A few years ago I remember a pastor friend telling me they tried something a little different for their Christmas services. Instead of the usual holiday décor and clutter of the sanctuary, they brought in a bunch of manure and hay and scattered it under the pews so the place would really smell like the stank manger where it all began. I remember laughing hysterically as he described everyone coming in, in all their best Christmas attire, only to sit in the rank smell of a barn. They even brought a donkey in during the opening of the service that dropped a special gift as it moseyed down the aisle. Folks looked awkwardly at each other, and then busted out laughing. It was one of the most memorable services they’ve ever had. Certainly folks came face to face with the “reason for the season” and the reality of what it must have been like for the Savior of the universe to enter the world, far from the shopping malls, as a refugee who found no room in the inn.

Imagination.

That’s what our Church and our world seem to be so hungry for–that “renewing of the mind” that will allow us not to “conform to the patterns of the world” as Romans says. I am incredibly hopeful this Advent, because there are so many signs of Christians who are longing for new ways to celebrate our Savior that are not cluttered with the noise of shopping and infected with the myth that happiness must be purchased.

On the biggest shopping day of the year (”Black Friday”), a bunch of us here in Philly headed to the Gallery Mall to exorcise the demons of the Shopocalypse and to heal the disease of Affluenza. Dozens of joyful, singing, dancing, liberated consumers converged on the mall to invite people to reimagine the season. With messages of “Love doesn’t cost a thing,” “Spend time not money,” and “Buy less and love more,” the celebration was magnetic. One woman passing by (shopping bag in hand) stopped and said pensively, “Why do we do this empty routine every year? Thanks for making me think.”

Sometimes we just need permission to say “NO” to the 450 billion shopping dollars spent during this holiday, and to remember the poor, the refugees, the invisible people abused all over the world making the products we buy in the name of the one born in the manger. Besides, who knew that buying nothing could be so much fun?

One pastor told me that the kids in his congregation looked at the Christmas story with fresh vision. They saw that Jesus only got three gifts that first “Christmas” in Bethlehem … (and they weren’t very good gifts at that–myrrh? And what’s a baby to do with frankincense?) The kids in his congregation decided that they should not get more gifts than Jesus, and agreed that they would settle for three presents and give the others away.

Imagination.

It is a season pregnant with hope. Congregations across the empire have joined projects like Buy Nothing Christmas and other creative alternatives to the corporate holiday. Some pastor friends of mine started a new project called “The Advent Conspiracy” which has snowballed into an international movement “restoring the scandal of Christmas by worshipping Jesus through compassion not consumption.” On their Web site they say:

While we are not living under Herod’s reign, there is another empire of consumerism and materialism that threatens our faithfulness to Jesus. Jesus brought with him such an extraordinary Kingdom that is counter-culture to the kingdoms of this world.

That’s the Christmas we love. These movements are not just a rant against consumerism but an invitation to renew our minds. These expressions of the true Christmas Spirit are not just about protesting, but protestifying (as our brother McLaren likes to say). They are protestifying that the most precious things in life cannot be bought or sold or stolen. And they are a reminder that the best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them away … lessons we can learn from the kids, or from our Savior who gave left the glory of heaven to join us in the mess we’ve made of earth.