Rick McKinley - Advent Conspiracy: Making Christmas Meaningful (Again)

CONTENTS

I n some ways it is remarkable that a decade has come and gone since a handful of churches started dreaming of a different way to celebrate Christmas. But God has filled those ten-plus years with stories of meaning and worship.

And for this, we are grateful.

From the beginning this idea of a conspiracy made sense to uswe followers of King Jesus would conspire with other like-minded believers to resist what presses in on each of us during the Advent season. And for many, the idea of conspiring seemed just about right. For others, the word seemed a bit scary at first. Interviews we each gave to the media upon the initial release of the book would sometimes start with the name of this movementand a question. In a world of conspiracy theorists and so many who imagine one behind every tree, do we really need one moreyou knowconspiracy?

Of course, in some ways, this played out exactly as we had hoped. For yes, the world very much needed this kind of conspiracy, we would each explain. Together there was a better way, a fuller, richer way to celebrate the joy of the Christmas story. And this one not only protected our hearts (and in many cases, our budgets), but it offered protection and care for those in our world who are most exposedthe least of these, as Jesus so lovingly referred to them. It seemed like a win-win.

Well, not to everyone.

There were those who questioned our patriotism when we began to call for spending less. At that particular time, some would suggest we could spend our way out of the economic doldrums in which our country was then mired. Dont you want things to improve? one national commentator asked on a widely watched network. And then there was a rather famous and long-standing member of the television show The View who most decidedly did not agree with our tenets or our intent.

But then there were the others.

Our first year, the three churches we lead invested some capital in this movement to help get the word out: a website and a video explaining what we were up to. Who knew that day in December it would be the most viewed video on YouTube?

It seemed we werent alone in thinking there must be a better way to celebrate the glorious story of Jesus birth. Over the course of the next years, this conspiracy began to resonate with people around the world, each employing their own expressions of the four tenets that you will soon discover. Today, thousands of churches and various groups have conspired with us.

Because of the nature of the Advent Conspiracy and the fact that no money is given to us, it is impossible to know completely just how much money has been given to othersin local communities and to global organizationsall in the name of Jesus. But as youll see, the stories reveal that something has indeed happened. When local churches agree to partner together to address an issue close to home, something is happening. When children begin to explain to their reliably generous grandparents that they only want one gift, and theyd like the rest of the money that their grandparents planned to spend to be used to help children halfway around the world, something is happening. When successful business owners on their early steps toward Jesus give for the first time to a Christian organization at Christmas, something is happening. When senior adults find purpose and a sense that they can still make a difference, when the very young start thinking entrepreneurally for the sake of the kingdom, something is happening.

When people in developing countriesmany of whom could be on the receiving end of all this givingask if they too can participate in this conspiracy by giving to those even less fortunate, something is happening that could only be born in the mind of God himself. This was truly the body of Christ working together for the sake of his kingdom and the good of our world. When other countries took these tenets and translated them to their own culture (for example, the much cooler sounding Les Rebelles de Noel of France), what was happening was now completely and forever out of our control. Not that it ever was ours to control.

But over the years in some very obvious ways, this call to a different way of celebrating Christmas became a Spirit-led revolution. And we believe God is just getting started. In fact, it is now time for us to pray for the same Spirit of God to breathe new life into this dream. It has been a fun ride, but now is the time for each of us to invite others into this grand plan of our good God. May conspirators young and old; rich and not-so-rich; in churches large and small, urban, suburban, and rural vow never to go back to the old, exhausting ways. May God remind us in obvious and not-so-obvious ways that the worship of his Son this Advent can still spark a revolution the likes of which the world hasnt seen.

I magine: The creator of the cosmos chose, from among his numberless galaxies and spinning stars, one tiny rock of a planet on which he entered human life in the most natural and self-effacing of waysthrough the womb of a willing teenage girl.

His was one of many births that night, no doubt, but it was unique: God became a wailing, wrinkled newborn birthed onto the bloody straw of life on our sin-sick planet.

Perhaps only the angels knew what they were really witnessing. Their voices rang through the heavens, singing, Glory to God in the highest! Glory to God for the gift of his Son; glory to God for the cosmos-dwarfing love that led to the birth of a King in a rough stable.

There is a sense of prophetic mystery surrounding Christs birth. The story reveals something divine to us; it drives our quest to look closely at our own stories. Who are we? Why are we? How do we? Where, in the midst of our questions, is this Immanuel, this God-with-us?

MISSING OUT

Sadly, for all our questioning, the mystery of the Incarnation still escapes us. Jesus comes, in his first Advent, into the midst of our great sin and suffering. This was Gods design. But apart from the angels nudging a few scared shepherds and a cryptic star decoded by a handful of distant astrologists, almost everyone else simply missed it.

Are we any different?

Each year many of us routinely miss the wonder of Gods miraculous birth. Reading those words even now should fill us with awe. But our overstuffed Decembers leave us wanting more. Our hyperconsumption leaves us empty. We worship less. We spend more. We give less. We struggle more.

Less, more. More, less. Time and nerves stretch thin, and we reduce family and friends to a card or a present that costs the right amount to prove our level of love. Our quest to celebrate mystery exhausts us. Another Christmas has passed by like a blizzard, and we are left to shovel through the trash of our failure.

This cant be right.

Missing the prophetic mystery of Jesus birth means missing God-with-us, God beside usGod becoming one of us. Missing out on Jesus changes everything.

BACK TO THE STABLE

Several years ago, a few of us were lamenting how wed come to the end of an Advent season exhausted and sensing wed missed it again: the awe-inducing, soul-satisfying mystery of the Incarnation. No wonder there was a dread at the beginning of each new season as we prepared to proclaim, celebrate, and worship around the story of God entering our world as one of us. Something was just not right. A creeping kind of idolatry was consuming us along with our congregations.