Too Much Christmas? | SERIES TEASER

Hey friends, thanks for tuning into the Pastor Talk podcast.
We want to say how much we’ve
appreciated your continued interaction with us,
your willingness to log on and listen and be a
part of these conversations.
We just finished
the Mission Musings series,
which was fairly heavy.
There was a lot in it,
a lot of theology,
a lot of big ideas.
And as we moved toward the Christmas
season in the Thanksgiving season,
we thought that we’d change pace a little bit.
So we’re actually going to take a couple weeks off.
We’re going to let everybody catch up on the listening,
and we’re going to put some thoughts together for our next series,
which we are unveiling today.
That’s right.
So before we do that,
I want to just reiterate and emphasize Clint’s point that if you
have not yet got a chance to get through that last series on Missional Theology,
and I would say particularly the two conversations with Mr.
Biblawi as well as Dr.
Guter, please do that.
Make sure to avail yourself of that material.
It is really a gift that we could have that kind of
level of thought and experience in the discourse here at first presence.
So if you haven’t had a chance,
you’ve got a couple weeks here.
If you’re on the road on your way to family celebrations,
or if you find yourself with a little bit of time in the morning,
tune into that.
I think you’ll be
glad that you did.
But that said,
we are going to just quick give you a little bit of a teaser of
what we have to come.
And if you’ve been around first press for a while,
this won’t be a kind of
new tension that you will have learned about.
But we’re going to be jumping into a series we’re
calling Too Much Christmas,
question mark.
You might not get that if you don’t see the logo
like Too Much Christmas,
that’ll be sort of the theme.
And it’s going to live somewhere around
a lighthearted,
but yet serious engagement with the tension that even Clint and I have.
I’ll let you jump into that.
Yeah, I think we’ve kind of established through the years that I’m sometimes
a little skeptical of all of the Christmas stuff.
Michael’s a little more on the pro-Christmas all
inside as tends to be the case around here.
And so we’ve had some of these conversations,
some of these interactions through the years,
even some in the sanctuary in preaching and
in worship at times.
But we thought it might be fun to use the Advent season to just think through
the backdrop of the Christian story in the foreground of the Christmas story.
And so
there is this interesting thing that happens during the Christmas season in which
cultural Christmas and faith Christmas get mashed together in this sort of smorgasbord of Christmas stuff.
And none of it is necessarily bad,
but I do think maybe it’s helpful to know where some of it
comes from.
And I think it’s helpful for Christians to think through which parts are essential
and which parts are added and maybe even of interest,
how did we get those parts?
Right.
So beginning on December 2nd,
our Thursday release date,
we’re going to be kicking off a few
weeks of conversations about the history of Advent and Christmas and how we get from that this Christian celebration.
And actually, you might possibly be surprised to learn
some of the history even before those celebrations.
And then we’re going to talk a little bit about
some of these cultural elements.
And it’s fun because Clint and I, just because we
become a different sort of advantages or perspectives,
though I think substantially
the same thoughts at the end of the day,
you might be surprised as we look at our historic
kind of Christmas entertainment or our decorations or even that idea of Santa Claus.
And then we think
of this all in the frame of who Jesus is and the faith that we proclaim.
There’s really no season in the Christian calendar.
And I don’t think that Easter is an analog to this claim.
I don’t think it’s been done in the same way or to the same level.
There’s a kind of
synchronicity or to use maybe a better metaphor.
It’s like an onion.
Just all of these layers
combine in a really subtle and kind of challenging way,
to be honest, because we have some just
straight up cultural celebration of Christmas.
But then that gets paired in a moment
with some sacred celebration.
Like, for instance, our secular radio station will be playing a
Christian masterpiece of several hundred years ago.
But it’s in the name of Christmas,
right?
It’s really intended to be connected to the sacred worshiping right.
So there’s this interesting
moment where culture meets faith,
meets tradition, meets practice,
meets meaning.
And we’ll just sort of jump into those conversation points and see where it takes us.
There is no other moment in
the year that the culture borrows so much from the church.
And it’s not even close.
Yeah, there’s an Easter bunny, but it is miles and miles away from the way in which culture and faith have blended
together in this Christmas season.
And we’re going to try and unpack some of it.
It’ll be lighthearted.
We hope it’ll be fun.
We hope it will be maybe a little bit educational, but
interesting and give us all some things to think about as we continue to struggle to find for
ourselves and for our congregation and families the best way to honor the best parts of the Christmas season.
So that being said,
I just want to make note to reiterate your comments at the
beginning here, Clint, we want to say thank you for those of you who watch and listen to these discussions.
What we haven’t said,
we have surpassed a hundred podcast releases at this point.
And the
we thank you for that.
As we look to that release on December 2nd,
this isn’t a first press thing or
you wouldn’t need to have any really connection to the congregation,
I think to find some humor
and some hopefully insight if things go well in those conversations.
And so please do consider
sharing this wherever you got this video,
share it with someone who you think might be interested.
They can subscribe YouTube or follow on Facebook.
They can jump on iTunes and get connected to the
podcast or whatever’s best for them.
This I hope might be for us an opportunity to take a look at
some of the things that surround us in the Christmas season and find in them new opportunities to
worship as opposed to just celebrate with those sort of
shadows of the Christmas celebration that surround us.
And you know, I hope that if you find this conversation interesting or if it peaks your interest,
you might share with someone else so that they could join us.
We will continue to make
people available.
We’ll continue to publicize this in various outlets.
In the meantime, we will have Thanksgiving and we wish you and yours a blessed and wonderful Thanksgiving season.
And we hope you’ll be able to join us on December 2nd or shortly thereafter as we work through this
Advent season together under this theme that we’re
exploring too much Christmas question mark.
See you in a few weeks.