Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas?

I will be the first to admit that I am rather picky when it comes to Christmas. I expect, even demand, there to be snow on the ground come Christmas. Not even that, I expect a white Advent. The temperature today is just around freezing, there is fog in the air and enough rain to dampen anyone's windshield or spirit. This is not the sort of weather that makes me think about buying Christmas presents or getting in the mood to celebrate the brith of Christ. I know that there really is no connection between the birth of Jesus and snow, but in my mind there is. I mention this because I think there is a strong connection to the church. Too often I think there is negative thinking around mainline churches. Time and time again as I read books, attacks are made on the mainline churches and their failures and declines over the last thirty years. I do not want to dispute the factual nature of these claims, but I want to argue their continued negative effects. It is one thing to bring attention to the issue, but I doubt many churches are not aware of, and uncomfortable about their decline. For those few that this is the case, these comments might be useful in arousing them from their blissful slumber. For the most part congregations, and pastors in particular are aware of the need for change. I think what is needed is an atmosphere of hope. When it is gloomy outside and looks like spring, or autumn, I do think of winter and Christmas. We in the church need to remeber that with God there is always hope. We need to remember that there is always a reason to be hopefully and to generate this hope around us. I do think we should be unaware, or niave about the way things are, but we do need to cultivate a hope, a sense that things will in prove, that God is still speaking, still acting, still working with and through our churches. Are the glory days of the 50s and 60s gone from mainline churches for good, yes, but I think that better days are still ahead of us. I believe if we build that atmosphere of hope our ministy will grow because of it.

Sinners, Saints, and Snow

I hate a winter without snow, I say this for two reasons, despite my ideal location in Northern Minnesota, everyone else seems to be having a snow day today, while the ground up here remains barren, with only a few freezer burn scars of the nightly frost to distract from its dull, dead, brown. What I really want is snow to cover the ground and make everything glisten, gleam in shimmering white.
I am reading the book "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller and the author made an observation around the nature of humanity that I struggled with. He was looking at the terrbile things that were happening in the Congo and was asking himself what cause these people to be so evil, to commit such acts. He suggested two ways of looking at things, either we in the United States are more sophisticated than those people and so this is why we are not prone to such acts, or we too are capable of such evil. The first statement would seem to suggest a superiority of race or culture that he did not want to make, so he felt compelled to the second one. Using the example of our driving when a cop is around he said "that the soul of man, unwatched, is perverse."
Another book on my reading pile is "Becoming a Blessed Church" by N. Graham Standish. I do not want to make this into simply a book study but Standish makes another observation that I am still struggling with. Standish writes about the power of the demonic. Without going to much into it, what really struck me was his explanation seemed to make it so at least some of the evil that we do is not our fault but cause by demonic forces.
I do not like either of this options, I think they take away from our free will, something I really believe in. I believe that we have the power to choose for ourselves what we will do. Certainly it is influenced by our upbringing, our situation, and all of these factors, but I believe it is our choice. To chalk it up to the perversity of our souls, or the demonic forces minimizes the evil we do, and I believe conversly diminishes the good as well.
I guess I do not know whether the ground is normally brown and dead, or green and vibrant, but I do know, I want it to snow.