Daily Archives: December 3, 2009

This is the time of year when people start to talk about the war on Christmas. It is a popular slogan to “Keep Christ in Christmas.” There is nothing wrong with that sentiment, unfortunately for many the battleground for the war on Christmas is in slogans, names and semantics. It’s just a matter of time before someone targets a store to boycott because they have the atheistic gall to put up signs that say “Happy Holidays.”

Keeping Christ in Christmas is about more than how you greet someone or what the sign at JC Penny’s reads, or what you call the decorated tree on the lawn at City Hall.

If you want to keep Christ in Christmas, do something that Christ would actually care about. Feed the hungry, cure the sick, share the good news of Jesus Christ, invite someone to church, pray for others, read your Bible. Those are the things that we can do to keep Christ in Christmas.

Here’s one way Chenoa UMC is trying to keep Christ in Christmas: by giving food to kids over Christmas break. We are trying something new at our church. It was an idea that started in a small group Bible study. Inspired by the call to Risk-Taking Mission, the group decided to try and make Christmas Lunch Boxes for elementary school students that would not have lunch over Christmas Break.

So they started collecting food, and telling others. In a matter of a few days a few hundred dollars and a table full of food has been donated. The principal of Chenoa Elementary was contacted, and a letter is going to go out to every student inviting parents to either make a donation or to call the church to get a Christmas Lunch Box.

We don’t know what is going to happen next, but we feel the power of the Holy Spirit in this mission. We know that there is going to be a child that wakes up on Christmas morning, and might not know a thing about Jesus or the Bible, but they will also not know hunger. That child will sit down at a table and eat a sandwich and Christ will be there – right smack dab in the middle of Christmas.