I would like to talk about a most unusual topic today. I would like to talk about Christmas. The Christmas that is past and the one about 10 months away. Given Sunday shopping these last few years Christmas 2006 is about 315 shopping days away give or take a stat holiday. I specifically want to talk about the amount of money many of us spend on gifts. The amount we spend on gifts and how we might look at that differently in 2007.
Why am I talking about this now? Firstly it is for easier to talk about this in the objectivity of February then the crass, pressured consumerism of the first week of December. Often we ask these questions in December and in the pressure of the moment simply to defer them to the following year. Some of us have been having the same conversation about Christmas and money for 20 years with no progress.
Most of us have far too many material goods in life; clothes, self-inflicted and foisted souvenirs that no one needs nor wants, basic items that underline our affluence and literally mock the poverty and lack of basic necessities in the rest of the world. We often overbuy , over consume and over indulge at Christmas. When we feel badly about our lack of self-control (or worse, our willful hedonism) we stop buying for ourselves and transfer our materialistic immaturity onto others.
We have strongly competing values in the Christian community, our churches and in many of our circle of family and friends. My plea is to talk about this now, when it is easier to think wisely. Plan now so you can be creative in December 2007 with your giving. Talk and plan so that you can communicate to those you usually give gifts too how you’re thinking and feelings are changing in these matters so that you’ll be agreeing about the process and reducing awkward feelings. Enlist the cooperation of others and do a great deal of creative good in the name of the Christ whose birthday we will celebrate. Enlist others and give more appropriately by working on it now.
There are several choices that present themselves. Keep buying, giving and receiving with no plan nor consideration as to how the money might be better used nor how we might see this process as an opportunity for personal growth and formation.
Secondly (I might let you know here that I find buying for Christmas stockings and gifts in general is almost a hobby that spreads its pleasure throughout the year)… secondly, you may need to maintain past giving levels for certain members of your family or old friends (especially the young and elderly or those without an affinity for Christian values) and those for whom a change of pattern would be different.
Thirdly we can begin afresh to look at how Christ would have us celebrate his birthday by giving to Him and through Him this year and throughout the year.
Here are some practical things:
- Work out what you spent on gifts last Christmas.
- Is this an average amount?
- Is this an amount you can afford?
- Is this the amount you want to spend this year?
- Whom do you want to give gifts to?
- Do you need to spend the same amount and / or give the same kind of gifts again? (hint, don’t give a 4 year old a duck in Nigeria when they would better understand a stuffed duck right here in Canada)
Next, draw up a list of those in your life that you think would like to join you in helping others. (I can’t imagine ever stopping stocking stuffers for those closest to me)
Once you know those you would like to draw into a new experience this year here are some options:
You may give a monetary gift to a church or denominational work.
Some of those could include:
- A gift from the CBM catalogue. Gifts like farm animals in Rwanda and Bolivia for families to help them bring in an income, a day of school for someone in Indonesia, or even a pair of seedlings to someone in Kenya so that they can eat a nutritious meal or sell the food for an income, range in cost from $10 to $2500. There are also some gifts like sponsoring a student that are available for monthly donations. I recommend the CBM catalogue because many of the gifts are contextualized into poor situations by people we know and pray for.
- A gift from the World Vision catalogue. Gifts such as immunization for children, clean water, and school supplies range from under $50 to over $500.
- Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CBM is a partner) – a Christian-based food aid and development organization that collects donations of grain, cash and other agricultural commodities for distribution to the world’s hungry (description from their website).
- Closer to Christmas we’ll make several more regional options available
Some non-monetary gifts include the use of your time. This a thoughtful and precious commodity and can be described in a card and can even include an invitation for the recipient to join you.
Some non-monetary gifts include volunteering at a :
- Local food bank
- Local Mustard Seed Calgary (over 1600 new volunteers helped last Christmas) Edmonton or Calgary
- One of your churches local programs
- The Sunday meal at Fort St. John or
- Out of the Cold at Grandview Calvary in Vancouver or
- the Meat Food Bank the Shoal Lake in West Manitoba of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank at Brownfield in Alberta.. maybe these folks need help and you need a holiday to go help them).
New Life in Duncan have an awesome program for kids and single parents to help them start the school year. (Ever been poor and felt the sting of that in September? Through absolutely no fault of my parents I knew that feeling and therefore have a particular affinity for the New Life program.)
Projects don’t have to be around Christmas but at any time of the year.
If you want some good models for a general church program call Mike Schoeber at Vancouver’s Kits church who have had up to 17 Christmas benevolence projects in one year or Fort Saskatchewan’s Alan McPhedron with their church’s creating a farm animal purchase program overseas.
So get beyond the old Christmas boxes.
Send a child to camp.
Subsidize a counselor at camp.
Buy a bible for a new Christian.
Sponsor the food (or make it for an Alpha course).
Bring over clothes for a single parent family for school start or get your church to start a school-start program.
Get some corn seeds for a church planter in Kenya who is trying to support his/her family buy growing and selling food.
Help with Human Trafficking advocacy
Challenge homelessness
Give hospitality to refugees
Comfort the lonely, elderly, or sick
Visit those in prison.
You get the idea.
If you are part of this large eclectic Baptist family, chances are Christ has already given you a generous heart just waiting to be broken open for those who need your creative, loving, generous touch. My admin associate, Shelby Gregg, has suggested that these acts of creative kindness can occur throughout the year and are not stuck in the holiday good luck of December. She would include birthdays, anniversaries or any other special occasion. Sorry to bring it up early but this giving is a year round thing.
Warmly in Christ
Jeremy Bell
Ps My thanks to Elizabeth Bell, my mother, for a mentored childhood in these matters. To Kerry Macfarlane Bell, my wife, who challenges me around these material issues and our friends at the Seed and CBM.
Suggested Personal Questions around Christmas Giving
1. What did I spend last year? _____________________
2.Is this the amount I want to spend this year? __________
3. If this is not the amount I want to spend what is the new amount? _________________
4. Who do you want to give gifts to this year?
____________________ _____________________ ________________________
____________________ _____________________ ________________________
____________________ _____________________ ________________________
____________________ _____________________ ________________________
____________________ _____________________ ________________________
____________________ _____________________ ________________________
5. Who from your list would be open / appropriate to give an alternative gift to this year? (simply enter the above names … be wise, no 2 year old philanthropists, please. It can put children off the faith, self-care is completely appropriate too, Jesus and his disciples were known as people who liked nice things too.)
6. Take a look at some of the options in the newsletter and reflect on what you would like to participate in.