A NEW ADVENT APPROACH? PART 4 OF 4 - AN ADVENT OF EVANGELISM AND MISSIONS

A partially live nativity scene at Cincinnati Zoo - the rabbit is live.

You may have seen Advent calendars focus on hope, peace, joy, and love. The first one I paid attention to looked at the Prophets, the angels, the shepherds, and the wise men. Those who have been reading the last four weeks will see a new set of four themes for Advent:

1. An Advent of Gratitude and Encouragement,
2. An Advent of Mercy and Grace,
3. An Advent of Truth and Discernment, and this week,
4. An Advent of Evangelism and Missions.

As an old Malcolm & Alwyn song from '73 points out, "The World Needs Jesus," and if anything, it's a 1,000 times truer today as it was 50 years ago when that song came out. But, as Paul says, "How shall they call on Him in Whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of Whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?" (Romans 10:14-15a)

Evangelism and Missions go hand in hand. Evangelism is sharing the Gospel with those you encounter in your day to day life (e.g. Peter and John and the lame man at the temple), while missions is going to those who don't have believers they encounter day to day (e.g. Paul and friends going to Cyprus, Galatia, and Macedonia). 

Now you may say, "I'm grateful for those who are called to serve this way." Ah, but who did Christ call to serve this way? His disciples. Which ones? All of them. Now does that mean we're all to go overseas? No, but we all can evangelize.

This emphasis is fitting for these four weeks of Advent. We started off with gratitude and encouragement. Isn't our gratitude for our salvation best shown by joyfully sharing with others what God has done for us? And isn't the most important thing to do to encourage others is telling them how God can save them from their sins? Not that easy? Again, encouragement comes in play here - we can encourage others to share the Gospel, here and abroad.

Second week was mercy and grace. Isn't that what the Gospel is about? And not only is the message about mercy and grace, but we need to practice it. Jesus said we're being sent as sheep among wolves; Glenn Penner in his excellent book In The Shadow of the Cross: A Biblical Theology of Persecution and Discipleship, points out that we're being sent to the wolves.

Week three, we dealt with truth and discernment. The Gospel is called the truth of God through the New Testament. And with discernment, we need to be discerning in our ministry of evangelism and missions, as we will be dealing with false teaching, false teachers, and false perceptions.

How many think this is a good view of Advent?

By the way, with today being Christmas Eve, have a Merry Christmas (or a Joseph Christmas).

 

A NEW ADVENT APPROACH? PART 1 OF 4: AN ADVENT OF GRATITUDE AND ENCOURAGEMENT

An African Nativity Scene, with a frame borrowed from Facebook.

I spent the first 30 years of my life with an absent Advent. In the hymnal I'm most familiar with, I noticed a handful of Advent hymns and designated separately from the Christmas songs, but I still didn't really get it. I was more familiar with Lent (by reputation, not by practice) than I was with Advent. 

Recently, some of the churches I've attended have the advent candles. Also, at Arlington Avenue Baptist Church, I've seen two different breakdowns of the four weeks of Advent: Prophets/Angels/Shepherds/Wise Men and Hope/Peace/Joy/Love. The last couple of years, I've been going through the latter (last year, combining the Advent theme with my Sunday Psalms series). 

This year, I've decided to take a more creative approach, and pick out four themes on my own for this Advent series. I'm picking four topics - okay, each theme has two related topics - that both we have through the First Coming of Christ and desperately need to live out.

Today, I'll start with an Advent of Gratitude (Thanksgiving) and Encouragement. I consider them related: Gratitude is being appreciative of what others do, and encouragement is motivating others to keep it up.

Do we have thankful hearts? Do we have minds trained to encourage? 

And do I need to elaborate more than just asking the two questions? I don't think so, but let me know if you disagree.