nathan jara

We all know the drill, yet it gets us every holiday. Each year we seem surprised and can’t believe that we’re already seeing the Christmas lights, the decorations, and hearing the music. The turkey and stuffing hasn’t even begun to cook and rolling through the stations we can find jingle bells and silver bells ringing through the radio. Then, after we do wake up from our turkey time nap, we’re slammed with ads and sales galore. Stores opening Thanksgiving night and staying open through that biggest shopping day of the year. Midnight, 4 AM, 5 AM, 6 AM sales and deals! Today only! Cut your coupons! Free Shipping! SHOP. SHOP. SHOP.

We certainly live in a consumer’s world. And sure, many good things come from a healthy consumer culture, but when it turns into a time of more and more and more and more, we lose what the season is truly about. This year, I’ve been fortunate to learn through my home church about a special movement that hopes to change that “more is better” mentality. A movement to remind us what is really important during the holidays. The movement is called Advent Conspiracy.

The Advent Conspiracy movement began in 2006 by a few pastors who wanted to revamp how their communities thought and celebrated during the Christmas season. The result created a template for anyone to follow and re-think how they think about Christmas. Instead of buying more, shopping more, and stressing more, Advent Conspiracy encourages us to stop and give our time as a gift. “Spend less on gifts, and more on relationships.” The four pillars of the conspiracy are worship fully, spend less, give more, and love all. Each one of these ideas coincide with the four Sundays in the Advent season leading up to Christmas. These themes provide four distinct ways we can refocus our attention to the true reason for the season, the Christ Child, who was, is, and will always be the greatest gift of all.

The video below gives a great overview of Advent Conspiracy and explains one of the ways the movement encourages us to give more by supporting Living Water International, an organization who provides clean water systems to the poor in deprived areas of the world.

I’d encourage you to take a few moments, watch the video, and think about what it means and how those thoughts can change your approach to the shopping malls and madness this Christmas. And if you find yourself looking for a place to learn more, the First United Methodist Church of West Newton will be exploring the themes over the next few weeks or you can find more on the Advent Conspiracy website.

If you let them, those thoughts just might make this Christmas one of the most meaningful ever.

After a few late nights this past week, I finished my Lenten series of drawings. I’m really pleased with how they all turned out. I’ve titled the entire series “I AM” and created an eighth piece in calligraphy to add the title and the scriptures to go along with each week’s drawing. I decided to donate the work to my church and presented it in the Easter morning service today. This was a different Lenten discipline for me. One that allowed for reflection through artistic expression.  The series can hopefully provide for those who see it, a different perspective of the Lenten journey.

Here’s number five and six in the Lenten series. One more to go : )

I’ve completed the next two pieces in my Lenten series. You can see them below. I had a difficult time with the drawing on the left called “The Gate.” I’m fairly pleased with how it turned out. Though I’m much happier with the “Good Shepherd” drawing. Three more to go. I’m getting anxious to see them all together.

The Gate

John 10:1-10

Every year during the season of Lent, I like to try to do something to better myself or help me prepare for the culmination of the season, which is Easter Sunday. This time, I didn’t have to search for that something, but was given a challenge for Lent instead. My church pastor has developed a Lenten sermon series for each Sunday leading up to Easter this year. The series discusses the “I Am” sayings of Jesus and how we can apply and live these teachings in our own lives. For my Lenten devotion, I decided to create seven art pieces to visualize each week’s “I Am” saying. Each piece is done using charcoal pencil on 9 by 12 inch paper and depicts how I think each saying can be seen. I plan on combining all the pieces together at the end of Lent for a final series piece. Below you can see the first two of the series. Under each, I’ve listed the corresponding scripture if you’d like to dig deeper. Stay tuned for the rest of the series….and let me know what you think :)

The Bread of Life

John 6: 35-51

The Light of the World

John 8: 12-20