The Purpose of Christmas

I wrote an article entitled The Purpose of Christmas a few years ago... and thought you might enjoy it.  Here's a little teaser...

I gave in. What was I thinking? My wife asked (begged) me to go shopping with her on the day after Thanksgiving.  My answer?  Ok, sure.  What was I thinking?!?!  I hate shopping!  Even worse, I had agreed to go with her on the busiest shopping day of the year.  The only reason I can come up with is that if she went, I would be at home alone with all three kids ALL DAY LONG!  Oh well…

What I experienced last Friday was UGLY!  People were pushing, adults were fighting over toys & parking spaces (we saw two guys almost get in a fist fight over a parking space), and sales people were rude.  Honestly, it wasn’t all bad.  There were some people that seemed to have some perspective, but not many we ran into.

A bright spot in our day was when we were seated in a restaurant next to a new mom & her baby.  It just so happened that since our sitter was kind of young, we had our baby with us too.  She and Robin struck up a conversation and it wasn’t long before our conversation turned to spiritual things.  She was feeling guilty and alone (as an unwed mother).  We were able to share about Christ’s love and we invited her to visit our church.  It was a total God-ordained appointment.

Anyway, the whole consumer-driven, commercialized theme of the holiday shopping rush always seems to frustrate me.  I keep asking myself, “Don’t they get it?”  I mean… do they really think that’s what Christmas is all about?  If we look at the Christmas story from its original source, the Bible, we can determine the true meaning of Christmas.  Let’s look at it.  There are two biblical accounts to look at, Matthew 1:18-2:19 and Luke 1:5-2:40.

To read it online, click here.

Changed little lives

At Watermark we are highly focused on children’s ministry.  They will get high quality resources and leaders. When it comes to a choice between buying something for our kids and buying sound equipment, we always default to purchasing stuff for our kids.  This is paying off richly!!!  In the past six weeks, three kids have come to Christ!

One of them is a high-energy little guy… a happy go lucky, fun little dude named Alex.  But sometimes he is also an EGR child (Extra Grace Required).  He and his little sister live across the street from the church building, and their mom and dad take turns coming with them… sometimes the children even come by themselves.

One afternoon as Robin was praying for Alex, God showed her a glimpse of what his life could look like.  She pictured him as an adult and what he would tell someone about how he came to Christ.  

She pictured him as a young adult telling about this church that started across the street from where he lived.  He said, “I don’t even remember anyone’s name there, but that’s where people loved me and were happy to see me!  I gave my heart to Christ and I’ve never been the same since!”

Actually, last Sunday, Alex did give his heart to Christ!  And his sister did so the week before.

Pictures from last Sunday

We had a lot of fun last Sunday looking at many of the things people think a Christian is.  We used a lot of props to represent these things.  And Daniel made the perfect illustration of what many people think a real Christian should look like!

Be sure to come back this weekend to see part 2 of “What it means to be a Christian”!

Wir hatten letzten Sonntag riesen Spaß, als wir uns angeschaut haben, was viele Menschen denken, was einen Christen ausmacht.

Wir haben das, ohne es respektlos erscheinen zu lassen, veranschaulicht. Daniel hat das perfekt illustriert, was viele Menschen denken, wie ein echter Christ aussehen müsse!

Sei dieses Wochenende wieder dabei um dir Teil 2 von "Was es bedeutet, ein Christ zu sein!" anzuschauen!

A Sabbath rest for pastors

It's Monday... the day of rest for many pastors. Because we don't get Sundays off like everyone else, we need to choose another day.

Actually, taking a day off is one of the Ten Commandments...
 
“Remember to keep the Sabbath holy." - Exodus 20:8. 

The biblical term is "Sabbath".  It was commanded by God so the people would take a day off to rest and enjoy, rather than just working seven days a week.  And notice that God tells us to keep it holy... He places a spiritual value on it. 

Last week I took my first Sabbath rest in over three months.  Because of all that had to be done I just worked seven days a week.  I knew planting a church would be difficult, but I never realized just how difficult.  There were people to be contacted, calls to be made, emails to send, chairs, children's and musical equipment to be ordered, meetings with our team, city officials and neighbors... The list could go on and on.

Two weeks ago God really started dealing with me about the importance of taking a Sabbath, as He had commanded.  I know the importance of this - I even teach pastors about it.  But it's difficult in the real world to take a true day of rest. (My wife says I should be actually be taking a break from writing this.)  And although my first day of rest was a welcomed break, today has been tough.  It seems as if there's more to do than ever.

