Wowza.

Something happened today. Advent Conspiracy exploded. Apparently somebody told someone, who told someone else, who probably told an Uncle, who told CNN about this little movement of ours. Then Yahoo featured us on their homepage. We were all, like...Yahoo! (sorry, obvious joke). And now we’re being hounded by the press and a whole lotta extra people are learning about us. This is all a really cool thing. Scratch that. This is an amazingly holy thing. We are thankful that God has called each of you into this movement. He’s definitely up to something...as if we should be surprised.

But don’t believe the hype. First, we are incredibly thankful that the press has latched on to this. It’s neat to see that this concept is making sense to a wide variety of people. But you all know how the press works. It’s like an electronic version of the “telephone game”. Remember playing that as a kid? You tell one sentence to a friend, who tells a friend, who tells a friend, and by the time it gets back to you, the sentence that started as “Jane walked her brown dog.” has been morphed into “Boba Fett threw the dance instructor some beef jerkey.” That’s what happens when you let someone else tell your story. No offense to any of the press, and I will say for the most part they’ve done a really good job of covering what we’re about. But I also know some of the facts could use a little help. So if you’re new, welcome, and here’s what you need to know straight from the reindeer’s mouth:

1. [AC] was created by three pastors who simply wanted to challenge people to make Christmas personal again. We are asking folks to consider doing four things: Worship Jesus Fully, Consider Spending Less on gifts that are bought out of obligation, Give More relational gifts, and use a little bit of the money you didn’t spend to Love All by helping those in need.

2. No money comes through, to, under, over or around [AC]. We are not an organization. We’re a movement.

3. We really love giving people clean water (did you know the lack of clean water is the number one killer in our world). You should check out Living Water International for more info. That being said, we want you to make this a personal thing between you and God. If you have another organization that you wish to support, go for it!

4. ALL of our resources (brochure, stickers, logo, videos) on our website is FOR YOU. Take it, download it, change it up. This is an open source movement. Just make sure you link it back to [AC]. Oh, and we like to give gifts too. We made you a mixed tape...ok, a mixed...mp3. Check it out by clicking here.

5. Don’t make this a fad. Equip yourself. If we’re asking you to buy one thing, it’s the book we released this year. It’s full of good info about HOW to worship fully, spend less, give more, love all, and why it’s so important. I promise you it’ll be the best ten bucks you’ve spent in a while. And, a portion of the money from each book sale will go to drilling clean water wells. Very very cool. You can buy the book here.

6. We’re not Scrooge. We love gifts. We just think you should give gifts that actually mean something, rather than gifts that’ll make the rounds at the next white elephant party.

7. Mom, if you’re worried about how your kids will respond to maybe receiving one or two less gifts at Christmas, fret not. Kids are the first ones that actually get on board with this thing. They love thinking of new ways to help those in need.

8. There’s a TON of great relational gift ideas found on this site: www.rethinkingchristmas.com (don’t worry, they’re not all glitter glue and Bedazzler projects)

Those are the basics. Beyond that, welcome to all our new friends out there. Let’s turn this Christmas upside down, shall we. It’s not too late.

The [AC] Team