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As we walk through the season of Advent, we begin to hear more and more about hope. 

But like joy, hope is often hard to define and hard to know if we have it. 

Many of us confuse hope and optimism. We use words like: wish, desire, want, and dream. But hope isn’t any of those things. 

But hope is everywhere in our daily lives, especially at Christmas: 

• I hope it doesn’t rain today. 
• I hope we get a white Christmas. 
• I hope I get engaged at Christmas!
• I hope they win the championship. 
• I hope we don’t fight at Christmas. 
• I hope our kids get along. 
• I hope we don’t get sick this week. 
• I hope our kids sleep past 6 am on Christmas morning. 

When life, relationships, our jobs, or our health don’t go the way we hoped, we try to protect ourselves by becoming cynical or by deadening our desires. We think, “Maybe if I want this less, it won’t hurt as much.” So, we try to want marriage or kids less. We try to want to be retired a little less. We try to stop dreaming about that house or dream job. But all that does is make us want something more, and the heartache grows. 

In Advent, we can bring our longings and yearnings to God.
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In Advent, we can bring our longings and yearnings to God. We don’t have to hold them in. I love what Tish Harrison Warren says about hope: Christian hope is not a “whistling in the dark,” a way to minimize the stark facts of reality. It is a conviction about the ultimate outcome of history, which is not in jeopardy: Jesus Christ has conquered sin and death.

In Advent, we are told that our hope is assured. Peter writes in 1 Peter: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

Our inheritance is assured in Christ. 

But why is hope so hard for us? Especially at Christmas?

Why is hope so hard for us? Especially at Christmas?
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Adam Young, in his excellent book Make Sense of Your Story, said, “The biggest reason we hate hope is that hope forces us to wrestle with God.”

Hope forces us to come to God and say, “This is what you promised. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. This isn’t supposed to hurt this much.”

The biggest reason we hate hope is that hope forces us to wrestle with God. -Adam Young
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When we do that, and when you read the people of Scripture from Jonah, Abraham, Elizabeth, Sarah, Moses, Paul, the list goes on, you find men and women who have wrestled with God. 

But that’s only the first step to hope. 

The second step, then, is to surrender to God. And this is so, so hard.

Dan Allender said, “The word surrender implies there has already been a long, drawn-out, bloody war. You can’t surrender until you have fought with God. In war, you don’t surrender until there is no hope left for accomplishing your objective and defeating your enemy. You fight until you have no strength left to fight any longer. Surrender only comes in the moment of exhaustion.”

In Advent, we come to God and say, “I’m tired. I’m exhausted from fighting for hope,” and we throw ourselves on the mercy of God. 

In Advent, we come to God and say, “I’m tired. I’m exhausted from fighting for hope,” and we throw ourselves on the mercy of God.
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Advent reminds us that we can take off our armor, we can cry out, “God, I am hopeless,” and know that He meets us.

And some of us need to stop pretending to have hope. We need to be honest with ourselves and someone close to us. 

Finding hope at Christmas.
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The post Why Hope is So Hard to Have at Christmas appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

Photo by Ron Smith on Unsplash

We have a lot of feelings at Christmas time. Feelings of happiness and joy, laughter, parties, and gifts. 

But we also experience some deeper, sadder feelings. The feelings of loneliness, being left out or forgotten. But one feeling creeps up on us, especially as we age. And that’s cynicism. 

It’s easy at Christmas to be cynical. To look at people and think life doesn’t turn out that way. Like the commercials, people don’t just buy cars for their spouse without telling them. It’s easy to hear children’s dreams and think, good luck with that. I wish I could get the new iPhone too! To watch another hallmark movie and feel you can’t just leave the big city and move to a small town in New England and find love! It doesn’t work like that. 

We do this with God too. To hear the stories of Jesus coming to earth and think, God doesn’t love like that. He doesn’t enter into the messiness of my story. 

Advent is the answer to our cynicism and skepticism. The weeks remind us that when Jesus came and when Jesus comes again, we have hope, joy, peace, and love. Those aren’t just words for songs; they are real things and things we need. 

But another reason we get cynical is we’re tired of waiting. We’re tired of trusting. We’re tired of asking: When will God heal my body and mend my relationships? When will God free me from this addiction? When will God do this for the people closest to me?

What do we do with our cynicism, so it doesn’t ruin our holidays?

Carey Nieuwhof said, “Cynicism happens not because you don’t care but because you do.”

