Now, it seems like the holidays sneak up on me. One day in October I’m busy raking the first fallen leaves, and the next thing I know, it seems like there are holiday menus to plan for family gatherings, special happenings at church and in our communities, concerts to attend, friends to see, gifts to buy, and traveling! (Not to mention final exams for those of us still in school). Time seems to fly in November and December! Before we know it, the season will be over and it will be 2012!

Somehow, I’ve lost the anticipation of the season. I’m not waiting on Christmas, Christmas is waiting on me!

Advent—the season of four weeks leading up to Christmas—is all about hope and anticipation. We anticipate the coming of Christ, the Savior of the world. It can be hard to get into that mindset with the busy world we live in.

If you have the same difficulty as I do getting into the “Advent spirit,” you might try an exercise…

Embrace your childhood! Spend some time remembering the anticipation that you felt toward Christmas as a child. It is good to be excited in anticipation of all the festivities of the season. Also participate in traditions like the lighting of an Advent wreath in your home. Or, simply light a single candle each day for a time of prayer leading up to Christmas.

Also, while the story of the Advent (or Coming) of Jesus more than 2000 years ago tends to be our focus in this  season, consider that Jesus is both “already” here, and “not yet.” Jesus came, and he is yet to come! This is our greatest hope for deliverance and peace. And so we sing, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” When we sing the words of Advent hymns, we exchange the season’s busyness with longing for the future coming of our Savior.

This reminds me of the sermon we heard a few weeks ago from Rick Bennett. He encouraged us to think that, while we wait for the Kingdom of Jesus to come… maybe Jesus is actually waiting on us! Maybe Jesus is waiting on us to take action and live into our callings as the people of God.

We are called to be agents of justice and peacemaking, offering the world relief from suffering and the hope of a personal relationship with Jesus. Our words and our actions should be in imitation of Christ—all year long, but especially in this season.

So—spend some time reminiscing, spend time in prayer, sing the songs of the season, show mercy and love to someone who needs it. Tis the season!

In Christ, the Reason for the Season,

Meredith

Peachtree Baptist Church hosts its annual community Fall Festival on Saturday, October 29 from 4-6 PM.

You are invited to join us for carnival games, children’s crafts, apple cider and hot chocolate, and featuring live music by singer-songwriter, Blake Tommey. Wear your costume and trick-or-treat around the festival.

This event is free! You are also invited to bring a canned good to donate to our food drive for Atlanta’s hungry.

The festival will be in the fellowship hall. Enter through the courtyard off LaVista Rd. (to the left of the playground). We hope to see you there!

For more information, contact Meredith at meredith@peachtreebaptist.net.

Join us Friday, August 12, 2011, from 6-8 PM for a block party celebrating the season!

Food, fun, and free school supplies* for families with children. We hope to see you there!

*while supplies last

Most of us have negative orientations toward conflict. Some see conflict as unnecessary, uncomfortable, and destructive – to be avoided at all costs! Others revel in the up-and-down thrill of volatile, conflict-ridden relationships. Both of these orientations toward conflict fail to recognize the opportunity for learning through collaboration that conflict presents. ` Peacemakers do not live conflict-free lives. Instead, peacemakers see conflict as necessary for growth and change. They enter into the very heart of conflict with willingness to engage and struggle to reach new understandings with the others involved in the situation. Becoming a peacemaker must begin with your attitude.

 Peacemakers develop skills of listening and engaging with others.

One of the most important skills for peacemaking is listening. When we listen well, we stop talking, we make eye contact with the speaker, and we assume a posture of openness. Good listeners leave behind assumptions and presuppositions and attempt to really hear and understand what the speaker is trying to communicate. Good listening also involves checking our understanding with the speaker by asking clarifying questions and rephrasing what he or she communicates, like a mirror. This allows the speaker the chance to say, “Well, what I really mean to say is…”  Listening well is the basis of peacemaking because it helps us determine the needs, wants, interests, and feelings of the parties in a conflict situation.

Beyond the basic and crucial skill of listening, peacemakers must be able to communicate their own feelings and needs in responsible ways. They must also be able to clearly communicate their goals for the situation and preferences for the actions each party of the conflict will take without being demanding or threatening.

True peacemakers are willing to skillfully and creatively push beyond quick and simple solutions to conflict to reach more satisfying and beneficial solutions. Peacemakers get to the heart of the situation and seek to transform it, to create something totally new out of the conflict.
Peacemakers are called by God At the core of our lives as Christians is the call to be peacemakers. We are surrounded by conflict, within our smallest family units, in our churches and communities, and on intercultural and international levels. Yet God is present in the midst of all this conflict, making things new in and through and among us. Peacemakers recognize the sacredness of the presence of God in others and in their relationships with others. When we cooperate with God as peacemakers, we honor God’s desire for shalom – wholeness and peace – in all creation.

