Sunday, December 7th – Jesus & Empire
[Rebel - Missional] What was Jesus’ birth like for the powers of His day (i.e., Herod)? How might a look at this encounter between Christ and power alter how we look at the powers of our day and age during Christmas (i.e., consumerism, materialism, individualism)?
Point: Jesus’ birth challenged the powers that marginalized and oppressed people and detracted from God’s mission of restoring a world back to Himself. At Christmas, we need to stand against the consumeristic powers of our world that offer mere hopes of security, love and identity and embrace the missional spirit of the Incarnation. Stuff has become to us what Jesus challenged in the Roman world. We say we need things that we really want. We refuse to stand up because we’re afraid of being ostracized or not being cool. Missional living is about dropping everything and following Jesus [at the expense of my popularity, athletic ability, academic success, free time, fun time, family time]. We do not understand Jesus because we do not understand the Incarnation.
Sunday, December 14th – Three Wise Men
[Worship - Relational] Christmas is not all about us. At the birth of Christ, God used a star to guide the magi to the location of Jesus. These men worshiped the stars and God used a culturally relevant medium to connect and communicate with them. How might this shape how we view Christmas and sharing of ourselves with those around us?
Point: Jesus’ birth star was a culturally relevant means of communicating to a particular people. Consumeristic Christmas lingo teaches us to buy for ourselves and families stuff that is here today and gone tomorrow. The Incarnation propels us to embrace Ashland in its areas of greatest need and not exploit it in the name of holiday cheer. We need to drop our consumeristic understandings of Christmas in order to share the good news with a community that has lost jobs, etc. We need to be a star, a light of hope, to a depressed community that does not see a need for celebration. We never know what people have to offer until we offer ourselves to them. Consumeristic thinking paints shallow pictures of people [haves and have nots] instead of seeing them as fellow humans worthy of love.
Sunday, December 21st – Mary
[Receive - Incarnational] Christmas is about God coming to us and taking on human flesh. The Incarnation changes everything. Why did God choose the means He did to bring His son into the world? The birth of Christ is a God identifying with us. Do we ever sit back and ponder just how much God loves us?
Point: Jesus’ birth was a great challenge to Mary and Joseph. God chose a woman, lowly in her day and age. The Incarnation is God identifying with us. Consumeristic Christianity teases with false hopes of love and security and we never fully understand how much God loves us and fights for us. If we understood how much God loves us and proves it during the Incarnation, we would not need all the stuff we surround ourselves with in life. For example, we choose sex and lust because we think that’s all we can get or are worthy of. In reality, the Incarnation shows us that we are worth so incredibly much more.
Wednesday, December 24th – Christmas Eve
[Worship the Baby – Missional / Relational / Incarnational] Over a meal and a recap of the journey, we will worship the Baby together. Songs, testimonies, videos, pictures, etc to celebrate and maybe a few clips from the film “What Would Jesus Buy?”
Rough Outline: Welcome & Prayer [setup in the round] – Food [pictures/video rolling throughout meal/promptings at table to share stories] – Songs & Stories [have mics set up around the room that people can come up to and share their stories] – Recap of the journey to this evening [Missional/Relational/Incarnational] – Songs [maybe people shout out Christmas suggestions] – community prayer – light candles at end, hold hands, and sing Silent Night - END”