Redeemer’s Christmas Conspiracy

I was sipping on my drink at a local coffee shop the other day, when I realized: I blew it… big!  $2 big!  I should have stopped myself & bought a simple cup of coffee.  But instead I chose to spend another $2 on myself by upgrading it to a Christmas Latte.  Basically I got $2 worth of fancy cream & sugar.

You might not think that $2 is that much, but listen to this: 53 people out of 100 in this world live on $2 per day.  On the opposite extreme, the average person that works & lives in north Johnson City makes $200 per day.  That’s 100 times the amount of what the average person on this planet makes.  One hundred times!  I think it’s safe to say that we are very rich. 

Allow me to give another example of just how rich we are: According to the World Water Council, 1.1 billion people live without clean drinking water.  And as you just read that last sentence, 22 children died from water-borne diseases. It’s an enormous problem that would cost $10 billion to fix. 

With that kind of figure, you might think that the problem can’t be solved.  But did you know that financial experts have estimated that Americans just spent $20 billion shopping on Black Friday alone (the day after Thanksgiving)?  Wow!  America could have fixed the world’s clean water problem this year if it would have spent half of what it did on black Friday & re-distributed the rest. 

It’s easy to see how much we’ve blown it.  Especially when we recall that Christmas is about God’s heart for the poor.  After all, the Bible says that “our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). It was on Christmas morning that Jesus entered our soul’s poverty to save us & bless us. 

 Jesus gave us the best present He could – His very life! But each year we trade in the gift of Christ for stuff. Why?  Because the image of a baby in a manger just doesn’t seem as powerful as a 42” plasma with surround sound or as elegant as the Nutcraker. We stuff the poverty of our souls with the riches of this world instead of the riches of Christ.

So, this Christmas, we at Redeemer have asked:

- What if… we changed? 

- What if… we chose not to stuff ourselves with stuff?

- What if… like Christ, we stepped into the world by blessing others?

- What if… we passed along our riches to the poor? 

This Christmas we at Redeemer have decided do just that. We’ve decided to love the poorest in practical ways. 

How are we doing this?  Well, there’s many ways, but here are the ideas that are going around:

1. We’re spending less & giving more!  There are two ways to do this.  First, we’re trying not to blow our money on self-serving things (like Christmas Lattes).  Many people at Redeemer are shopping the deals in order to spend less than their Christmas budget.  We’re taking all of these savings & passing them along to the poor.
2. We’re creatively re-directing our gifts.  Instead of giving our family & friends a list of things that they can buy us (clothing, sports equipment, etc.), we’re asking for them to spend the same amount of money on someone who really needs it.  So, instead of asking for a $50 sweater, we’re simply asking for that $50 to go to a poor village in Rwanda without clean water. 

We would like to invite you to jump in the “Christmas Conspiracy” by giving to the international poor this Christmas.  If you would like to but do not know how, be assured that there are all kinds of reputable organizations that can help you wisely give away your resources… even the smallest amount.  

Here are a few links to start your holiday shopping:

Blood Water Mission 

Samaritans Purse 

Think about how much this could change your Christmas. Instead of making it all about the atmosphere, the shopping, the music, the décor… and especially… the stuff, you can make it all about the Savior’s entrance in our world!  For though He was rich, became poor in order to bless us. 

Why shouldn’t we do the same to others?