Cynicism happens not because you don’t care but because you do. -@cnieuwhof
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The places in our lives where we become cynical are deeply personal hopes and dreams that we carry for our present and future.

In this place, we have to battle for contentment and fight cynicism.

One of the things we miss when we think about contentment is that our contentment in life, marriage, parenting, and leadership is not just about us but all the people connected to us. Our spouse and kids are affected by our contentment or lack thereof.

If you are a pastor, leader, or boss, those following you are impacted by the contentment or cynicism you feel. As a parent, your kids feel the weight of cynicism or the joy of your contentment. 

As a parent, your kids feel the weight of cynicism or the joy of your contentment.
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We can easily beat ourselves up because of contentment and cynicism ebb and flow.

But how do you fight for contentment, especially if you are not naturally optimistic?

3 ways to fight cynicism.
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Surround yourself with contented people. A thankful person is a joy to be around. Get around them, listen to them. They have peace that few other people have.

Learn what leads to cynicism. If you are a church planter or pastor, cynicism comes from hearing about a larger church or a church planter who was given a building out of the blue (that’s mine). If you are a parent, it might be hearing about another family or seeing something on Instagram. Know your triggers. Know when they might hit. Hint: it will often happen when you are tired or emotionally depleted. Just be aware of that.

Be grateful for what you have. One of the practices that has helped me this past year is writing down at least three daily things I am thankful for. This has caused me to pause in my day and see how things are going well, things I can celebrate.

The post Finding Hope, Fighting Cynicism at Christmas appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

A lot is written and said about the waiting and the longing of Advent. And that is what Advent is, the silence, the letting go of control as we wait. 

But what are we waiting for? What are we anticipating?

A celebration. 

We also see this in the book of Isaiah. The book of Isaiah has so many prophecies about the Messiah and what the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus would mean for us. 

Isaiah 25 says: On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine – the best of meats and the finest of wines. 

This is not a thrown-together party. 

This is well thought out. 

Like the preparation many of us go through for Christmas. 

I love to smoke meat. I’ll get up early on holidays to get the right flavored wood to go with the meat, the perfect rub, making sure the food is excellent for the people I’m serving. 

Why? It brings joy. 

The best foods, the finest wines. We are told in Psalm 104 that wine brings joy. 

This is a picture of joy. 

The best meat is the expensive, dry-aged ribeye steak. The best wine, not the stuff in a box, but the one you go into the wine cellar and pull out, the wine you’ve been saving. 

Our best Christmas feast is only a foretaste of what eternity with Jesus will be like. 

Christmas is a foretaste of eternity.
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We don’t think like this. 

But we practice for eternity when we sit around a table with friends and family. 

Do you see how joy is savoring? 

Joy is slowing down. 

How to experience joy at Christmas.
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But this feast isn’t just about what is being served but the purpose of it. 

The prophet Isaiah goes on: On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The LORD has spoken. In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”

Have you ever been invited to a party and not been in the mood?

Maybe right now, you look at your life, this past year, and wonder how you can celebrate. How can you meet up with family and friends this week and celebrate?!

The hope of Advent is that Jesus came and that He will come again, and when he does, he will swallow up death forever; he will wipe every tear away from our faces. 

He will take away the pain of betrayal, sadness, cancer, the pain of death, and decay.  

He will swallow them up. He is showing his power over those things. 

He will remove the disgraces. 

Think, the disgraces, the things you wish you could undo, the regrets you wish you hadn’t missed, the things your family reminds you of, the things you think when you look in the mirror, all removed. 

We rejoice, and we are glad in his salvation. 

In what he has done. 

Our salvation was bought 2,000 years ago when Jesus came to earth, died in our place, and rose from the dead. 

The post The Celebration of Advent appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

One of the most common google searches at Christmas time is a Christmas miracle. Many of the Christmas specials, the TV commercials (think every kiss begins with K and all the ads when one spouse surprises the other with a new car. Which I’ve always found funny: Surprise, I got us a car payment!). 

A miracle is the theme of all the hallmark movies, the Christmas cards we’ll send, and if we’re honest, we want one. 

Now, some of us are skeptical and cynical that it’s possible because maybe you’ve asked for a miracle, you’ve asked for something, and it didn’t happen.

