An Early Christmas Rant

I don’t rant and ramble online very often.  Come to think of it, I don’t believe I rant or ramble very often at all, though my kids might disagree.  You’ll have to check with them.

I’m not anti-Christmas, but for crying out loud, it’s still a week before Thanksgiving.  I don’t usually buy a tree until almost a month from now.  And I certainly don’t engage in the annual ritual of commercial holiday-themed rioting and pillaging ironically known as Black Friday.  I’ve actually wondered how many little plastic versions of the baby Jesus are trampled at Target and Walmart every November.

I still insist on saying Christmas and not “the holidays”, unless I’m referring to the period from mid-November through January 2.  Christmas is the pinnacle.  Other people might have other holidays occurring this time of year.  Hanukkah for example.  That one’s actually pretty interesting. Or my son-in-law’s birthday.  But those aren’t my main focus, and they don’t define or anchor the season for me.

For the record, I love Christmas. I’ve always loved Christmas. But it’s getting harder to do so.  Every year is tainted by a shrill new season of  competing “our rights are being violated and we are outraged” shows.  The War on Christmas versus The Evil Domineering Christians. 

Meanwhile, I’m subjected to a constant barrage of Christmas and Holiday themed advertising carefully designed to make me believe that the true significance of the season will be lost if I don’t buy this trinket or take advantage of that carefully timed new and improved product rollout.   If I really love my family, how could I not buy them the opportunity to be as happy as those happy people on the screen?  What kind of Scrooge would do that?

Even the US government gauges the economic health of the nation by the amount of spending that takes place in the last 45 days of the year.

It’s hard not to get sucked in.  The decorations.  The colors.  The lights.  The music.  All combine to create an atmosphere that is magical.  And it works.  It makes us feel.  Most of it isn’t actually about Jesus, but I shouldn’t be surprised by that.  Not in our generic culture.  But is it all really about being festive and loving and spreading good will?  Nice generic sentiments. Or is it about the money?

When I hear people talk about putting Christ back in Christmas, I sometimes wonder what that would look like.  I wonder what the marketplace in the temple’s outer court must have looked like around festival time, packed with travelers and colorfully decorated for the holiday celebration just before Jesus stormed in and cleared it of merchants and bankers.

And then I wonder why those who follow Jesus today would be crying offense because the merchants and bankers in our marketplaces aren’t trying to use His Name to sell their festival offerings. So…I decided to post an open letter to Joshua Feuerstein, the guy with the anti-Starbucks coffee cup video.

Dear Guy With the Anti-Starbuck’s Coffee Cup Video:

I don’t expect that you’ll see this post or that you’ll care if you do.  But since you’ve gone public with your rant and hold yourself out as a representative of conservative Christianity engaging in the public square, I believe you need to be publicly challenged.  I am a conservative Christian. Jesus Christ is my Lord and I am not ashamed to own that.  My relationship with Him is the central defining fact of my life.  Living faithfully and engaging thoughtfully is important to me.  And you do not represent me.   You and your approach are not representative of my faith or that of most of my Christian friends, or the way in which we believe God would have us to interact with people who are not yet Christians.

OK. So your video has garnered multiple millions of hits and shares on YouTube and Facebook. The same can be said about Talking Dogs, Sneezing Baby Pandas, and an Annoying Orange. That does not make it legitimate evangelism.  Attention and influence are not the same thing.

You posted a follow-up saying you were feeling discouraged by the negative blowback you’ve received.  Maybe that’s good thing.  Some of your videos show a person who truly cares and wants to bring help and healing to a hurting world.  But others have more in common with secular shock-trolls than with the Spirit of Christ.  I mean, I’m all for the second amendment, but I don’t think that has anything to do with Christmas.  And I don’t think anyone is going to come to Christ or find the real Reason for the Season based on the fact that some guy just flashed a Jesus cup and a pistol at them.   

Instead of forcing a barista to write Merry Christmas on a paper coffee container, perhaps your time would be better spent in leaving a generous tip, then quietly sharing a cup of coffee with that barista, listening to his or her heart and demonstrating the love and grace that Jesus wants people to experience.  

I love Jesus and I love Christmas.  No one can take that away from me.  This is a special, festive time of year, when I and my family celebrate the Gift of God.  We celebrate that God became flesh and moved into the neighborhood and brought Life and Light to the world, giving Himself so that peace and good  will and redemption would be truly possible.  We celebrate the Christ child who came and lived and became the Lamb of God and King of Kings.

And we decorate and give gifts and eat. And cherish one another. 

I’d just like to encourage you to do the same…and forget about the cup.

A Tribal Supper With Seth Godin

I had supper with Seth Godin last night.  Well...OK...He was on TEDTalks and I was in my living room, but we were both there and I was eating supper.  I like Seth.  He disrupts my thinking and I'm perversely drawn to disruptive people.

We all need our thinking disrupted from time to time. Whether we're entrepreneurs embarking on a new dream project, activists working to move a mountain in our little corner of reality, stealth change agents embedded in a huge organization, or ordinary people just trying to be excellent in world bent on mediocrity, it's a sure bet we can't get the job done alone. Nor should we try.  If we want our product or idea to spread, we need to connect with people who speak a common language and share a common passion.

Ideas don't go viral because they reached the largest number of individuals possible.  They go viral because they reach the right communities.  The rest are a waste of time.  For the most part, generic idea sellers would find me to be a waste of time if they were paying attention. I screen my calls, go directly from my mailbox to the trashcan (physically and digitally), and whenever possible restrict my binge-watching to Netflix because they don't have ads.  I can't remember the last time I bought something or changed my mind because of an ad.  Or a Facebook meme.  Most Americans have become experts at the art of not listening.

We need to stop trying to "market" our ideas to the greatest number of people and really connect with the people who are as crazy as we are.  We want our audience to stop being an audience and start being collaborators.  To feel the same passion that we do.  And then engage. But information doesn't produce passion.  Passion does!  And the only way to ignite passion is to be authentic.  Then give permission to your "tribe" to catch fire!