Worship Fully

 

Our church is starting its third year of involvement with Advent Conspiracy.  For the next four Sundays leading up to Christmas we will cover one of the four tenets:  Worship Fully,  Spend Less, Give More, Love All.   The goal is to escape the commercial trap of Christmas and return to the message of God's love for the world displayed in tangible ways--like drilling wells for clean water around the world.

Today's message was to Worship Fully.   You may have seen the sign "Jesus is the Reason for the Season."  That's true, but so much more than that as well.  It's not enough to think only of the baby in the manger.  He grew into a man, he was the perfect sacrifice, he is our Redeemer.  He deserves our praise and focus on more than just the 25th of December.

For a sermon illustration our minister invited two volunteers on the podium.   Normally when our pastor asks for volunteers my husband and I try to avoid making eye contact--I won't go into the reasons now.  The two volunteers were seated at a cafe table and the minister offered to serve them lunch.  He opened a cooler and pulled out the Thanksgiving turkey carcass in a Ziploc bag saying "I think you can pull a few bits of meat off that."  He follow up with stale rolls left out for three days, cold mashed potatoes and congealed gravy.  The two volunteers were beginning to wish they had avoided eye contact as well.   The point being was this is how some of us worship God--He get's the scraps of our time, the change left in our pockets.

Having made the two guests suffer enough, the pastor's wife came from the baptistry area with two hot plates filled with a lovely Thangsgiving meal.  We are to give God our first fruits, our best -- knowing He can take them and turn them into so much more, just like the loaves and fishes.

Next Week:  Spend Less