For some, Christmas is the time of year that we love. We love shopping, the energy, the parties, the gifts, seeing people we haven’t seen in years. I love that it is cold out, I can drink hot coffee, build a fire, and hope for snow in the mountains. Not snow, I shovel, but snow I can see from a distance. 

But the Christmas season also carries with it a sense of loss, sadness and for many, merely wishing for something they don’t have. 

The paradox of Christmas is that it is a reminder of the blessings we have. Still, it is also a reminder of the things we don’t have, the broken relationships, the broken promises, the hurts we haven’t been able to navigate, or let go of. 

This is why many of us are skeptical of a miracle and even the possibility. This Christmas, we will hear of other people’s miracles. We’ll have friends announce their engagement at Christmas, or a relative will share that they are pregnant or getting that dream job, and we wonder what about us. We’ll see Christmas cards and pictures online of happy families and wonder about ours. 

But something in us says, “what if? What if a miracle was possible?”

How to have a Christmas miracle.
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The story of Christmas found in Matthew and Luke is a story of the unexpected. Two thousand years ago, in Israel, the people of God had been waiting. God had been silent for 400 years. Think about that for a moment, 400 years and nothing from God. God had not sent a prophet. A king or even an angel to help them like in the past. There were so many prophecies made in the Old Testament, and yet for 400 years, nothing seemed to be happening. 

God seemed eerily quiet. The miracles had stopped. The people of God wondered if God would remember his promise to send a Messiah.

Then, something unexpected happened. God remembered and came to them. Each time God entered into the Christmas story, it was unexpected. He didn’t come as a powerful king or prophet. He came in the form of a baby to an almost unknown poor family. What the Bible captures is various people’s responses when they encountered the angel or Jesus in unexpected ways. 

And what we see again and again in the Christmas story is God often shows up to unlikely people in unexpected ways.

God often shows up to unlikely people in unexpected ways.
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And for me, that’s one of the things that brings me hope. 

It isn’t just at Christmas that God shows up in Scripture or our lives, but the problem is, we often miss him.

I am often unaware of what God is doing because I’m looking for God to do something different. I’m looking for him to answer a prayer a certain way, accomplish a sure thing, so while I wait and watch for that, God does something else, and I miss it.

Spiritual awareness is incredibly challenging to keep on high alert.

Spiritual awareness is incredibly challenging to keep on high alert.
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The challenge of the Christmas season (and the rest of the year) is not to miss God and what he’s doing. As you go through your parties, your gifts, your Christmas services (and sermons for pastors), stay aware. Be on the lookout for the little and big miracles that God is doing all around you.

The post How to Find a Christmas Miracle appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

The emphasis on light in darkness comes form the Christian belief that the world’s hope comes from outside of it. The giving of gifts is a natural response to Jesus’ stupendous act of self-giving, when he laid aside his glory and was born into the human race. The concern for the needy recalls that the Son of God was born not into an aristocratic family but into a poor one. The Lord of the universe identified with the least and the most excluded of the human race. -Tim Keller, Hidden Christmas: The Surprising Truth Behind the Birth of Christ

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The Surprising Truth Behind the Birth of Christ
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The post What Christmas Tells Us appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

Have you had a guest come to your church and seem excited but never come back? Maybe you had a big day on Christmas, Easter or Mother’s Day (our three biggest days), only to have no return guests? Maybe as a pastor you feel, “We’ve had a lot of guests, but no one seems to be sticking.”

What’s going on?

The reality is, your church competes with a lot on a Sunday morning, and that competition is not other churches.

It is being outside, kids’ sports, sleeping in, football, errands, a slow morning, catching up, working out.

So how do you make a guest’s experience one where they return and become a regular attender?

Answer this question: Does your church environment communicate something positive?

Does your church environment communicate something positive?
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When a guest shows up, here is what is running through their head:

• Am I already here? Is there anyone else like me?
• Were they expecting me?
• How uncomfortable am I going to be?
• Are they going to ask for my money?
• How long will this last?
• Will I have to do anything weird?
• Will I feel stupid if I don’t know what to do?
• Will my kids be safe?

8 things every guest at your church is asking.
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If you don’t answer these questions for guests, they won’t want to return. Their defenses are too high.

Here’s a way to break through those: Create a church environment that says, “We’ve been expecting you.”

Create a church environment that says, “We’ve been expecting you.”
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Here are some ways to do that:

1. Signs. The moment you think you have enough signs as a church is the moment you should buy some more signs. You can never have too many signs at your church.

