Black Friday is a time set aside every year to chase after material things. It’s a time to put aside the spirit of Thanksgiving, and put aside the spirit of Christmas, and capture all the deals the stores have to offer. What if there was an alternative. What if Christians united on this fine Friday following Thanksgiving to honor Christ? After all, He is the reason for the season! All this has become a reality with Bless Friday – The alternative to Black Friday!
Since 2010, Bless Friday® has provided an alternative to frenzied Christmas shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. Churches in Houston, The Woodlands and Trinity, Texas and Seattle, Washington are preparing service projects that honor Christ at Christmas on Friday, November 25. These churches ask families and individuals to celebrate Bless Friday® as an alternative to Black Friday.
Trinity Church of God, located in a small town of 2700 in rural east Texas joins Bless Friday® this year. Members will prepare and deliver comfort baskets for residents at the local nursing home. Pastors Jack and Debbie Black state, “We want to begin our Christmas celebration by serving others just as Jesus did. Placing the focus on Jesus at the beginning of Christmas transforms how we experience the whole season.”
Houston area churches’ efforts will include blessing a local medical clinic ministry, Casa el Buen Samaritano, by supporting its annual Christmas tradition of delivering cookies to patients and their families; sending congregants to The Beacon, a homeless shelter established by Christ Church Cathedral; providing crafts and Christmas decorations at Vita-Living homes for the intellectually challenged; cleaning up parks and public spaces and walking door-to-door to spread God’s love and pass out produce in an economically challenged community. At-home activities include packing rice and beans for the Fuentes Food Pantry and making no-sew pillows for the Seafarer’s Mission at the Port of Houston. Participating churches include Memorial Drive and The Woodlands Community Presbyterian churches, St. John the Divine and St. Francis Episcopal churches, the West University Baptist and Crosspoint churches and the Beacon of Light Christian Center.
Parishioners at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Seattle will help the homeless at St. Vincent de Paul of Seattle food bank.
Chuck Fox, founder of Bless Friday®, states, “At a time when fault lines in our country have been exposed, Christians across the political spectrum are uniting in Christ by serving our communities. You don’t have to be a member of these churches to participate. Just pick an activity that honors Christ, gather together your family and friends, and start your Christmas celebration with service.”
Bless Friday® was founded in 2010 in Houston to change the way Americans celebrate Christmas.
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