This Christmas season we challenged our people to get back to the basics of what Christmas is all about. We challenged the to “run” for consumerism and materialism and spend less on the stuff of this world on more on the stuff of the kingdom. We watched as several of our small groups lead a movement of people who spent Christmas Day at the Salvation Army feeding the homeless and passing out goodie bags that they had spent their Christmas budget on. They then went to Waffle House and had a time of celebration and community. As a church we asked our people to pick out gifts from the world vision catalog and gave that money instead of buying worthless things that none of us need. We raised approx. $6500 of which $2500 went to clean and safe drinking water. Praise be to God who through his birth (incarnation) is teaching us what His coming here was really all about and teaching us what it looks like to be His followers in this culture we find ourselves in.
Thanks advent conspiracy for the challenge and leadership!

How much money was redistributed?: $6500

How much went to water?: $2500

What can we do better?:

Just keep challenging us!

This post was submitted by Joe Tessin.

We had a phenomenal experience through Advent Conspiracy. Bay Area Community Church is a one-and-a-half year old church that I planted, and this was our second major missional outreach. I taught a four-part series (also called Advent Conspiracy), drawing off of the messages and themes on the website for a foundation. The end result was supernatural. The Holy Spirit moved people to selfless generosity and compassion, and we were able to raise enough money to fund 50 water wells. By partnering with Operation Blessing, we were able to reduce the cost of each well to a mere 1,000 dollars per well—-nearly tripling our impact.

We will be traveling with church members and leaders to Ghana, Africa in July to be present for the drilling of some of these wells. We’ll also be brining several doctors to work alongside Operation Blessing to do a medical and feeding outreach. The best part . . . God answered our specific prayers to not only provide clean water, but also the good news of Jesus the Living Water by allowing us to help plant a local, indigenous church in Ghana. We asked for one, but God has enabled us to plant six, by partnering with existing churches on the ground and their local pastors. Then CBN contacted us and asked to film the entire story wile we are there. What a gracious God to take such a simple step of obedience and generosity and turn it into something so much larger than we could ever have imagined. The impact will be nothing short of eternal. Thank you for all you have done to make Advent Conspiracy available to the church at large! We are grateful to have partnered with the Body of Christ to bring lasting change and not only proclaim, but also demonstrate the Gospel!

How much money was redistributed?: 50,000

How much went to water?: 50,000

What can we do better?:

This post was submitted by Pastor Steven Yoes.

My wife and I chose to make some “gift certificates” for our families for a dinner. They had a choice for the dinner to be prepared at their house or ours and we had a magazine with all kinds of excellent dinner choices, (3 course meals). It was really great because we were able to share the real reason behind Christmas and show that there is another way to give other than buying gifts. Both nights were really great and both our parents really appreciated it. I have never seen my dad be REALLY grateful about a gift more than that.

This post was submitted by Aaron Jenks.

We regularly take on compassionate “projects” as a church. More often, our community groups build relationships through compassionate work in our community. We thought we’d do something church-wide for the Advent Conspiracy.

We worked closely with a Men’s and Women’s shelter downtown. It is only cold a few months out of the year here on the coast. We decided to give away all the coats, jackets, blankets, and warm clothes we could … without buying new ones (either to give away, or for ourselves as replacements). We spent time getting to know the people we gave these items to. The shelters said they don’t get a lot of warm clothing donations (this being a beach/island/coastal community).

How much money was redistributed?: Approx. 1000

This post was submitted by Brian Niece.

We participated in the Advent Conspiracy within our weekly cell groups. In mid-November we announced it and began providing resources and articles to spark ideas to the congregation. Rather than collect a single offering, we encouraged everyone to give to our denomination’s Great Commission Fund, which provides for missionaries and relief workers in the Christian and Missionary Alliance and the relief arm, Compassion and Mercy Associates. We provided some info about different water projects that these groups are involved in.

Within our cell group, we had a blast sharing ideas and getting together to work on gifts. Some friends came by and we made beef and venison jerky for the men in our families, and my wife and I made dried apple chips as well (we love the dehydrator). A very popular gift given was a meal with family members, as well as gift bags of recycled cotton with fair-trade coffee and tea. The attitude change within our group was noticeable. Rather than a season of expense and work and worry, we were all able to put more effort and love into our gifts (it was still a lot of work Celebrating Christmas in this way drew us all closer to God, and pointed our non-Christian family and friends towards Jesus.

I can’t wait to see what God will do next year in our community.

This post was submitted by Joe Paparone.

We had a tremendous experience here in Leadington, MO with Advent Conspiracy at The Bridge Community Church. Our church was just a little over a year old when this all got started and there are only 202 people who live in Leadington (but about 400 amazing people had been showing up from surrounding communities). Our AC experience started when I met Chris Seay of Ecclesia Church at the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta last fall. His presentation on AC really struck a nerve with me, so I went back and shared AC with our entire church and challenged them to really give their CHRISTmas to Christ. We used a lot of your videos and focused on really listening to God throughout the fall as we prepared for the Advent season and our offering on December 23. I think that people really did worship more, spend less, give more, and love all.