A guest should be able to navigate your church without asking anyone where anything is.

A guest should be able to navigate your church without asking anyone where anything is.
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I know this sounds uncaring, and you want community and want them to talk to you and let you know that they are there, but they don’t want to let you know they are there. They want to let you know they are there when they are ready to let you know that they are there.

You should have signs where the bathroom is, the auditorium, the front door (I can’t tell you how many churches I’ve been to where the door wasn’t obvious), and where kids and students meet.

2.Give them something. One of the fears that a guest has is that a church wants something from them. So, give them something. Throw them off balance. Thank them for being there. They could’ve been anywhere, but they used their time to come to your church. So thank them.

Give them a gift and don’t make them give you a name and email to get it. Just give it to them.

We have a gift bag that we give to guests with some fun things in it and some information about our church. We put them on a table that stands by itself with no one manning the table.

Remember, let guests make themselves known when they are ready to do so.

If they fill out a connection card, we send them a Starbucks gift card to say thanks again.

3. Security for kids. One of the questions a guest has relates to their kids, and this is a big deal in our culture. I’m blown away that there are still churches that do not check kids in and give a tag to parents. When you do this, your church is communicating, “We know everyone here.” That is completely unwelcoming to a guest.

You wouldn’t put your child in a childcare at a YMCA without getting a tag. Why should church be any different?

A tag communicates safety and security, which are enormous desires for parents when they arrive at church.

4. Talk directly to them in the service. Many pastors when they stand on stage seem to be oblivious to guests. They talk only to the insiders. This communicates to a guest, “We weren’t expecting you.”

When you talk to guests, you speak directly to them. You also tell your regular attenders that we expect guests to be here. You can do this in the welcome when you tell them how glad you are to have them. Invite them back at some point in the service. Also communicate how long the service will be as that is one of their main questions. In the sermon or scripture reading or singing (which might be new to them), you can say something like, “You might be new and maybe you aren’t sure that Jesus exists. Here’s something to think about.” Or, “Here’s what you can do in this moment while we sing or take communion.”

All of this communicates care and we expected you to be here.

4 ways to help a guest become a regular attender at your church.
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Marriage is hard work. There are many times that you are excited to be married, you and your spouse are on the same page, romance is high and affection feels easy. Decisions flow without much work, and you wonder why it isn’t always like this.

Other times your marriage feels like if it is moving, it is moving backwards. You fight, never hold hands, you struggle to understand your spouse, and decisions always end in fights and hurt feelings.

If you’re single you think, “I’ll worry about my marriage, someday…when I’m married.”

Regardless of where you are, one thing is sure: you need a vision for your marriage. The one you are in or the one you will enter into one day.

It is easy to miss this. It is easy to get stuck in the day to day of marriage and miss this. So much happens in a day, it is hard enough to stay married, let alone think about your marriage.

Too many couples have no idea what they are doing in their marriage. If you don’t have a vision, a destination, you don’t know where you are going.

Here’s what happens: you do what your parents did. You talk to your spouse the way your mom talked to your dad. You treat each other the way your parents did. You do the same things your parents did. Your dad did the finances, so you expect your husband to do the finances. Doesn’t matter if he’s good at that. It’s what you expect.

Or you do the exact opposite of what you saw your parents do. They seemed miserable, they got divorced, so no matter what it is, let’s do the opposite.

We do this without ever asking, “Is that what I want?” Or, “Is that what God wants?”

In Ephesians 5:22 – 33 we are given a vision for marriage, a picture, a reflection of what marriage is supposed to look like. When someone looks at a marriage, they are seeing what that couple believes about God’s love and how they respond to that love.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

In light of that, here are some things to consider. First men:

• A husband makes his wife’s burden lighter. Here’s a question every husband should ask his wife on a regular basis: What is one thing I can do to help you and make your life easier?
• He enjoys serving her.
• He serves her by providing and being her defender. He takes her side no matter what. He stands with his wife, for his wife, even if that means he makes his mom mad.
• And he does this all cheerfully without wondering what he will get in return.
• He nourishes his wife. This means to develop, nurture and to lift up. Are you helping her develop into the person God called her to be? To develop her gifts, her dreams?
• Does your wife have space for her dreams?
• Nourish also brings to mind care and attention. Does your wife feel like she is cared for by you and she has your attention?
• A wife who experiences this will get to the end of her life and think, “Being married opened up my life to so many possibilities. My husband cared about where my life was going. My husband thought of me.”
• He loves his wife like he loves himself. This happens by cherishing her. This means she feels his warmth, by being valued by her husband. He does not make fun of her, ever. He does not put her down. He builds her up. He doesn’t compare her to other women, he doesn’t fantasize about other women. Instead he delights in her. He prizes her.

