If you're tired of standing in line at the local mall on Black Friday and are yearning for more meaning in the Christmas season, why not start off your holidays by spending the day after Thanksgiving spreading the love of Christ in your community?

This will be the eighth year that Bless Friday® spreads the real message of Christmas by gathering people to spend the biggest shopping day of the year engaged in charitable activities in the community. These include visiting the homebound, organizing food pantry collections, cleaning up the environment, helping out at a soup kitchen, giving out blankets and supplies to the homeless. Wherever there is a need in the community, Bless Friday® may be just the blessing they've been waiting for.

The idea for Bless Friday® began in 2009 with a homily given by Father Dan Warden at St. John Vianney Catholic Church in Houston on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. In the homily, he spoke about how the people of the United States are losing sight of the true meaning of Christmas. What he didn’t know at the time was that a visitor named Chuck Fox was in the congregation that night and felt convicted by the message. He decided it was time to do more to help the culture at this special time of year.

Fox went back to his home church, Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church, and spoke with pastor Dave Peterson about organizing service opportunities for the following Christmas. He reached out by email to friends who also spoke to their pastors about scheduling service opportunities on Black Friday.

The following year, for the first time, parishioners from several churches were given Christ-centered alternatives to occupy their Black Friday rather than spending it fighting the crowds in the local mall. Bless Friday® was officially born!

The movement has since spread to various Texas cities and draws Christians from all denominations to participate in a day of service to those in need.

For example, this year, the owners of RE/MAX Legacy Living in Richmond, Texas are hosting an event for people to help fill and wrap Christmas shoeboxes for distribution by the Houston International Seafarers.

Co-owner Jemila Winsey says, "These boxes will lift the spirits of lonely seafarers in the Port of Houston who are confined on board and away from their family and home during the holidays."

In other areas of the state, churches have organized events where people can spend the day helping those who were impacted by Hurricane Harvey, helping out at food banks, and doing some on-site work at home for addicted, homeless, and disabled men.

Parishioners in Texas church organized a clothing give-away while those from a rural Texas church decided to spend their day helping out at a center dedicated to working with people with special needs.

Sacred Heart Catholic Church is teaming up with the Church of Christ in Cotulla, a small town in south Texas, to visit a local nursing home where they plan to play bingo and play games with residents who don’t get many visitors.

Although Bless Friday® is based in Texas, this year the movement grew beyond state lines with Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Seattle, Washington where parishioners are planning to spend their day serving the homeless at the St. Vincent de Paul of Seattle food bank.

“Your service to Christ may be done out in the city by scheduling volunteer service with a ministry or at home with family and friends by completing a home project and then delivering the gifts to the recipients. Most suggested activities could be done in half a day,” Bless Friday® suggests on their website.

Some of these at-home activities for families involved packing rice and beans for local food pantries or making emergency lunch kits for a charity known as Kids' Meals.

 

There are a variety of ways to get involved and all it takes is a willing heart and the help of a few friends.

"Starting your Christmas celebration with service changes how you experience the holidays,” says Chuck Fox, founder of Bless Friday®. “Helping others alters how you view the season. Children especially may be transformed as they shift their focus from receiving presents to serving others. Join us by choosing an activity that honors Christ, gather together your family and friends, and start your Christmas celebration with service."

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