This was our first year as a church joining the Advent Conspiracy.  We began our planning back in July and asked 2 other churches in our area to join us. 
During the month of December our pastor spoke each week from John about the woman at the well.  He shared the vision not only to give the gift of clean water but also Christ’s gift of Living Water. 

Families joined in various ways, large and small.  We held a Family Christmas Party in early December where children could “build a gift” for their families.
We built a display in our lobby that included an African hut, pictures of the 3 areas we have targeted to receive wells, Senegal, Ghana and El Salvador, a well where people could deposit their donation and a drilling rig outside our building.
We used several of the videos from your site as well as Charity Water to share how widespread the need is for clean water.

Eastern Hills Bible Church in Manlius raised $61,000.  The money will be used in El Salvador in February to build 2 wells, Senegal this year for a well and irrigation, Ghana this year for 2-3 wells and 10% locally for needs in our community.

Crossroads Community Church in Chittenango raised $8,500 for the training of 2 missionaries in Haiti. 

Vintage Faith in Brewerton raised $1,600 for water projects in Senegal.
I speak for many in our church body in saying thank you for encouraging us to think differently about how we celebrate our savior’s birth.

I just got back from a trip to Ghana where we were identifying villages in need of clean water wells.  Seeing the dirty water gathered from the creek, lake or puddle reinforced our teams commitment.

Kathy Schreiber - Family Ministries Coordinator
Eastern Hills Bible Church
Manlius, NY

I just want to say that it totally lifted my Christmas Spirit when I stumbled across your site this year.  Last year I heard a message that had the same theme… to celebrate Christ’s Birth in a way that would truly bless His heart and the many hurting and hungry across our nation and our world.  It has totally rocked the way I come to the Holiday season and it blessed my heart so much to see more people jumping on board through AC.  That video nearly brought me to tears when I watched it, even though I knew the statistics already… it was very well made and powerful. 

Between me and my family I would say that the “gifts” we gave each other totaled around $250 that was donated to our local homeless shelter/ministry, the living water project, and World Vision.  It’s awesome to hear the numbers of other people who were moved to do the same this Christmas.  Thanks so much for helping get the word out and mobilizing people live their love for Christ. 

Tim

At Crossroads Church in Severn, Maryland, we want our people to experience the joy of the season and live in the peace and hope that Jesus brought us all year long, and the Advent Conspiracy helped us experience that this year.  At Christmas, our pastor preached an advent series and throughout the series he challenged us to consider making this Christmas different by focusing more on Jesus in all the ways that the Advent Conspiracy movement emphasizes: giving the gift of presence, by worshipping fully, spending less, giving more, and loving all.
Many of our people resonated with that message and began to make changes in the way they did Christmas this year, which was awesome to hear about and see in action. We didn’t do just one Advent Conspiracy project, instead we offered lots of ideas for some lifestyle changes that would help make this Christmas different and a couple of different mission projects, and asked our families to choose the ideas and projects that would help them put Jesus in the center of their family’s Christmas celebration.  Many of our families incorporated some of these lifestyle change ideas, and experienced new ways to spend time with their children and interact around the Christmas story and new ways to spend time with friends and give the gift of presence. Rather than getting totally caught up in all the busyness of the season, many in our church family chose to join one of the small groups that met during the advent season to focus on Jesus and what he provided for us when he came to live among us and die for us.
We also offered a couple of different mission projects during the season that allowed our people to practice spending less on themselves and giving and loving more, and our people stepped up and did an awesome job.  We ordered AIDS caregiver kits from World Vision and invited our people to cover the cost of a kit as a way of giving more, and to stay after church to assemble a kit. We are a fairly small church and we ordered 25 kits, but our people covered the cost of more than 40 kits and stayed to assemble all the kits that we ordered!  In addition, a local homeless shelter sent us a list of the children who live in the shelter and one special gift that that child wanted for Christmas. It was so encouraging to see our families take a part of their Christmas budget that would have normally bought gifts for their own family and pick one child’s name for each of their family members, including their children, to buy a gift for, wrap the gift, and deliver it to the shelter.  There were lots of small changes that added up to a very different kind of Christmas for many of our families!
We are still hearing the stories, in living rooms and around dinner tables, about how the individual families in our church did Christmas differently this year and the many creative ways that these families chose to live that out and how much they enjoyed themselves. Without a doubt, these families will never go back to the old Christmas-as-usual routines after they have experienced a Christmas with Jesus, rather than busyness and consumption, at the center of the season.  We know that their stories and the changes that God has made in their lives, will inspire more families, in our church and outside our church, to join in the Advent Conspiracy!

