Last year four churches participated in what they called The Advent Conspiracy. It came out of a few pastors sitting around talking about how much they hate being pastors at Christmas.

You would think that a season that's all about one of the greatest theological truths - that God became flesh in what is called the incarnation - means that Christmas would be a great time to pastor. But the pastors had a sense of competing with stress, thoughts about the mall, what people hadn't bought yet, and how much debt they're going into for this great truth called the incarnation.

There's a stream of passion, consumerism and chaos that is contradictory to the message of the Gospels. Rick McKinley, one of the pastors in the group, observes, "There is a point where you want to just throw up your hands and say, 'Let's quit talking about Christmas from the Bible. Let's just talk about spend more. Let's cancel church for the Christmas season.' That probably would be easier for people. Then you realize that's stupid."

The pastors began to conspire together to enter the story of Christmas: not just teach about it and sing about it, but enter it. When Christ came to earth, he came as King. It threatened the king at the time and his empire. Although Christ comes in weakness, there is a true threat in this baby. He is subversive. He is a threat to the kingdoms and the powers that be in this world. When we worship at Christmas, we often bless the kingdom, and buy into consumerism and chaos. This seems contradictory to the Christmas story.

Last Christmas, four churches decided to try to enter the Christmas story by resisting consumerism, giving relationally, and redistributing what we have because God loves all. As a result of all of this, they were able to worship more. As well, they gave away close to half a million dollars. This year, over a thousand churches are taking part.

I realize it's late, but if you haven't checked out The Advent Conspiracy, do yourself a favor and spend some time doing so. They have a great website. Imago Dei, a church in Portland, also has a podcast of a recent service which introduced the Conspiracy, including interviews with someone who participated in last year's Conspiracy, a representative of Living Water International, and Morgan Spurlock, writer and director of Super Size Me and producer of the new film What Would Jesus Buy?

Check it out and spread the word. The Advent Conspiracy is changing lives around the world by providing clean water to those who don't have any, but it's also changing the lives of North Americans who are learning to enter the Christmas story and celebrate Christmas differently.

Advent Conspiracy exists to be a catalyst for the church to help us worship Jesus more fully at Christmas and therefore be transformed by the God of Advent. We believe that we are better together than we are apart and that each year the Advent of Christ should be an opportunity to declare to the world that God has given us the greatest gift.

On Sunday, December 23, we will be taking a special offering (besides our regular offering) with money we have saved by spending less this Christmas. 100% of this offering will be given to Living Water Canada, which "exists to demonstrate the love of God by providing desperately needed clean water and medical attention, along with the 'living water' of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which alone satisfies the deepest thirst."

The vision is that in the next decade Christ- followers, acting as one people, can blot out the water crisis in the world. The estimated cost to solve the water problem is 10 billion dollars. This is doable given the number of churches and the amount of money that is spent on Christmas each year.

According to the World Water Council, 1.1 billion people live without clean drinking water; 2.6 billion people lack adequate sanitation. 1.8 million People die every year from diarrheal diseases and 3,900 children die every day from water born diseases.

Giving to solve this problem is truly a declaration to the world that Jesus cares and that is why He came and created the church to act on His behalf.

Coming this Advent to Richview

Ask the average Canadian what they need for Christmas, and the answer for most has to be “nothing.” You’d never know it, though, if you visited a mall parking lot in December. Visa estimates that Canadians spend some $20 billion at Christmas.

Every year I talk to more people who are uncomfortable with what Christmas has become. Last year one pastor did something about it.

Rick McKinley is pastor of Imago Dei Community in Portland. “Every Christmas it happens,” McKinley says. “I get excited for the celebration of Jesus’ birth - that moment in history when all of Scripture came to life! And then I get depressed; inundated with commercials of what new gadget to buy, people in mad rushes to get more stuff, credit cards opening up sinkholes that people will be climbing out of for months to come, and newscasters telling us that fights are breaking out at Wal-Mart over the last X-Box 360.”

McKinley began to reflect on how Christ’s birth threatened Herod’s empire. How, McKinley asked, does the way that we celebrate Christ’s birth challenge the empire of consumerism and materialism that threatens our faithfulness to Jesus? He concluded that the way we celebrate Christmas re-enforces, not challenges, consumerism. So he and some pastor friends pulled the plug on Christmas.

“We decided we would ask our people to live the Advent story, not just talk and sing about it. We asked them to live counter-cultural lives that modeled our celebration after his incarnation.”

“What started out as an experiment ended up transforming us, our people, and a whole bunch of other people.”