Alternative Ways to Celebrate Christmas
Form a special task force in your church, perhaps a cooperative effort between the worship and education areas, to establish programs to help people find alternative ways to celebrate Christmas.
BEST SUITED FOR: Any Size Congregation
WHAT'S INVOLVED?
 | Distribute copies of Whose Birthday Is It, Anyway? to all the households in the church. This is a booklet with practical ideas for gift-giving and guidelines for setting priorities at Christmas. This will help people focus on less commercial, less hectic, more Christ-centered Christmas season (see resources needed below). |
| Sponsor a homemade gifts day at your church on a Saturday in November or December. Have volunteers guide children, youth, and adults in making thoughtful, inexpensive gifts for Christmas. |
| Select a Christmas project for the whole church and encourage individuals, families, classes, and other groups to make donations to that cause in honor of friends and family as alternative Christmas gifts. Most churches have a tradition of a special charitable project at Christmas, but few families see the possibility of making larger gifts than usual to that project as a way of honoring others. |
| Offer a "nonviolent toy fair" before Christmas. This program seeks to help people in the congregation and also brings people from the community into the church. Increasing numbers of parents are concerned about the amount of violence in our society and recognize the need to be concerned about children's toys. Work with local retailers and media to sponsor an enormous display of nonviolent toys, using your church facilities. Have a registration process so that you can readily follow up on those who attend and have no church home, inviting them to share in Christmas worship at your church. |
| Have an all church Christmas card. Use sheets of poster board to create a huge card in your church. Encourage members to write their Christmas greetings to others in the church on the all church card. Ask them to donate to the church's Christmas project or to other charitable causes the money they would have spend purchasing and mailing cards to others in the congregation. |
| Develop a Christmas devotional booklet written by members of your congregation. Invite children, youth, and adults to write short Christmas devotions. Make an inexpensive booklet from those devotions, and give that to families in the church and also to persons outside the church. |
| Have a pre-Christmas canvass of the neighborhood around your church. If you are not really a neighborhood congregation, them canvass parts of the community in which several of your members live. Use the canvass to (1) share information about your congregation with persons who may be unchurched; (2) invite those who have no church home to take part in special Christmas activities at your church; (3) distribute materials which will be useful to most households - for example, a copy of Whose Birthday Is It, Anyway? or of the Christmas devotional booklet developed by your church. |
RESOURCES NEEDED: Whose Birthday Is It Anyway? available from Alternatives for Simple Living.
COST: Please contact Alternatives for Simple Living listed below for prices.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
For other creative possibilities for encouraging discipleship in the Christmas season, write for a catalog of resources from:
Alternatives for Simple Living, 5312
Morningside Ave., PO Box 2787, Sioux City, Iowa 51106
http://www.simpleliving.org
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