‘Tis the Season! (5)

“When your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What is the meaningofthe testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which the LORD our God has commanded you?’” Deuteronomy 6.20

Disciple-makers all
Holidays provide excellent opportunities for disciple-making, especially – but not only – with children.

During holidays we lay hold of the time of our lives and set it apart from its ordinary uses for special and wonderful activities. We sing special songs, eat wonderful foods (and copious amounts of them), decorate in special ways, attend special celebrations, and tell old, old stories of faith and family. We do this to remember and delight in God’s goodness, rejoice in His steadfast love and faithfulness, and encourage one another in our common hope. The events these holidays commemorate really happened, we insist, and we have come to participate in them, so that our own histories have become absorbed in the history of what God is doing to redeem the world.

Typically, churches work hard to make the most of the disciple-making opportunities afforded by Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, and this is as it should be. Special programs, courses of instruction, worship services, and other activities allow us to redeem holy days so as to renew our focus on and commitment to the Lord.

Since holy days present such excellent disciple-making opportunities, each of us needs to consider how to make this a focus of our own holiday celebrations. After all, each of us has been commanded by our Lord Jesus Christ to make disciples during the normal course of our everyday lives (Matt. 28.18-20). Since it pleases God and our society to observe these three holy days in particular, and since they are therefore part of the normal course of our everyday lives, they afford us excellent disciple-making opportunities, and we should make the best use of this time for precisely that purpose (Eph. 5.15-17).

Two suggestions
So how can we do that? What are some things we might undertake during holy days in order to capitalize on the disciple-making potential of the season? Allow me to make a couple of very practical suggestions.

First, with respect to your friends, colleagues, and neighbors who do not know the Lord: Encourage them to consider the transcendence these holy seasons are meant to recall and invoke. Give them a gift of music to remind them of the historical basis and spiritual significance of the season, and encourage them to open it right away and begin listening.  Many people have already forgotten the words to Christmas carols, although they might still be able to hum the tunes. Take the time to explain your favorite hymns and why they’re so important to you. Follow-up later on and ask whether they’ve had a chance to listen to the album yet. Stay after them until they do, and then make that a focus of conversation.

Your unbelieving friends will hear at least – and probably at most – the music, but not the lyrics, to Christmas carols over and over again during this season. Your gift of music could do more to help bring the disciple-making message of Christmas back into the foreground of their minds than anything else they might do during this time of the year.

Now, for your believing friends: Do the same thing. And go beyond merely giving the gift of holy day music; get together to sing the great songs of these glorious seasons.

Look, when God had a message for Moses to give to the people of Israel, his final, most important words to be remembered, He had Moses deliver that message in the form of a song (Deut. 31.19; Deut. 32). Singing is so agreeable to the Holy Spirit that He makes it one of the marks of His filling, to lead His people in singing (Eph. 5.18-21).

Music can be a powerful aid to disciple-making. Let the glorious and beautiful words of our most cherished Christmas music become the focus of conversations on living for Christ our King. What does it mean for our personal lives, for example, that Jesus “rules the world with truth and grace” and that He came to overturn the effects of sin “far as the curse is found”?

The holy days that are upon us afford many similar opportunities for making disciples, for reaching out to lost friends and neighbors and for encouraging those who already know the Lord. We can make these days holy by making it our business to rehearse and emphasize the disciple-making truths that are before us with such focus and intensity during the holiday season.

Next steps: Choose a favorite Christmas carol. Study the words carefully. Then make a short list of how these words lead you in thinking about your own discipleship. Share your thoughts with some Christian friends, and encourage them to do likewise.

T. M. Moore

We’re taking a 3-week intermission from our series on The Disciplined Life to review three archive series on the meaning of Christmas. This week’s study, ‘Tis the Season, is part 1 of a 3-part series on Christmas, As Advertised, and is available as a free download.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.