Have you had it with Christmas?

Whatever happened to Christmas?It’s supposed to be a time to celebrate the birth of our Savior and Lord, the dawning of redemption, the good news of great joy to the entire world!

But what do we experience? the overload of stress, the anxiety of buying the
right gifts for one another when most of us already have so much stuff we
aren’t sure where to store it all more consumer debt that will take us months
to pay off the gnawing sense that we’re not so much giving and receiving gifts as we are giving in to the pressure of “Christ-mess” Worst of all is that somehow in the midst of the celebration we feel like we may have missed the whole point. Jesus himself was pretty clear about what his arrival meant for the world:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the op­pressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:18-19 

There isn’t a word in there about sales or online specials, right? So we, at Wheatland Salem Church, started thinking about how we might reconnect with what God had in mind all along in the birth of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer. How could we worship Jesus Christ through the gift of compassion rather than the  renzy of consumption?  

Reconnect Christmas:

Bringing our celebration of Jesus’ birth in line with God’s intention. Over the past several years we have sought to give an annual gift from our whole congre­gation to celebrate the birth of our Savior…a gift that makes Jesus smile. These opportuni­ties develop from prayer over a period of months and sometimes, like this year, things change in a flash. We’ve built a commu­nity center in Kigoma, Tanzania. We’ve funded schools for nearly 600 children who would normally be sold into “bonded labor” in two states within India. This year we had antici­pated giving the gift of an educational support center on behalf of an “untouchable” com­munity of people in a desert country where, amazingly, the gospel of Jesus is taking root and church is being formed where, at least to everyone’s knowledge, no church has ever existed before – ever. Yet civil unrest has erupted, our mission partners have had to quickly relocate to a nearby country, and the future of the educa­tional support center is uncertain. Not to worry. Through our connections in that region of the world, we are able to help some of these same people through the life-giving gift of goats. You would not welcome one of those under your Christ­mas tree, but a goat for these families is a gift that will make Jesus smile. 

How you can get in on the fun.

With our special reconnect Christmas gift you are not asked to give more money or come up with ad­ditional dollars. The reconnect Christmas offering provides us with an opportunity to re-direct some of the money we would spend on gifts to our­selves, our family, and others in order to give 25%-50% of what we had planned to spend to buy goats. The cost of a goat in this Middle Eastern country is $130 dollars and a family of four is $520. On  Sunday, December 16th, we will have a community wide Reconnect Christmas Offering during our regular service times But if you can’t make it do not worry. We will be taking donations on line (wheatlandsalem.org, click on the Reconnect Christmas graphic) or send us a check to WSC, 1217 Wolf Road, Oswego, IL 60543 with the notation “Reconnect Christmas.”

We will send 100% of the offering to our mission partners for the purchase and transport of the goats as well as the support services needed to help each family suc­ceed in raising goats, making and market­ing goat cheese, and breeding  additional goats for themselves and others. Invite your family members, friends, and other groups with which you are in­volved to participate. We do have “goat gift cards” for those on whose behalf you are partici­pating in the Recon­nect Christmas Project (cards will be available December 9 – 23).  Let’s change the world!