Ignoring my Christmas wish list posts this week, I admit that one doesn't have to buy something to give something. I just watched a documentary entitled What Would Jesus Buy? (from the same guy that made Super Size Me), and if I could pass along just one piece of advice from it, that would be: give from the heart this Christmas, not from the wallet. Can you stand to hear more? The movie follows the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir from being kicked out of the Mall of America in Minnesota to being arrested on Main St. in Disneyland "to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse: the end of mankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt!" (from the official website). Granted, the whole thing could have been condensed to an hour TV special, but it's so great to watch a guy who has a court order against him entering any Starbucks in the state of California. The clerk at Blockbuster told me not to rent the DVD because the title offended him and he wanted me to know that that's coming from a Christian who even liked the movie Dogma. I didn't bother asking him if he had any idea what it was all about. Still with me? Here are some other points to ponder that I got from it:
1. Good Christians will spend more time sitting together opening gifts this year than giving service together or conversing about the birth and/or life of Jesus with each other.
2. The only recorded incident of Jesus resorting to physical force was at the temple with the money changers.
3. Beggars don't sit outside churches. They sit outside stores.
4. People are just as, if not more offended by someone being irreverent (i.e. yelling, crying, talking on a cell, etc.) inside a store as in a worship service.
5. The Church of Stop Shopping stills shops, but when they do, they try to make purchases that keep the money local. They want people to AT LEAST be conscious of where their goods are made.
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