Living Water

The first Christmas changed the world, and now, it’s doing it again.

The Advent Conspiracy—a movement founded by three pastors just a few years ago—is quickly becoming the new Christmas tradition for many people all over the world. It’s a massive move from the mall to the manger by people who are committing to Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, and Love All. At LWI alone the movement has resulted in more than 300 water wells providing water in Jesus’ name for more than 200,000 people!

The Advent season is upon us and the [AC] buzz abounds. The movement has already been featured on Wired.com and in The Philadelphia Enquirer, The Oregonian, St. Joseph News-Press, the Idaho Statesman, The Christian Post, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and in editorials, church websites, and personal blogs all around the country.

There’s a new [AC] book and DVD published by Zondervan, available together as a study pack here, and thousands are using them as tools to help transform their Christmas celebrations. At last count, the [AC] movement had more than 15,000 Facebook fans and 1,500 Twitter followers, and its YouTube videos from last year and this year have now been seen over a million times!

All this buzz is beautiful, but what we love are the personal stories, like the one told in this 90 second film about clean water helping spread the gospel in India. Or this story about a youth group who provided water in Sierra Leone on Christmas day, or the church in Tulsa who quintupled their AC goal and became well drillers themselves.

We love the six-year-old in St. Louis who is making and selling Christmas ornaments and bracelets in order to provide water in Jesus’ name. We are touched by the church in Wisconsin whose 35 members decided to give all their offerings from November 8th through December 31st to provide clean water to people who desperately need it. We’re completely blown away by a story we heard just today of a homeless man in Texas who, after selling over $100 worth of his artwork at a local craft market, donated every penny he made “to people who need clean water” before he went back to overpass under which he sleeps.

And while we’re moved by the boy at Windsor Crossing Church who asked Santa for $10 billion so that all the kids in the world could have clean water, we know that Santa’s not going to come through for him. When we see stories like these all around us, though, it looks like God will—through us. Christmas [is] changing the world. Again.

UPDATE: Since this piece was published, the buzz has multiplied: CNN coverage, TIME Magazine, Yahoo! News (and Yahoo’s most emailed article). On December 16, “Advent Conspiracy” was in the top 30 search terms on Google. There’s even media coverage about the media coverage (check out Beliefnet).