Here are some interesting numbers surrounding the Christmas holidays!

A year ago as we were preparing for our Christmas Eve services, I led our staff in a prayer event for our church that had a fun Christmas theme involving Christmas music. What’s not to love about that? Click here to read that post and download files to host a similar Christmas prayer event with your staff or volunteers.

Sara and I haven’t exactly sat down to discuss how we’re going to handle Santa with Titus. He’s three this year and he still really doesn’t know anything about Santa. He knows who he is, we just haven’t talked about him. I don’t have anything against Santa, but I do kind of have a thing against his naughty list. In many ways, it’s completely opposite to the Christian Christmas message. The naughty list feeds an incorrect view of right and wrong. Most people’s worldview states that if they might just get to go to heaven if they’ve been good more than they’ve been bad. I’m not saying that the two are related, but if the loudest message a child hears growing up that they better be good, then they’re probably going to grow up with that bent in life.

The truth is that we’re all on the naughty list. God gave all of us a gift bigger than Santa could ever deliver. God gave us this gift BECAUSE we were on the naughty list. Grace is God’s unmerited favor and that’s what we have through Jesus.

It’s funny how we idealize the Christmas story and focus on specific parts. Watching the video story by James reminded me of this truth. In our mind we see a beautiful scene of Jesus wrapped in swaddling cloth in that little manger… asleep in the hay. It’s a perfect scene we recreate in all of our homes with our little nativity sets and teach our kids. But I think we glaze over the disgusting factor.

Here’s what I mean about the disgusting factor. I really don’t enjoy being dirty. I’ve rarely ever gone camping for more than two days because the buildup of grime on my body kind of bothers me. I spent two months in India when I was 17 and it really stretched me. On a village trip, I went 7 days without a shower and I remember waking up one morning with my sleeping pad all wet from some liquid that had starting flowing through the space where we were all sleeping on the floor. God gave me grace to survive that week… and an nearly endless supply of baby wipes.

When you sit an think about the nature of Christ’s birth, disgusting is probably a little tame. Now, I’m sure that the people of the time were used to an less-hygienic friendly environment than we are today, but I’m sure Mary and Joseph were a little grossed out too. If the Inn was full, it’s likely that the stable they were staying in was pretty full too. Also, I’m probably not imaging a spacious stable either, it was probably sufficient for the guests of the inn and with the “no vacancy” situation, it was probably a tight squeeze.

I imagine aromatic sensations that would be displeasing… downright gross. I’m also picturing nosey and irritating animals. You know how it is with animals. They come over and sniff and like and get all up in your business. From chickens, to goats to whatever else they might have in that stable, they were all getting in the way. If I picture myself in that situation, I think I’d be consoling my wife because she’s be so upset to be giving birth in a freaking barn.

Now, I’ve witnessed the birth of my son. It was beautiful… but also disgusting. I’m glad there were nurses and doctors to help. I was especially glad for nurses and doctors to clean up. I was thankful for modern conveniences to clean and “freshen things up.” Mary and Joseph didn’t have all of this. If they had been home, they probably could have been prepared with water and towels or whatever they usually had, but they were miles form home and in a stinky barn. Not ideal.

I’m sure they were absolutely thrilled with the birth of their son, but I’m sure that in their mind they were thinking, “Seriously, did this just happen? In a barn? With an audience of farm animals?”

So, I think it’s helpful for me to remember all of this. God knew what he was thinking his son was born. In fact, God let his son be born in the worst of circumstances so that there would be no one he couldn’t identify with. More importantly, I think is’t absolutely beautiful what Jesus did. I have a sense of pride, giving up my luxuries for one summer to go to a developing nation and giving myself away to show love to people who didn’t feel love. Jesus did this in a way I never could. He gave up the perfection of heaven to wallow in the filth of humanity. He gave up far more than I have. It makes me sad that I struggle so much with giving up things that I should when Christ did so much more.

His birth in the stable was just a symbol of an even more significant action. His birth in a disgusting barn was a reflection of God entering the messiness of a world we corrupted. How amazing is his love that he would go to such great lengths to save us?