The situation at Chacocente with the families living on the landfill has also really struck a nerve with our entire church. About 700 people showed up at our Christmas services, and our offering from our little church plant totaled almost 13,000 dollars. The average age of our group is about 35 and we have many young families with a lot of small children, so we were amazed that our people responded that strongly since most of them are really strapped financially. It was truly sacrificial. We had some conversations with the wonderful disciples at Living Water International about what to do with the money. They were very selfless and told us that if our hearts were with those families that we should give all of the money to the families in Nicaragua through Cheryl Avery’s ‘Project Chacocente’ ministry that continues to build villages and help these people. That is what we have done; we sent the entire worship offering for God to Project Chacocente.

However, the story does not stop there. Our people are so moved by this whole experience that many want to go down and actually work on the project. Between 30-40 of our folks are making plans to fly down in July and work on the second village of Project Chacocente. They want to meet these people and see how God is working to change the world. We are very excited and are already talking about being involved in 2008 on another AC project (probably something with Living Water) and some other area churches may join us.

We thank you for your Biblical teaching on Advent, on selfless giving, and on shining the light of Jesus Christ to a dying world.

Tim Gray
Vision Director
The Bridge

How much money was redistributed?: 12,989.99

This post was submitted by Tim Gray.

At the advice of one of TF’s leaders, we participated in the AC. We actually lost one of the Sundays due to a snowstorm, but we took time during each worship gathering to discuss the 4 points of AC. We also shared the ideas through our e-newsletter as well as my personal blog.

To be honest, I’m not sure how many people picked up on the ideas, but we hopefully created some serious thoughts regarding consumption and giving.

We were able to partner with another church in town, Lifestream Christian, to raise money for Water Partners International.

How much money was redistributed?: 2,450

How much went to water?: 2,450

What can we do better?:

This post was submitted by Donnie Miller.

At SCC, we designed a “Christmas Coupon” that had 3 options of how to make an impact for good instead of getting caught up in the wave of over-consumption. There was an option to spend time serving with the Food Bank in Sisters, packing food boxes for families in need, an option to give funds to our partner church in Oaxaca City, Mexico to buy glasses for children, and a third option to give to our partner church in Kapchorwa, Uganda. We put the coupon in the bulletin so everyone received one and collected them for 4 weeks, charting the donations on a board in the back of the sanctuary. It was an awesome start to our “advent conspiracy” goals and we are excited to do a whole lot more with it next year!

How much money was redistributed?: about 10,000$

How much went to water?: None from this - we had just raised 17,000 for water 2 months prior!

What can we do better?:

This post was submitted by Kelly Pyke.

With hardly any prep time, the staff plunged in and the rest of the community came right alongside. Artists from our community created art pieces to coincide with the four AC themes, which became the sermon series for December. Kids stayed and participated in the services.

We committed to the water project idea before we knew a who or where and God came through, reconnecting us to a new friend of our community who was trying to support a remote group in Kenya, particularly in need of fresh water.

Our sanctuary turned into a space of light and water. Instead of the typical advent candles, we had glass pillars that were filled with water and topped with floating candles. Each service kids and adults carried in lanterns and water pitchers.

We printed the art pieces on cards that people could give as gifts and provided gift-making workshops to help promote homemade gifts and time spent together.

We designated the fourth Sunday for the water project offering and had people actually bring them up to the altar during the service. Even if you didn’t bring money, you could still go up and touch the symbolic wells and offer a prayer or blessing. It was beautiful.

There are always glitches to any first time - but overall, our community was overwhelmed by a truly generous Christmas spirit. Advent was all around us.

You can check out a video made by one of our own, here: http://andrewmichaelfilms.com/ac.mp4.

How much money was redistributed?: 65505.75

How much went to water?: 65505.75

What can we do better?:

We appreciated all of your efforts and how much you were willing to help us. You provided great resources, so thank you! One of the frequent questions we had was when do you start telling your friends and family about this who are outside of your church community? How do you explain it to them? These answers probably come with experience, so maybe having a link with this type of info could be helpful for those who are joining for the first time.

This post was submitted by beth mercer.

We are a young church. We are only a year and a half old and our community is made up of mostly college students and young families. This was our first year doing the Advent Conspiracy.

The response from our community was great! At the beginning of AC, we handed out small boxes for everyone to take home. This idea was to place this box under your tree as a reminder of the AC, and also as a place to put the money you were redistributing to our 2 projects. Throughout the Christmas season, people brought their boxes to our Sunday gathering and placed them under the tree.

Through this redistribution, we have been able to bless 2 projects close to our community - one here in town (a community center for low income children) and one in Senegal, West Africa (a community center/clinic for the surrounding villages).

People in our community continue to tell stories about the gifts they were given by others. And giving gifts more intentionally and relationally has given more depth and substance to relationships. We can honestly say that not only was this Christmas season special for us, it was life changing. People are carrying the lessons learned into all facets of life.

How much money was redistributed?: 12,000

This post was submitted by Rebeka Dorr.