It all comes down to faith... faith that God will enable us to do more in the remaining six days than we could have done in seven days.  This is not easy.  But God calls us to trust Him.  And He knows what is best for us.  The Bible says that Jesus came "to give us life - more and better life than we could ever have on our own!"  If we believe this, we’ll do what He says…

So pastors, now you have a choice... Will you obey and take a Sabbath?  Or will you keep on doing what we've been doing?

Who we’re reaching… (from Robin)

In our opening service we had a large number of visitors.  One lady was forced to go to her mom's Catholic church as a child and, therefore, hated church. 

She lived as a prostitute for a couple of years and was until now an alcoholic and drug addict.  When she got our postcard in her mailbox, she felt like it was a "sign" from God.  She knew that she had to come on Sunday. 

When Jon spoke about the type of people that Jesus hung out with, her heart was overwhelmed.  She thought... maybe this Jesus isn't mad at me after all I've done. 

She feels very unworthy to have anything to do with "church people", or God for that matter.  She was so excited that there is the opportunity for a new start to life that she asked me to pray with her two times... just so she could make sure that she was saved! 

She was just hyper from all that God did on Sunday and said that still on Thursday "something is happening" to me.  She is so excited that she is dragging her boyfriend to church with her this Sunday (and anyone else that she can find). 

I just wanted to share this with you because she is why we do what we do.  Remember back to when you first gave your heart to Christ!  Let's just keep loving Jesus together... it's contagious!

We did it!

I just wanted to give you a quick update on yesterday’s opening service.

In the last month our team distributed 5000 invitations (flyers) in both the city center (with a piece of chocolate) and in our neighborhood mailboxes.  With our limited budget, we could only afford 5000, and we distributed them by hand.  We had 104 people in attendance… about 60% students.  And not counting the 35 that were helping us, that gives us a success rate on the flyers of 1.4% (5 times the normal success rate of direct mail in America).  We also used a lot of Facebook marketing.  To see some of the artwork we used & pics of the launch service, click here: http://picasaweb.google.com/jandrperrin/WatermarkFreiburg#

Another thing that was very successful was to invite the church neighbors to a free grill party at our building two weeks before the launch.  We told them we wanted to introduce ourselves and let them know that we were here to give, not take from the community.  It opened some great opportunities for conversation.  One guy and I had a long conversation about what a church should look like.  I explained that if it is to represent the biblical Jesus, it should be “ridiculously generous”.  He said that was an interesting thought… he also brought his family to the opening service and said he loved it!

There were a few minor technical glitches, but the service was a huge success!  Afterward we had some amazing conversations with both neighbors and other visitors.  As a matter of fact, when asked what she thought, one young lady told one of our team members, “There is not one thing I can think of that I would change about this church!” 

The best part is that one lady gave her heart to Christ!!!  (There could have been more, but we haven’t heard back from our team members yet.)  When she received our postcard, she said to herself: “This is a sign from God that He hasn’t forgotten about me!”  She is fighting an addiction to alcohol and drugs.  And she cried the entire service.

I want to thank those of you that have prayed, given and supported what God has asked us to do.  It is humbling to be a part of what God is doing here in Freiburg, Germany.  We were told what we accomplished couldn’t be done: “You can’t expect that many people to show up.” “No one will come to Christ for a long time.”  “This city is full of empty churches… what makes you think you can fill yours?”

It has been an exhausting journey, but totally worth it.  And as I told our team, it is an awesome privilege to be able to introduce Christ to people that are far from Him.  I can’t say enough how proud I am of our team.  I would unashamedly put our team up against any church planting team in the world!

My Sunday Thoughts

Today was amazing!  We had a “practice service”, followed by a grill out for the neighborhood.

The practice service went well.  Of course there were mistakes made and things that didn’t work out like we wanted.  But this is the very reason we wanted to do a “dress rehearsal” of what our first service should look like.  Our team did a great job of making sure everything that needed to happen happened.

Then there was a grill party for the neighborhood.  It was amazing!  We had about 85-90 people there altogether.  It was money well-spent.  We want to create a missional church… this was an awesome start!

I was so proud of our team… they went out of their way to engage our guests in conversation and get to know them.  What an outstanding day it was!  We have the best team in the world!!!  I can’t wait to see what God will do through them!