Nov
30

Advent MMXI – Or How I Learned To Stop Thinking of Christmas as a Super Bowl

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I am a little bit reluctant to say this out loud, but, I kind of like Christmas these days.  Our tree is up, I played my three “A Very Special Christmas” CDs the other day while the family was around, and I even put white lights on the outside of the house this year signifying…
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Nov
30

I’m too tired to hate Christmas this year.

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Usually around this time of year I’m brushing up on arguments in defense of not having Santa around for our 4 & 6 year old boys. Or trying to slow the onslaught of gifts coming from grandparents. Or… I don’t even know. For me, the problem with Christmas is that it’s never really been whatever…
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Dec
07

A Season of Expectation

I’ve loved Advent since I was a little kid. I grew up at Roswell UMC in Roswell, GA wasting countless offering envelopes drawing pictures on them only to rush out and hand the stack of ruined-for-giving church property to Rev. Malone or Rev. John. They’d greet me with a big hug and promise to put…
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Dec
07

Contemplative Christmastide Worship – Free Resource

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I’ve been designing and dreaming up contemplative worship experiences for over 8 years now with youth, young adults, regular ole’ adults and multi-generational groups. It has been one of the most mysterious and gratifying things I’ve done in ministry. Being a part of the movement I thought I’d put together some ideas on pulling together…
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Nov
15

a “Life Giving Christmas”

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Friends at United Methodist Communications sent me a copy of their media pack for “A Life Giving Christmas” as part of their ReThinkChurch campaigns…