When we were younger, the stuff we most anticipated during the Christmas season always had to be taken out of some kind of packaging. It wasn’t just that these things were wrapped, they were hermetically sealed behind layers of plastic strong enough to survive the heat of a space capsule during the re-entry process. It was as if the thing we all wanted taunted us, challenging us to get to it: “If you can find your way through the transparent shield,” it would say, “you’ll still have to negotiate the twist ties, and then finally extract the not-included batteries from some other unsuspecting electronic device.”  And, this is what we did, year after year, gift after gift, because it was always worth it.
This was the process. 
In the run-up to Christmas, we want to invite you into a different kind of unboxing process. What we’ll unbox aren’t things that are vacuum sealed, require complicated assembly, or need a set of AA batteries, but to fully embrace them, they do invite our deliberate attention. So, during this Advent season, join us as we unbox the gifts of hope, joy, peace and love, celebrating the anticipated arrival of Jesus at Christmas.