Having done “Christmas” for almost 15 years, it has now become a part of the seasonal routine for my family and me. The days are filled with putting bellringers out and getting angels adopted. Once those tasks have been completed for the day, we go to bed, wake up, and do it again. It is amazing how the workload hasn’t changed much over the years. I still feel as physically and mentally tired this year as I did when I first started. If I am not careful, the routine of Christmas can wear me down spiritually and rob me of the mission behind it. It’s so easy to bury myself in the administration of ministry that I sometimes get too busy to do ministry. There is a reason why I do these things, and as it turns out, it’s not because I must hit a goal. One morning in December, I was pleasantly reminded of this.

As a part of the bellringer morning meeting, I asked the room if there had been any “kettle stories” that anyone would like to share. These are stories that perhaps a donor would share with a bellringer on why they support The Salvation Army. A few raised their hands and shared that one person gave because his grandfather fought in the war and remembered the Army’s work. Some mentioned that a family member had been helped by our rehabilitation programs, and some said that they knew it wouldn’t go toward overhead. 

To my surprise, Eric, one of the bellringers in the back, raised his hand and had something to share. I, of course, was expecting another donor story, but that’s not what he shared. He said, “Captain, I have never spent an entire day standing in front of a grocery store until I became a bellringer. All day, I watch people enter the store and leave the store. Their carts are full of food because they have somewhere to be. They have a family to take care of and people to love. I didn’t realize how far I had fallen from being the man God meant for me to be until I started ringing this bell.”

Eric had recently gone through drug counseling and was now working toward the goal of reconciling with his family. Eric then said, “God saved my life, and soon I will be one of those men at the grocery store shopping for my family because that’s what I should have been doing all along.” 

This is what happens when Christ is in us; the old is gone, and the new is here. The beautiful truth about being made new in Christ is that reconciliation comes with it. We are reconciled to God and then to the relationships of this earth. Only God can take what is broken and mend it back as one.

For some, the sound of shopping carts being pushed around means another day. For Eric, it was the sound of the cross offering him something that he had never found before: purpose. This was a very welcomed reminder that the administration of Christmas, as important as it is, isn’t the mission. The mission has always been and will forever be the souls of men.