Keepin it real!

I am just returning from having lunch with several fellow pastors. During the lunch we had a great discussion about keeping Christmas real. My fear is that many folks see the Christmas story - particularly the nativity as a cartoon by Rankin/Bass and not as a real event. I really enjoyed our discussion and as always I learned a lot from my friends. I pray for their ministries and their churches.

What I came away from our discussion with was this: that if we are modeling Jesus and leading our folks to allow Jesus to be active in their lives, then we will have a better chance of showing someone who is not a believer that Jesus is real and that the Christmas story is not just a cartoon but a real event that happened to real people in love with a real God.

The other night I came home and my kids were watching The Little Drummer Boy. I thought that was cool so I decided to join them. As the story went along (which I have seen several times in my life) I was struck that it was trying to present the Christmas story but not at all accurately according to scripture. The Bible doesn't say anything about the baby glowing or a little boy playing his drum for Jesus or bringing a lamb back to life.

After this show was over then came The Little Drummer Boy 2 the sequel - who knew?! I started watching it and it was even more far out. Now I have nothing against make believe stories as long as we know that is what they are. We need to make sure the we know the difference between fantasy and reality as my friend Bill said today. Unfortunately we adopt what we see in tv shows as our picture of reality or even worse we equate scripture with a cartoon that is not real. I have been convicted that I need to say to everyone I can what is truth. Yes there is absolute truth and I can find it in scripture.

I hope the scripture and those who live by it can be influencers of popular culture rather than the other way around.

Still learning and growing
Trent