What You Never Knew about The Twelve Days of Christmas. . .
Every year the old song goes around—leaping lords, maids-a-waiting, and all that stuff, culminating in a partridge nesting in a pear tree. I’ve always liked the title, so when the opportunity came about earlier this year to do a special Christmas project with author Roger Ellsworth, I got things into gear and started work with him on an old, previously published book, selecting several of the readings and modifying them to fit into a small book under this title and subtitle:
The Twelve Days of Christmas–Morning and Evening Thoughts on Immanuel: God with Us
The book is highly intentional, and its mission statement is defined as follows:
“The Twelve Days of Christmas has been written in short sections and in an easy-to-read manner. It is intended to help the hearts and minds of believers to focus on the wonder of the incarnation, as well as to encourage unbelievers to come in repentance and faith to Christ.”
I’ve written elsewhere about it, notably on the dedicated website and on my book ministry blog.
But I thought I would still share a few thoughts here, anyway, and give you a bit of the background.
I’m delighted that friends from Sermon Audio love the idea, and are helping to promote it. They kindly mailed out 100 copies to key broadcasting churches, and are featuring it as news item on the site. See HERE and enjoy some of the quite vigorous arguments for and against the opportunities that Christmas affords for sharing the evangel of God’s grace in Christ.
Elsewhere, I recently shared these ten special thoughts about the book:
Ten Great Reasons To Use The Twelve Days of Christmas!
It’s so exciting to be working on this promotion. Here are ten reasons for you and your church to use this little book:
1. It is a faithful presentation of the account of the birth of Jesus, the God-Man.
2. It is attractively produced, a small book that people will want to keep and to use.
3. It is intentionally affordable for use as a book-of-the-month or for a giveaway in neighborhood evangelism.
4. It is completely customizable and can include a message from your minister, a picture of your church, and your phone and web contact details.
5. It is easily understandable, with short readings for morning and evening of each day.
6. It is biblically rich, explaining and applying the text of the Bible to ordinary readers.
7. It’s highly applicatory, with points to think about at the end of each reading.
8. It is easily digestible, with headings and summary points to help understanding.
9. It is naturally sequential in moving its focus from the angels and the shepherds to ordinary people today.
10. It is all about Jesus–and His summons to everyone to repentance and faith.
On the Twelve Days site, you could also take a look at how the book may be customized and how it may be purchased inexpensively on scale. Check out links such as these:
I’ll end this short post with a short video I had fun generating using some of the software available from Powtoon—enjoy!