Back in the Fall we experienced some lower than normal numbers that have been attributed to the flu that was so widespread. To say that we had lower than normal numbers was an understatement. We had over 300 kids who didn’t attend once in October that were regularly attending in August and September. We had leaders and volunteers call the families of every kid. We also began to promote the holidays with something we called the Crazy Christmas Countdown. Here’s what we did.

We totally decked out the Kids building two weeks before Thanksgiving and started 5 weeks of Christmas celebration. Every week was crazy sock week where kids with the craziest socks were recognized and maybe even won prizes. We had crazy and fun games in both early childhood and elementary that tied into the Crazy Christmas theme. Then as a cause for everyone to get behind, we gathered presents for families in need. We put a tree in our lobby covered with socks and ornaments (just simple laminated circles with Christmas socks on one side and a list of items for the gift bag on the other). By the second service of the first Sunday, the 100 ornaments gone which was very exciting.

All gifts were due two Sundays before Christmas which was just a few days before the Christmas party for refugees and families in need where the gifts would be distributed. That Sunday, the Kids lobby was filled with gift bags. It was pretty awesome.

By all appearances, the Crazy Christmas Countdown seemed successful. Although I think the leaders and volunteers had more fun with the socks, lots of kids were excited to wear their crazy socks. We provided more than enough gifts for the families in need, so that was great too. What was most important was that the trend of growth returned. I don’t really know if it was due to our efforts of Crazy Christmas Countdown, (actually I’m not really sure how we could measure it) but where October had been a month of decrease compared to the previous year, November and December jumped back to the 10-17% growth range over the previous year.

I’m still giving what we do for outreach a lot of thought. Not only do I want to help the community, but I want to transform the character of kids as well. But overall, I think we’ll do something like Crazy Christmas Countdown again. Anything that builds momentum during a time where attendance tends to sag is a great thing.

I’m not really sure what it is though. Hulu says it’s Episode 1 of Season 1, but I’m not sure we’re going to see more episodes before Christmas. Regardless, it’s a great flick.

I’ll write later about details (like why we’re using this, when we’

Many of those who follow me on twitter knew what was going on and were praying for us. They saw the whole ordeal unfold.

For the past few weeks, Titus has been fighting off colds and stomach bugs. Last Sunday he was hit hard. We’ve never seen him so sick. He was throwing up, congested and downright lethargic. He’d just lay in his crib or or arms… so sad. We had plans to drive from Austin, TX to Atlanta, GA after our last Christmas Eve service. I wasn’t too concerned about Titus being sick since it was still several days away. Since he was so sick, Sara wasn’t feeling great and Sara had a lot on her plate as well, I kicked into over drive to get us ready. I tried to sanitize our house and catch up on laundry. On Sunday I did 6-7 loads. Monday and Tuesday came and Titus wasn’t getting any better. He hadn’t kept down solid food since Saturday afternoon and our trip was defiantly in jeopardy.

By Tuesday night, we knew we wouldn’t be driving to GA the next day. My brother (incredibly generous) offered to fly us out the next day instead. However, Titus was in no condition to fly. He was just so week. On Christmas Eve, Sara and I talked about what we wanted to see to even consider traveling. We wanted to see Titus eating solid food again and sitting up and playing. He still hadn’t eaten since Saturday and hadn’t played since Sunday.

Well, just before bedtime, he ate a jar of baby food and started babbling. A ray of hope. Then at 5:00 in the morning, he woke up screaming. He was HUNGRY. He downed two big jars of baby food before falling asleep again. Sara and I woke up at about 10:30 and by that time Titus was up and running around the house again. Go God! My brother bought our tickets and within two hours (it was a very stressful and crazy two hours) we were on the road to DFW to fly out to Atlanta. By 11:00 that nigh, we were hanging out with family in the mountains of North Georgia.

So, that’s pretty much what happened. It was a crazy week, but a great Christmas nonetheless. I think next year we’ll just stay home.