Christmas Break Service Challenge

A very merry Christmas to all our ICS families and friends as we head into our holiday break this weekend! Wishing you many good memories with family and moments of peace as we celebrate the birth of Jesus.

While school has wound down, we know that for many of our families the craziness has just begun. Here come the Christmas parties, the in-laws sleeping on your couch, the sugared frenzy of bickering in the backseat of your van as you sit in Beltway traffic.

We often feel the pressure to make this season meaningful, but caught between the never ending list of things to do and our own expectations, it becomes anything but meaningful. Our kids in particular may struggle with the self-centeredness Christmas can cultivate—so focused on what they’ll get that they forget the why and Who we celebrate.

And so, we propose a challenge. What if instead of a focus on what this Christmas could hold for us, we make our break about how we used our time away from school to make the true meaning of Christmas known to others. After all, that’s why Christ came down on that first Christmas: to show the Father’s love to us that we might choose to believe and follow.

Here are some suggestions about how to be a light in your communities this Christmas:

  1. Help out in a Sunday School class for younger children at your church. (For IBC attenders – Mrs. Warden is happy to have students volunteer in K Station on Sunday mornings. To do this, email: warden@ibc.church, and come by the glass breezeway at 9:15 a.m. or 10:45 a.m. and the K Station team will get you plugged in!)
  2. Bake cookies or make an ornament for a neighbor you don’t know very well.
  3. Volunteer with your family at Central Union Mission, a faith-based nonprofit located in DC which caters to families battling addiction and/or homelessness. Click here for ways to serve-onsite or from home.
  4. Make a holiday basket to give to a family in need through Koinonia Cares, a Christian organization that partners with local churches to effectively provide emergency services and compassionate care to people in the community. Click here for the details.
  5. Write a thank you note to your teacher, your mail carrier, your garbage man or anyone else you feel could use a kind word this Christmas!

All of our students visit the library and are familiar with the tree that stands at the checkout desk. Going into the new year, we would like to fill that tree up with memories of a Christmas break spent giving.

Ready for the rules, students? Anyone in grades K-8 can participate, as long as your parents are on board!

Step one: Do one of the five suggestions listed above or come up with your own unique way to show Jesus to others this Christmas.

Step two: Take a picture or write 2-4 sentences about how you served someone else over Christmas.

Step three: Email your picture or write-up to Mrs. McKellop at erika.mckellop@icsva.org before January 12, 2018.

Think of the hope attached to Christmas. Not the stuff under the tree. The true hope that only Jesus provides. That the Creator of the universe knew that to save our world, He would have to watch His Son die. Imagine that sacrifice and be glad for the truth that it was given for you. When we frame Christmas for what it truly is: that God came down to draw us near, how could we not be chomping at the bit to show our friends, neighbors, total strangers a glimpse of the hope we’ve been given?

We hope that our families will take us up on this challenge this Christmas, and that amidst the craziness and confusion that accompanies this season that you will rest in hope that YOU have a Savior who died for you!