Melba Miller
Crossroads Church
Severn, Maryland

A parishioner told me about AC and we decided to run with it this past holiday season. During the month of December we told the story, showed the video, and challenged people to spend less so that they could give more.  And they did!  In 2 weeks we raised $5,000 for a fresh water well in a small village in western Kenya (we went through “The Water Project")

More than just giving to a project many people in the church expressed their gratitude for the permission they received to step back from the cultural shop-fest that Christmas has become.  So thanks for the great idea and the encouragement, AC will be a part of our church’s holiday celebrations for the foreseeable future.

Paul Harris - Pastor
Eureka Church of the Nazarene
Eureka, CA

I am pleased to tell you that our people loved the advent conspiracy theme used by us through Advent. Last July my Children’s Leader put me on to your website and as we were planning ahead decided to go with your theme. Who would have known how powerfully it would relate especially the idea of spending Less. People ended up doing that anyway but we were able to redirect that and give it Biblical and practical reasons far above where the would have been naturally. Several Families were able to take back control over there celebration of Christmas and people were so thankful for the challenge and the intentionality of giving with meaning and focusing on relationships. It was sweet and will have future repercussions for many of us. After all was said and done $6,377.25 was contributed to Living Water International.
Thanks advent Conspiracy; Praise God, keep on conspiring… we got a long way to go.

John Jefferis - Pastor
Harmony-Zelienople UMC

This is our second year joining in the Advent Conspiracy.  This year our church of 500 raised $14,547.66 by committing to a simpler Christmas. Here is the breakdown:

· $600 to Jesus Our Firm Foundation Church in the Philippines for their children’s ministry

· $3011.92 for a Medical Clinic in India run by Brethren missionaries

· $3611.92 for a Brethren orphanage in Puerto Maldonado, Peru (on the edge of the Amazon) to provide fresh water (plus another $1001.19 left from last summer’s mission trip for a total of $4613.11).  They have a well, but this will allow them to build water storage tanks and run pipes to the buildings, which they have not been able to do at this point. 

· $1000 to sponsor two Spirit-Driven Soccer teams through Pump House Ministries in Ashland, OH

· $375 each for the Ashland Christian Health Clinic and the Ninth Street Dental Clinic, both in Ashland, OH

· $952.20 to purchase groceries for “Section 8” (zero income) residents of Martin House apartments in Ashland, OH

· $500 for partial scholarships to Financial Peace University

· $4121.62 for a Local Outreach fun that will be used to meet various requests in coming weeks and months. Our community has been hit hard by unemployment and we have multiple requests each week. 

· On top of this, we sponsored Christmas for 27 households in need, providing food and Christmas gifts and delivering the items on Christmas Eve.

To help people get a better understanding of Advent Conspiracy, we had members of our church body share their testimonies every Sunday morning throughout December.  We also hosted a November Advent Workshop where families could come and make simple, inexpensive, homemade gifts. 

We love participating in Advent Conspiracy and plan to continue doing so!  We feel like the majority of our people are really getting it and focusing on what Christmas is supposed to be about.  Thanks for all of your hard work and dedication to this cause.

Wende Lance- Executive Director
Park Street Brethren Church
Ashland, OH

We are in South Africa amongst some seriously poverty stricken people. Our church ran your promotional video for four weeks, and a lot of families did not give gifts this year and gave to our different projects. The children are the best. My little guys gave R50 each from their holiday money. A lot for them.

We had a Christmas party at a local school called Riversands Farm school in an underprivileged area called Diepsloot and gave 750 children gifts that they had personally asked for and a huge party with some of the cash donated. Our children came along and participated.

We have also had many people sharing how they simplified Christmas and how one family had a spit braai for the homeless.

I was reminded that the one and only group of people invited to the birth of Jesus were the shepherds as outies and possible homeless guys as well.

Thank you for you work and commitment to this project. We will be with you this year as well.

Peter Veysie-Senior Pastor
Ridgeway Ministries
Rivonia, Johannesburg
South Africa

I wanted to report in from Lancaster Vineyard Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  We had a great time participating in Advent Conspiracy again this year.

This year we collected $1200 which will be distributed 50% to Living Water, Intl and 50% to Love146.

I think people in our church grabbed hold of the concept of spending less in a greater way this year than last.  We had a number of stories of people making Christmas simpler in order to Worship Fully.

We had some great examples of people giving relationally this year.  My favorite was a woman who was brand new in our congregation as we were kicking off Advent Conspiracy this year, chose to ask her neighbors what their favorite charities were and instead of giving them gifts, she gave donations to those agencies in their names.  It was a great discussion starter.

It really seemed that people tried to spend more time at home focused on family this year and making memories.

Overall, I think this year had a deepening effect on our people of recognizing the plight of many throughout the world and how for so little we could change lives for so many.  I think this was
highlighted in the fact that we just brought our [adopted] daughter home from Ethiopia in September.  Our church had walked through that process with us for over a year, and now they knew someone who had been affected greatly by poverty, so this year Advent Conspiracy was a bit more personal for them...they had a face and a name to put with the poverty.

