The following is what I wrote for the Bethany Christian Church (DOC) newsletter regarding our upcoming Advent Conspiracy program.

We have survived the Thanksgiving holiday and the mad dash of Black Friday and Cyber Monday; we are now on the precipice of Advent.  Advent is a time of waiting and hoping for the coming of the Christ child into the world.  We prepare for this season in a myriad of ways.  We decorate our houses, we sing songs and we gather with family once more.

Here at Bethany Christian Church we are going to enter into the story of Advent in a different way.  For the next four Sundays during Church School we will be journeying together through the program called Advent Conspiracy

Advent Conspiracy (or AC) is based on four primary tenets: Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More and Love All.  The focus of Advent Conspiracy is centered around the notion on how Christmas can change the world.  The very first Christmas 2000+ years ago was radical and counter-cultural   The idea of a God (of any religion) coming to earth to dwell and live and serve and teach was something that never entered into people’s minds.  However, because of this indwelling of God, we now put ourselves on trajectory to be in communion with God for all times.

So why not start at the beginning?  The beginning of the story of God on earth in encapsulated in the story of Jesus’ birth.  While is it only accounted in two gospels (Matthew and Luke), within the stories we see the movement of God and the power of the incarnation.

Advent Conspiracy allows us to think about how we celebrate Christmas in a new and exciting way.  This first week’s tenet is Worship Fully.  We are called this Advent to worship God as fully as we can as an expression of our faith in Jesus Christ.  The authors of Advent Conspiracy summed it up well then they wrote:

“The time of year when worshiping Jesus should be the easiest is often the hardest.  The invitation to  join the Advent Conspiracy is a call to remain in the gospel of Jesus and worship him—no matter how strongly the cultural demands of Christ pull at us.  The transformation initiated by Jesus I no different today than it was the day he was born—the source of joy, peace, and hope hasn’t changed.” (Rick McKinley, Chris Seay, and Greg Holder, Advent Conspiracy: Can Christmas Still Change the World? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2009), page 34.)

Join us this Sunday for the Advent Conspiracy.

In Christ,

Rev. Evan M. Dolive