For women, whether your husband does that, you are called to respond to him. Not as a doormat, but with strength through the personality God has given you. It means:

• You are not a doormat. You are not doing whatever your husband wants, but you are thinking for yourself. It is asking questions of your husband, expressing your reservations, helping your husband see something from another angle. It is adding value to your husband.
• It is knowing that your husband bears the responsibility and accountability to God for your marriage and family.
• Lastly, it is a heart attitude towards God. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. It is a step towards God.
• Submission is not really to your husband but to God.
• In everything, Paul says in verse 24. Why? Because you are one flesh. There is not an area of your life that is cut off from your spouse.
• One flesh means one dream, one bank account, sharing all things, not having social media profiles the other doesn’t know about. Katie could literally shut my life down because she has all my passwords to everything.

Why is this so hard?

Tim Keller says, “Self-centeredness is a havoc-wreaking problem in many marriages, and it is the ever-present enemy of every marriage. It is the cancer in the center of a marriage when it begins, and it has to be dealt with.” Living out this vision requires you to let go of what you want. To crucify your desires in many ways.

The post A Vision for Your Marriage appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

Big days are crucial in the life of any church. They are a launching pad to something new. Whether that is a new ministry season, a new sermon series, sign-ups for small groups, classes, VBS, starting a new church, or moving to a new location, all of these are opportunities for a big day and creating new momentum.

That’s what a big day does. It starts something new. It creates or sustains momentum.

Big days don’t just happen. They must be planned for. If you aren’t careful, though, you can miss these crucial opportunities.

Yes, the Holy Spirit brings momentum that you can’t create and can’t explain. Yes, the Holy Spirit wants your church to grow and reach people who don’t know Jesus. This means there are things you can and should do to work with the Holy Spirit to have a big day. You can also do things to make sure you don’t have a big day.

Here are six ways to not have a big day:

6 ways to not have a big day at your church.
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1. Don’t tell anyone. If you want to have a big day, if something new is happening at your church, tell people. Their lives are busy, they aren’t always thinking about church, the new series, new program or new opportunity. Many times this is how things happen in a church. New sermon series, no one knows. New groups are getting started, there isn’t a clear path to them.

If you don’t tell anyone about your church, no one will know you exist.
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2. Don’t preach on a felt need topic. If you want to create a big day around your Sunday service, you need to preach on a felt need topic. This doesn’t mean you go gospel light or don’t preach from a book of the Bible. You can launch a series on Romans and make it a big day, but you have to be creative with it. People don’t show up to your church because you are starting a series called “Romans.” Think through: When the people from my church invite someone, what will they say?

What you preach on is a crucial reason people show up to your church.
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3. Create zero buzz. Big days and buzz go hand in hand. This might be having a photo booth, a giveaway, food trucks, a baptism, anything that is different from a normal week to create a “this is special” feeling.

4. Just expect people to find your church. If you look at most church websites, it can take awhile for you to find where they meet. In fact, I knew of one church that moved into a new facility, and yet the front page of their website had their old address for several months as where they met, after they moved into their new facility. Most churches simply expect people to come looking for them. That rarely happens. Most people aren’t choosing church; they are choosing football, hiking, skiing, the lake, sleeping in or running errands.

Want your church to die? Expect people to just find it on their own.
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5. Don’t give anyone in your church a reason to invite someone. The reason your people aren’t inviting anyone to your church is because you haven’t given them a reason to invite someone. I know you have told them, maybe guilted them, but people invite their friends to something worthwhile. If you can’t remember the last time someone invited someone to your church, or you can’t remember the last time you did it, ask why not? What is keeping them from taking that step? Are you doing something wrong as a church? Do your people feel weird about inviting people to your church?

If you don’t give people a reason to invite people to church, they won’t.
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6. Don’t pray for it. New people, momentum, people beginning a relationship with Jesus, marriages being saved, and the chains of addiction being broken come from the Holy Spirit. If you don’t pray for it, a big day will pass you by. You can plan, be creative, give away a car and nothing will change.

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