The Big Giveaway Pt. 1

Sometimes you have to be careful what you preach.

Last week I preached the first sermon in an Advent series called "Stuff: Are the Things We Buy Killing Christmas?"

I had a lot of people approach me after that sermon and tell me how much it affected them.

One of those people was my wife.  She told me on Sunday that she had been really moved by what I said---particularly the part about how when we put our focus on acquiring "Stuff" we participate in idol worship and by extension collude (albeit unwittingly) with the demonic.

I also essentially said, "Christmas is in crisis, and Christians aren't helping."

So a couple of days later, my wife came to me and said, "I know what we need to do."  Apparently she had been listening to the morning radio show on our local Christian radio station.  I do my best not to listen to morning radio shows--even Christian ones--but my wife is a better Christian than I am.  I am serious when I say this.  She is.  Ask anyone.

One of the talking heads on the radio show had an idea for the Christmas season.  "Give 5 things away every day throughout the month of December," she said.  The idea was by the time you got to Christmas Day, you would have given away 125 things.  My wife realized that this was exactly what we needed to do---all of us, me, my three boys and her, too.

And that's what we are doing, starting today.

Honestly, I think I can do her one better.  I bet I can give away more than 5 things a day.  I literally have that much stuff.

I am going to be using my Facebook Page, Twitter and this blog as a way to give away books, movies and anything else that I happen to discover that I have more than one of, or just need to let go.

For the first person to leave a comment on this blog, I will send a copy of Dave Kinnaman's new book "You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church and Re-thinking Faith."  

Let's see where this leads us.