Project Advent

I was contemplating a few different ideas for a December project.  At first I thought I may do 25 days of Christmas movies, but December is busy enough without making time for a movie every day.  I thought of reducing it to 12 (because, you know, 12 Days of Christmas) and making all of them adaptations of A Christmas Carol.  I don't know...  I just didn't feel like going back for another movie project just yet.  Maybe I'll reprise Project Valentine in February.

Then, on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, Pastor Craig delivered a sermon that he called "The Gratitude Project."  Project!  My ears perked up.  He talked about making gratitude an intentional discipline, not an accident, and then he issued a challenge for us to try each day during Advent.  Why Advent?  Because, "If you think of what we're celebrating, Christmas is even more about thanksgiving than Thanksgiving is."

There are three parts to the challenge.

1. Be real before God every day.
2. Record gratitude every day between now and Christmas
3. Share your growth in gratitude in meaningful ways on Christmas Day.

I've seen  many of my friends doing something similar on Facebook during the month of November.  I'm putting this here on Look What Danny Made! because I'm adding another element to it, too.  Every day of December, through Christmas Eve, I'm going to do one hour of service for somebody else.  That way, I'll have done a full day of service when the sun rises on Christmas morning.

Here's my guidelines:

1. One hour of service per day.
2. December's a busy month, and I know in advance that I just may not be able to do this every day, so I'm giving myself an out.  I took the amount of my annual salary, divided it by 2,080, and came up with the amount that I'm paid per hour.  To get out of an hour of service will cost me a donation of one hour's pay.
3. I'm still working to fill all of the slots, but there will probably be some that repeat.
4. I'm not going to limit myself on what kind of groups/organizations/individuals will receive help.  The point is, each day I'll be thinking about what I'm grateful for while I do something to try and help somebody else.

I hope you'll read along!