The Advent Conspiracy

Some of yall may have heard of this before; but some of yall maybe not. It’s called the Advent Conspiracy. It was started a few years ago by four churches around the country – pastors and congregation who were fed up by the consumerism-obsession that is taking over Christmas (a holiday, after all, in which we celebrate the miraculous birth of a poor, persecuted, middle-eastern baby refugee, born in a barn amidst the animals; surely not the cute picturesque nativity scene we all think of). These churches decided to do something about the desecration of Christmas…yes, desecration…as in, taking something that was sacred, and making it notsacred. Tired of dropping way too much cash on way too many presents, these churches resisted the siren’s call to buy, and instead gave gifts like… actually spending time with one another; helping others together; baking; reading; playing; creating gifts made from love; etc etc etc. But they knew that it wasn’t enough just to save the money they would have spent on gifts. They also knew that lack of clean water kills more people every single day than anything else. So thus the Advent Conspiracy was born — create gifts from love and time, and with the money you would have spent…give it away to provide clean water!! so simple, yet so amazing. There is a statistic they give that blew my mind… every year, americans spend 450 BILLION dollars on Christmas. Yet the cost to solve the world’s clean water problem? TEN BILLION DOLLARS. ten billion?!?! what the heck?!? that is certifiably insane. are we really so selfish…