We also had about 20 people from the church participate in writing a daily devotional for families to read together daily, mostly centered around the Advent Conspiracy concepts.

It was a great time for us again this year.  Thank you for providing this wonderful opportunity to restore meaning to Christmas!

Jerry Shannon-Pastor
Lancaster Vineyard Church

Here at East Whittier UMC in southern California we were able to lift up the need for clean water around the world.  The amount received may seem small ( still counting but we think in the neighborhood of $300 - $400 ), but so far we have sent the monies to 3 different countries water well projects through the United Methodist Committee on Relief.

Two weeks ago a member of the congregation asked me if we can continue this emphasis throughout the year so we are going to be placing a simple water pitcher on the communion table every Sunday during worship time and then moving the pitcher to the baptismal font located in the lobby.  Again it may seem most ordinary - but we all know the extraordinary things God keeps doing through and with ordinary folks.

Tim Mull- Pastor
East Whittier UMC
Whittier, CA

I guess the big story is, that people gave this year in spite of record snowfalls and a pretty much locked down city. We had 3 solid weeks of Advent then a snowstorm that dumped almost 3 feet of snow in 24 hours on our city.  We canceled our 4th service of advent but opened up for Christmas Eve. We had an AC offering of $1845. Not huge, but for our church of 75 to 100 people it was pretty good. On top of the cash we had people who gave food and blankets to one of the ministries that we support (Our Place) “> and few people are now getting involved actually serving there.

We hope to keep going with this year after year.

Dave Wilkinson-Pastor
The Porch
Spokane, WA

We’ve been getting your newsletters for a few years now.
We took a small step this year and had an offering at our Christmas Eve Service. Something we have never done before.
We took up an offering for the “Place of Rescue” a ministry in Cambodia that works primarily with those affected by aids and child prostitution/slavery.
They have children, mothers with aids, grandmothers left to care for children.
Anyway, they do a great work.  http://www.placeofrescue.com/

Our offering was $425 Canadian and it was reading the AC material that inspired us to take this step and make a larger difference.  We have been focusing on our Advent preperation the last few years on the very things AC promotes.

Greg Dermody-Pastor
Assiniboia Alliance Church
Saskatchewan, Canada

Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this! We were blessed by it. The Connection is a small and growing new church-start out of the Reformed Church in America. We just sent a check for $2,000 to Living Water International after taking a special offering over Christmas. Our people were so enthused to participate and give.

Travis Else-Pastor
The Connection
Harrisburg, SD

Every year at Christmas-time we do a “Birthday Gift for Jesus” kind of offering, a special gift of priority for the “honoree” if you will. Sometimes we pick certain projects, sometimes we offer a catalog to choose ways to donate - we always do some kind of local thing and an international thing. This year, with the economy in the toilet, we chose to have half our offering go towards our Benevolence Fund for needy families in our church and the other half for some kind of international project, of which there are a million, you know! I stumbled upon the Advent Conspiracy and loved the idea of reclaiming Christmas and providing clean water. The video was a definite selling point - AWESOME!! We were expecting, with the economy and our history, about $20,000 in this offering - imagine how we felt as the numbers kept going up and up, finally topping $50,000!!!! In the worst economy most of us have ever seen! Wow. God is good! So….we have over $20,000 in “well” money and will likely focus on Uganda since we have a long history there. We could not be more excited and will keep you posted on the well situation and send photos of our happy village in Uganda with their new clean water provided by a bunch of suburbanites in Ohio in the dead of winter!

Cindy Schmidt
Director of Missions and Outreach
New Life Church

Dear AC,
Our family chose not to exchange gifts for adults this year. Instead we signed up to serve a meal on Christmas Eve day at a rescue mission. We took the grandchildren along and they served bottles of water while we dished up the meal.
I was satisfied that although the task we did was nothing big, we made a conscious choice to give instead of receive. Hopefully it pleased the Lord and sent a message to the young ones about the way Christ wants us to live each and every day.

Jan Pierce
Vancouver, WA
Jon and Sara Walker
McCall, Idaho
Josh Pierce
Wn. D.C.

We are a small church in Pearl River, Louisiana - about 45 minutes north of New Orleans. In 2007, we held a Christmas Missions Offering that went really well. This year, we used some of the Advent Conspiracy material, and donated a total of $5416 (an average of over $50 per person). This was divided among mission projects - some local and some foreign. $1435 was donated to Living Water International.
Before I came to this church, there was virtually no missions giving, and this project, among other things, has helped open the eyes of our church to how God is working all over the world - and how we can contribute - even small amounts. I look forward to using Advent Conspiracy again - and to raising even more money next year.

Ben McGehee-Pastor
Pearl River UMC
Pearl River, Louisiana