Food for Thought

I know some will disagree with me and probably some who will get mad at me but I really think Christians often time get caught up in the wrong battles. I love what a pastor in Portland named Rick McKinley said in an article forwarded to me. He said, "Christians get all bent out of shape over the fact that someone didn't say 'Merry Christmas' when I walked into the store. But why are we expecting the store to tell our story? That's just ridiculous."

I could not agree more. I realize there is a cultural war going on and there are times when the church and Christians should stand up for what’s right. Saying we are only here to win people to Jesus sounds good but Jesus stood for things and we should as well. We are to be salt and light Christians. But making a huge deal over the secular word not saying Merry Christmas is not the battle we need to worry about. After all, while Christmas (December 25) is not wrong and can be used to point people to Jesus it is a manmade holiday not a biblical thing.

McKinley goes on to talk about how the Christian battle should be to encourage believers to stop making it about shopping, going into debt and getting overly caught up in the consumerism part of Christmas. He supports a movement that focuses on something called Advent Conspiracy which would make an interesting discussion in a different post sometime in the future.