Intentional Connections: Home for the Holidays
When I was growing up, the Christmas traditions ran rampant. The Christmas season wasn’t complete without the candlelight service, the Christmas Cantata, the obligatory Christmas Carols, and the little boxes of candy each of us would receive after said Christmas Cantata and singing of those obligatory Christmas Carols.
Because it was standard practice in my house to attend church every time the doors were opened, we were all part of all of the festivities–my brother and I were forced to be in the kids’ Christmas program, my mom sang in the choir, and my dad ran sound because he sang in the choir one time and says they asked him to run sound after that…allegedly.
I don’t remember having much choice in any of these commitments, and I would venture so far as to say my parents probably didn’t feel like they had much of a choice either.
That was the world we lived in then–a world of unspoken rules and heavy expectations.
See, there was this thing happening in churches in the 90s (and probably still today) where the expectation was that the church would put on a Christmas program that involved lots of singing and choral music regardless of whether or not they had the talent to pull these programs off–because that’s just what they did.
It was a BIG DEAL! There were months of practice, hours and hours of rehearsals, and finally…THE PERFORMANCE!
The older I get, the more I find myself turning away from performance and seeking intentional connections.
The holidays can be amazing times, but they can also be stressful, chaotic, and overflowing with performance if we aren’t intentional.
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Intentional Connections in Our Churches
There’s something I’ve always found odd about church services around Christmas time. Hear me out on this before you throw the book at me. The reality of church attendance is that there are quite a few people who only attend church on Easter and Christmas, and I’ve always struggled when the Christmas and Easter church services are the same year after year.
The reason I struggle with this so much is because these services are such an important opportunity for intentional connection.
When churches make those services about performance instead of connection, when we make those services about performance instead of connection, we miss so many opportunities to show love and hope to the least of these, to the searchers, to the wanderers, to the marginalized, to the misunderstood, and to the misfits.
For some of you, this might be the very reason why you left church and are struggling with whether you can ever go back–the performance and lack of genuine love and connection. If that’s you today, I see you. You aren’t alone.
One of the things about this time of year that always strikes me as ironic is the debate over whether you can say “Merry Christmas” anymore. It’s ironic to me because the main argument of those on the side of never saying “Happy Holidays” and always saying “Merry Christmas” is the fear that we’re taking Christ out of Christmas when we say “Happy Holidays.”
I would make the argument, though, that there are far worse ways of taking Christ out of Christmas, and many of those are happening within the walls of churches.
As churches and as Christians, our way of life is supposed to mirror that of Christ, and Christ was relational instead of performative. How many times in scripture do you see Christ vying to be the center of attention and saying “Look at me!! Listen to me!!” Struggling to think of any? How about this, then: how many times in scripture do you see Christ making intentional connections with individuals, loving on the least of these, touching the lepers, and meeting the messy and misunderstood wherever they were?
All the time.
Jesus wasn’t performative.
He was relational.
We see it time and time again–
When he chose the disciples
When he sat with the woman at the well
When he was accosted by the Pharisees who threw the woman caught in adultery at his feet
When he healed the woman with the bleeding problem
When he let the woman at Simon’s house wash his feet with her hair
When he physically touched the lepers
When he asked John to care for his mom as he was dying on the cross
When he appeared to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection
When he tells the disciples to do life and ministry differently and to love people
When he was heartbroken over Judas’s betrayal
When he wanted his best friends to sit with him in the garden before he was arrested
When he weeps at the tomb of Lazarus
This holiday season let’s mix it up in our churches. Let’s be a little more like Jesus and work to create meaningful connections and relationships in our churches during those Christmas services instead of putting on a performance for the masses or maybe even putting on a performance for ourselves.
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Intentional Connections in Our Own Lives
There’s this one part of the Christmas story that I love and that I feel gets overlooked and overshadowed by some of the other cool parts of this miraculous story.
It’s the part of the story Luke opens his book with–the part about Elizabeth and Mary and their relationship.
It starts in chapter 1 verse 39 just after the angel has appeared to Mary to tell her of her pregnancy with Jesus:
Afterward, Mary arose and hurried off to the hill country of Judea, to the village where Zechariah and Elizabeth lived. Arriving at their home, Mary entered the house and greeted Elizabeth. At the moment her aunt heard Mary’s voice, the baby within Elizabeth’s womb jumped and kicked. And suddenly, Elizabeth was filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit!
Luke 1:39-41 TPT
The next few verses are filled with Elizabeth’s prophecy and Mary’s praise before Luke tells us that Mary stayed with Elizabeth for the next three months.
How differently would this scene have been if Mary and Elizabeth had focused on performance instead of connection?
I love the fact that Mary drops everything and travels 90 miles to be with Elizabeth during the last three months of her pregnancy after finding out Mary’s own miraculous news. Luke doesn’t tell us much about the rest of this visit, but I can just see the two of them together, holding space for one another, supporting one another, and encouraging one another during this incredibly important, and also very scary, time.
I can’t help but think our holiday seasons are supposed to look more like this and less like the busy, chaotic, overscheduled performances we fall prey to year after year.
Connection.
Intentional Connection.
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The Choice is Intentional
Friends, the holidays are right around the corner, and we have the choice this year–just like we do every year–of how we spend our time. We can either choose the performance or we can choose the connection, but I’m not sure we can choose both and do each well.
My prayer for you during this holiday season is that you choose to seek out intentional connections in your family, in your church, in your work, and with your friends.
My prayer for you is that you give yourself permission to be a little more like Jesus, Mary, and Elizabeth this season and you choose people over performance.
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Reflections:
What is one thing you want to do differently this season to create more meaningful and intentional connections?
What’s your biggest struggle with performance during this time of year?
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