browns mill church

upside down Christmas

kevinhaglund Leave a comment

First, my family and I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. God has blessed us richly with such wonderful family and friends. We look forward to spending time with many of you during the next few weeks.

In many ways, this has been an upside down Christmas so far. Since I left my position at Dogwood Church on December 5th, I have been without a regular daily routine and without a weekly worship service to plan and lead. I have to admit that, in some aspects, it has been nice, however, on Christmas Eve, it was a little depressing for me to be an observer instead of the leader of a Christmas Eve service.

The family and I attended a Christmas Eve service at a nearby church and during the service, I was struck with a thought. We, in local church ministry, have Christmas upside down. We often spend lots of money making the auditorium or sanctuary look beautiful, we spend lots of time programming the service complete with music, multimedia, drama and a compelling Christmas message. In short, we put on a huge show in the name of celebrating the birth of Christ–not that there’s anything wrong with that (to borrow a line from Seinfeld).

The funny thing is that when Jesus was born, it was anything but a show. The shepherds who happened to be the outcast of society were the only ones who got a show from the heavenly host and it scared the fire out of them! The stinky stable with its incarnational events unfolding inside was anything but a show and those in attendance probably didn’t leave commenting about what a great experience they had–the sights, the sounds, the message, etc. They left in wonder and amazement at having been in the presence of the King of Kings.

During this Christmas season, I challenge you to remember that, yes, we are celebrating Christ’s birth. But more than that, we are celebrating the fact that God Himself left heaven and put on our damaged and weak skin in order to demonstrate His love for us. If He did this for us, how can we possibly refuse to leave our “heavenly realm”–our Christian protective bubble to put ourselves in the dark and damaged world of those who are still walking in darkness. It is only when Christians decide to live like Jesus and to lead others to do the same that we will find fulfillment and purpose in our identity as Christ followers. That is what God has called us to do and that is what we intend to accomplish through browns mill church.

another day…

kevinhaglund Leave a comment

The past few weeks have been interesting for me. I am a person who thrives in a routine environment. For many years, I’ve had a weekly schedule that has defined my life and provided structure–albeit, chaotic at times. On Monday, I recovered from Sunday and started my week slowly; on Tuesday, I crammed in a ton of meetings; Wednesday was worship ministry rehearsal and prep; Thursdays were tying up loose ends for Sunday; Friday was (sometimes) my day off; Saturday was a half day off with church at night; Sunday was full throttle in the morning, crash on the couch during football in the afternoon and awaken in enough time to meet with our small group at night.

I now find myself without that familiar and comfortable routine. While it has been kind of nice–like a vacation–it has begun wearing thin. I can see that I’m going to need to define a new structure for my week or I’m going to go stir crazy. One of the elements that I want to intentionally build into my new routine is time with people. I tend to be on the “task-oriented” side of the spectrum–often to a fault. Now, in our new paradigm of ministry, “people” are going to be  on my task list. (Yes, we “task-oriented” people have to do that!)

I don’t know if Jesus had a task list, but if He did, people were at the top of it. Our mission statement for browns mill church is “to live like Jesus and to lead others to do the same.” It would be a good motto for me to follow–especially as one of browns mill church’s leaders!

Here are some prayer requests for us:

  • Pray for our transition of being with people we’ve loved for nearly 8 years. To suddenly stop seeing many of them has been hard–especially for Suzanne who is very relational (much more so than I).
  • Pray for a new God-honoring, mission accomplishing routine for Kevin.
  • Pray for our house and the Coleman’s house to sell so we can relocate to Newnan and dive into new relationships.
  • Pray for impact within our existing relationships with neighbors. We are going to have a Winter Solstice party at our house this Friday night for our neighbors.
  • Anything else you can think of–just pray!