

A few weeks ago my friend Parker posted the below video of her 2 1/2 year old son on Facebook.  I was blown away.  A 2 1/2 year old reciting the 23rd Psalm!  Really?  Take a moment to watch it.

When I first saw it, I watched it three times in a row.  At first I was just thinking, "he's so cute!"  Then I watched it again and thought, "he is so smart!"  The third time I watched it I realized why I had quickly become obsessed with this video, the bar I have for my children learning scripture is SO low!  If you are amazed by this video perhaps you can relate to that thought.  What goals do you have for your children learning the Word of God?  How low is your bar?

Do you have a goal for your children learning scripture for this month?  A goal for this year?  Any goals at all?  Most of us do not have any.

When it comes to setting the bar for our children's education, we set it high.  We want our children to succeed in school, do well, go to college ... be brilliant!

When it comes to sports, music, and other extra curricular activities, we set the bar high for our children.  We want our children to make the best regional sport teams.  We want them to progress swiftly in their music skills.  We want them to be rock stars!

Why then do we set the bar so low when in comes to learning scripture?  For most of us we don't intentionally set the bar low, we just forget to set the bar at all.

So I asked Parker how her family is learning scripture.  The above video is of baby #4.  She didn't originally set out to help him memorize the 23rd Psalm, she just read it to him every night as part of his bedtime routine - now he knows it! For herself and her two oldest daughters (10 and 8), the three of them are memorizing the book of James.  Each day they add a line. She has set the goal at memorizing the entire book!

When Parker told me about her plan for herself and her girls, I knew it was time for Pete and I to raise the bar in our house.  While we had been doing daily devotions with our girls at breakfast, I knew that we were setting the bar very low and just going through the motions. Last week we kicked off our Memorize James Project.  The girls are amazing and are much more excited to take part in our morning devotion - probably because Pete and I are terrible at memorizing anything and they are killing us!  But the point is we have set the bar, and we have set it high.  If your family's devotion time is growing bland, or is not regularly happening, I want to invite you to join Parker's family and our family in memorizing the entire book this school year.  Let me know if you accept the challenge, let's encourage one another along the way!

Are you serving out of your guilt or your gifting?

There is this strange phenomena in churches that I call the "age and stage volunteer plan."  It goes something like this:  If you are a mother to three young children you should serve as a preschool teacher.  If you are a sixty-five year old woman you should volunteer with the Prayer Shawl ministry.  If you are a forty year old man you should volunteer in parking duty.  While this might seem like a logical volunteer plan I believe it's killing the church.

Seem like an overstatement?  Well let's look at how this plan really plays out.  So 35 year-old mom to preschoolers is asked to be a preschool teacher.  She doesn't want to teach.  She is TIRED.  She knows she is not gifted to be a teacher.  She knows her patience with preschoolers is thin, and the idea of being locked in a classroom of 15 crying two year olds is keeping her up at night.  But... she's a good Christian girl and has now been asked by the Preschool Ministry Director 15 times to be a teacher.  So out of her guilt she says yes.

Meanwhile there is a 65 year old widow who is lonely.  Her husband has just passed away and her life is way too quiet.  Hoping to "give her something to do,"  the church invites her to join the Prayer Shawl Ministry where she can come and knit shawls with other widows. She doesn't like knitting, she doesn't want to hear the list of new medications and sorrows from the other widows.  She's depressed just thinking of joining this group.  But... she's a good Christian girl and has been asked by the Senior Ministry Director 15 times.  So out of her guilt she says yes.

What if instead the church followed the Word of God?

      There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.  There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.  There are different kids of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.  Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 
 1 Cor 12:4-7  (for deeper study read 1-31) emphasis mine.

What if the church listened to the Spirit? What if we served as we're led by God?  What if we trusted, really trusted, that if we did this the church body would be healthier and that all our volunteer needs would be met?  What if we allowed the church body to serve from its gifting instead of its guilt?

So let's play out the volunteer lives of our two ladies from above.  We know what happens right?  They serve out of guilting and hate it.  Their souls are not satisfied.  They serve without the Spirit, because the Spirit never led them there to begin with.  Their ministries are fruit-less, because without God we will not bear fruit.

But what if we threw out the plan of age and stage volunteering and taught our congregations about the gifts of the Spirit, and showed them ALL the service needs in the church.  What if we told our congregation  to PRAY, because the Lord desires to use all of us for the common good.

Perhaps that young mom would find the Prayer Shawl ministry because she loves to knit and loves to pray.  She would be a blessing to that ministry with her beautiful handiwork.  The older women of the group would be blessed to have a younger member with new knitting patterns and lively stories from a house full of little people.  The young mom would get a break from her little ones, be mentored by older women, and would bless the ministry with her gifts.

Our widow would serve out of her gifting as a teacher. She would look forward to her hour with her class of two year olds.  Their hugs would be a gift in her week.  She would have the time to plan each week's lesson thoroughly, and to pray fervently for her students.  Those two year-olds would be blessed to have a teacher full of patience and energy - ready to love on them each week.  They would find birthday cards in their mailboxes from their teacher.  Her ministry would bear much fruit.

God has a good plan for our churches.  Do we trust that?

This fall I have turned down several women who signed up to teach in my ministry.  (You would realize how crazy this is if you knew how great our need was.)  I told these women that I believe in the Word of God.  I believe that God has a good plan for them to serve Him, and I didn't want to usurp that plan through guilt.  You see when we say yes to volunteering somewhere we are not called to, most often we close the door on serving where we were meant to be.  One of the women I said no to, was Elizabeth.  Now please know Elizabeth has been a great teacher, and would be, but... we both felt that this is not where she was called to serve this year.  Elizabeth has a wide range of gifts she uses for the Lord, but one of her gifts my ministry desperately needed - she is the craftiest, cutest, most thoughtful woman around.   I asked her if instead of teaching if she would several times during the year bless our teachers with some sort of gift of appreciation. I have 112 volunteers so this is a BIG job, but Elizabeth agreed.

She and her family kicked off our new Sunday School year with a bang.  On Promotion Sunday her family walked in with baskets of homemade cookies and water bottles for our teachers. See how cute they were!  There was even a label of the ingredients.  Really!   Last week, knowing that most of my teachers teach every other week, she was back with more baskets so that every teacher would feel blessed.

How cute is this! 

She is serving from her gifting, not her guilt.  And by the way, God did provide a teacher to take her spot, a grandmother of one of the children, who is so excited to teach.  God is good my friends.  He is so very good.  I pray as we head into a new school year, and a new church programming year that you will ask God to show you how He will have you serve, and that you will both be blessed, and be a blessing, through your work in His kingdom.