The Threads Blog

Have you seen the movie, The Nativity? If not, I highly recommend it. My church watched it together last Saturday night as part of our Christmas celebration. It was the first time I had seen it and I will probably be buying it pretty soon. It was excellent “seeing” the Christmas story. I am a visual person and I love seeing the Bible come to life. Granted you have to allow for some inconsistencies and directors add ins, but all in all the movie was excellent. Seeing the story brought to life, not on a church stage or in a church parking lot, was great. We got to peek into the life and possible thoughts of Mary, the struggles Joseph faced, the difficulty of life during that period, the insanity of the political system (Herod), the faith it took for wise men to travel across the world for this special event, and we also get to see the arrival of OUR King, and the love of OUR God.

There’s lots going on in the Threads editorial office, most of it involving massive quantities of food, but we have managed to get a little work done. Here is the cover for our upcoming study on the book of Malachi with Jason Hayes. Take a look and let me know what you think!

I know this is an early post, but we’ll just consider this one a bonus. It’s come to our attention that we have a slight printing mistake in the current LifeMatters Leader Guide. I use the word slight, but in reality an entire lesson is left out and another is repeated. If you are one of the lucky few who have the defective Leader Guide, I have made PDFs of the second and third lesson.

The Threads team had fun filming this short video for Christmas- Jingle Bells, the Threads Remix. Thanks to Bill Seaver (http://microexplosion.com/) and Greg Smith for their help.

Merry Christmas to you from everyone at Threads!

When I look back at the Christmas story I see simplicity, humility, peace, and love. It’s because of God’s love for all people that the Christmas story even exists. I see some meager surroundings and smelly shepherds as an audience. Nothing over the top or spectacular about His entrance to our world. But as I look around today, the Christmas season has quickly become the busiest time of the year. People fight over toys, WalMart employees get trampled by crazy people looking for a deal, and selfishness seems to rule. Our thoughts are consumed by decorating our house, sending out cards so everyone can see how wonderful our family is, buying the best gifts, and making sure our children have a magical holiday. How different do those two scenes appear? How did we get here from there?

Adam Thomason, a Threads author, is the visionary for the Red Revolution movement. He partnered with Reach Records and Reach Life Ministries to create the first Red Revolution event in Memphis, TN. The second event, The Rising, will be in March 2009. From the 116 Clique album Amped, we have a free download of the song Red Revolution for your playlist. Click HERE to buy the entire album and HERE to check out the Red Revolution Bible study from Threads.