As we enter into the season of Lent in the life of the church and approach Passover and Easter, remember the considerable conflict Jesus faced. Jesus journeyed into Jerusalem to face Pharisees and political leaders who wanted to kill him. And yet he made the journey, teaching truth (albeit controversial truth) along the way, ultimately bringing transformation and new life to the world. In the Spirit of Christ, we must go boldly and skillfully into situations of conflict, seeking transformation and newness in our own lives.

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Doing what is good and doing what the Lord requires. If these aren’t two very good goals to strive to attain, I don’t know what is. I know I am not always the best at the three principles presented in the verse, but I can’t help but imagine how much better our world would be if we all tried just a little harder.

Since coming to Atlanta, social justice has become not only a prevalent topic of conversation in the classroom/among my peers, but also in my own life. If you know me at all, you’ve probably heard some of my frustrations with wanting to be able to do more and further God’s kingdom…but how do I do that? Well maybe all it takes is a little doing of justice, loving of kindness, and walking in humility with a God that is more just, loving, and powerful than I dare try to express.

I realize living out this verse is much easier said than done. For some, that may mean they don’t necessarily believe in “social justice”…but for me, it means I don’t feel capable. But here is what I do know: I know that oppression is one of the nastiest afflictions our world faces; I know that any type of inequality is a type of injustice; I know that God created all people; and I also know God loves all people…so how dare we not follow suit? Until someone proves to me that there is reason to do otherwise, I will love, fight, and stand up for the oppressed. Because, as Desmond Tutu says, “if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor” and I refuse to be considered someone who prevents another human being, another creation of God, from feeling loved and cared for.

Wonderful God of all creation, Enable me to further justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with you. It is not always easy, but I thank you for that. Enable those, too, who are oppressed. Strengthen them to hold on long enough to see love…if not from the entire world, at least from one person. Amen.

 The question is, of course, how we will glorify God.  This is where people differ and sometimes encounter conflict.  There is no simple answer to this question, but I return to the Psalms for guidance.  In working with children over the years, I have often tried to explain the meaning of “the trees of the field will clap their hands” or the hills and mountains “singing for joy.”  Of course this does not happen literally, but I explain to the children that this occurs when God’s creation does what God created it to do, and this is how creation glorifies God.  I believe the same is true for us as humankind, created in the image of God.  When we do what God created us to do, we glorify our creator. What has God created you to do?  Have you identified it?  Have you grown in your understanding of it?  Have you added to it as the years have passed?

Has our church identified its purpose?  We have seen our mission and ministries evolve over the years, and this reflects a continual seeking of God’s guidance.  2011 holds the same possibilities for us, and for you.  Spend some time in prayer considering what God has created you to do, and what God might have for you and for our congregation in this new year that will help us fully glorify our Creator.

 The Advent/Christmas story is about relationship and perseverance.  It is about a Holy God that loves us through all the circumstances in our lives and continually works to demonstrate a grace that is beyond our comprehension.  We tell the story of God’s people waiting for the Messiah because we need to be reminded that God’s time is not our time and God’s ways are not our ways.  God loves, forgives, and redeems whether we believe it will happen, or whether we lose hope.  God is faithful always.

 Throughout the years of our lives we comprehend God’s love and faithfulness in different ways.  As we are shaped by experience, both good and bad, we may come to understand that while the story remains the same, its effect on us may not be.  Every year, every season of life holds the opportunity for us to know more about God and to discover something new about God’s gift in Jesus Christ.

It is true that the story of Christ’s incarnation does not change, but those who join together in community do change.  Every year a child hears the story for the first time.  Every year there are those who will not be with us the next time the story is told.  Many of us live in uncertainty.  The constancy of God’s love for us and the knowledge that God is at work in the world is a source of hope and peace that must be told – again, and again, and again.  Make time to join with your church community to tell Christ’s story to one another this Advent season.

As Christ followers, we are called to bless one another with peace and with a sense of God’s presence.  We can wish that for each other, but we also have to experience it ourselves to truly share it.  When we gather to worship, we enter the presence of Almighty God, yet sometimes we are inattentive, unaware, or distracted from the purpose of our gathering.  The cares and concerns of our lives take precedence over the care and concern we should have for others, and we fail to heed the voice of God as it might be heard through song, scripture, and sermon.  The dialogue we could have with each other and with the Holy God is drowned out by our own mental monologue. 

Perhaps this is because we desperately need to feel that someone is listening.   The beauty of true Christian community is that we can  and should listen to one another and to God.  When we do, we find that the relationship is a reciprocal one, and that God along with our church family is indeed listening and willing to hear us as well.  We are not alone in our journey, even though the other travelers may not walk at the same pace, or respond the way we anticipated, they are nonetheless “fellow pilgrims on the road.”  When we reach out our arms, extending the presence of God and the peace of Christ,  we should be assured that the response will be, “And also with you.”