“Jesus came into Galilee” is offered as hope, the first hope. After centuries of silence, of struggle, and continued sin, the resignation of the people was, “No one is coming.” And yet, Jesus came into Galilee. “No-one-is-coming” is over, replaced forever with, “Jesus came.” These words cannot be ignored. In fact, the whole of the Christian faith is bound by these words. Rescue has come. Jesus came into Galilee and His arrival itself was good news. A man named Jesus, which means Savior from the sins of the world, walked into the real world. Willingly came. Joyfully Entered. Arrived. Savior. Incarnation. Incarnation is the first miracle of the gospel. It isn’t the turning of water into wine, the cleansing of lepers, or, for our more tightly wound friends, the preaching with authority. No, all those things are symptoms of this inciting miracle of God taking on flesh and living among us. The Apostle Paul writes saying the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in Him. John says that He was the message and the message took on flesh. Luke tells us of shepherds while Matthew speaks of wise men. Mark, in almost Hemingway minimalism says, “Jesus came into Galilee.” God arrives with a body, with a hometown, with a voice, and with a name. What's in a Name A whiteboard came into our living room as the decision-maker, the name-maker. With friends and family, it guided us through the work of “educated” people. Brainstorming led us to the name of our first child, Norah Rocha Watson. Norah, a Celtic name meaning ray of light and compassion, acknowledged my spiritual mentorship, albeit through books, under St. Patrick. Rocha and Watson, rooted this new child in her family and union of marriage from her mother and me. Maitê Rocha Watson’s name arrived from the power of God’s grace and love poured into our marriage through a year of marriage counseling. Maitê means beloved and when we say her name, we’re reminded that we are the beloved children of God. Our last child, a boy, received the name Truman Salvador Watson. When we say his name, we pray he we grow up into a true man of God, finding his masculinity as son of God. Salvador is the city that buried his grandmother. We also named him that to remind us and him of the Savior. In Jesus, salvation has a name. There’s no more out-of-place name in our world today than Jesus. While “God” is as stylish as ever, gracing the platforms of political speeches, patriotic songs, and the thank you’s of award ceremonies, the particularity of God with a name is confrontational. Outside the confines of church buildings and community groups, His name sounds forced, confrontational, and even simplistic. But, there’s a lot in a name. Jesus, we learn and see in Matthew’s gospel, wasn’t plucked out of a baby name book, summoned from Joseph or Mary’s family trees, or a result of a brainstorm. He shall be called Jesus, the Lord will save His people from their sin. His name is out of fashion because it, in part, makes a claim our minds find hard to digest: we have a problem with sin and we need saving. His name disrupts our understanding of self-fulfillment and self-sufficiency. Cornelious Plantinga writes this well in his breviary of sin, Not The Way it’s Supposed to Be. “Our world has been vandalized by sin. We’ve perverted, polluted, and disintegrated God’s shalom and our shalom.” Sin is a perversion of humanity. Every sin committed twists your soul and the soul of others. Short words, middle fingers, constant consumption, jealousy, greed, and selfishness all pervert the souls of men and women. Furthermore, sin pollutes. Sin is an oil-spill on the Great Barrier Reef of humanity.   All that God intended of the world, shalom, has been marred by human sin. Christianity’s Problem of Sin While the term “sin” continues to vanish from our vernacular, its presence cannot be exaggerated or ignored. GK Chesterton famously said, “Sin is the only doctrine that we can definitively prove.

On a December morning in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012, children and teachers were likely gearing up for a day filled with gluing cotton balls onto Santa beards when a 20-year-old man came into the school shooting and killing 20 children between the ages of six and seven. Six adults were also killed. There should be a bigger and weightier word than “tragedy,” but I can’t find one. In the days and even years following the murder and death of 27 humans, we focused on mental health: how has the human brain and emotions gotten so perverted? It also focused on guns: how did humanity create such efficient, cold, and callous tools for death? I remember talking about safety: why can’t we protect our most young? What happened was death. It was evil. It was sin. And while for many of us in America it was a shock to our system, this was also just another news story in the grand scheme of genocide, greed, war, abuse, assault, murder, and terror. This is our world. One of the reasons I love the Bible is not just it’s beauty and purpose, but also its realism; the story of the world is not right. The reason I’ve given so much of my life to reading the Bible is because it also offers the story of what will make the world right, new, and beautiful. Strangely, Advent takes us into both the broken and the hope. The Story of Advent One of the best Advent passages is found in Genesis 15:1-6. There’s a great one in Deuteronomy 18:15-19, and still another inspiring one in Psalm 89:1-4. But, before we get into those, let's go to the first one: Genesis 2:1 — 3:15 and work our way back. Genesis 2 is the arrival of the world with humans. What a thought. The beginning of humanity. Genesis 2 describes the perfect garden for humans to thrive. There are rivers and trees and animals. And God (like a potter) forms man, breathing into the nostrils, life. Imagine that! God so close in creation that He put His breath in him and that breath creates life. Humanity doesn’t exist apart from God’s intimate presence and generosity. God walks with the Adam in the cool of the day, in rest and in labor. Then creates for Adam human relationship. Human companionship. When Adam sees Eve, he says: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Believe it or not, this the beginning of the Advent Story. Next, Adam and Eve rebel against the living God who breathed life into them. The Maker and Sustainer of their entire universe. The Serpent came and asked: “Did God really say if you eat it you will become like God? He doesn’t want that.” Then eating the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they knew shame, hiding, and guilt. But, God comes to them. He calls to them. He asks for them. This is the second act of Advent; God came to humanity (even in the early pages of this story), seeking the ones He loved. He also comes explaining justice—the brokenness of shame, guilt, and striving to be god will result in catastrophic relationships, work, birth, environment, futility, and separation from the source of Life. In this second act, God seeks the people He formed to be His image and declares the reality of rebellion away from Him: a life of death. He informs them of a different world, a world we inhabit today. But in the midst of that curse, God gives a promise: a Child or Seed from Eve will oppose and do battle with Evil—with the Serpent. The Serpent will be destroyed, but it will cost the life of this Heir of Adam and Eve. One day, a child of Eve will crush the Serpent and be bruised. The promise of redemption and restoration one day. This is the third act of Advent: Promise. Hope. This is the one we often inhabit, of God’s plan to re-create the world. God’s promise to send a Savior. There are many promises. In Genesis 15, God promises to create a family that will bless the whole world. That the heir to Abraham will be a blessing. Blessing here isn’t a little gift; it’s a making right. Hope from a Child. Hope from a Family. In Deuteronomy 18,

Christmas is a magical time for kids as they see the glow of lights, trees in the home, and packages accumulate. It’s also the season when we get to regularly articulate the meaning and nature of God coming to us to save us. This, to my four-year-old, is the most astonishing of questions: “Why did God have to come, anyway?” Why did God have to come? To deal with sin for the sake of resurrecting our lives from the dead. The nativity narrative makes major claims that cannot be ignored: the world is not right—we are not right. Cornelious Plantinga writes this well in his breviary of sin, Not The Way it’s Supposed to Be. “Our world has been vandalized by sin. We’ve perverted, polluted, and disintegrated God’s shalom and our shalom.” All that God intended of the world, shalom, has been marred by human sin. The consequences are devastatingly final: death. See, the meaning of the season is not only Jesus’ birth, but the purpose for His birth. The manger is not the setting of a peaceful and gentle gift from God to a cozy world. The cradle is occupied by Christ because our world is at odds with Christ. The birth of Jesus ought to shock us as much as the flood of Noah. God has entered the world to see it judged, reconciled, and saved. When the Angels sing: Joy to the Lord, the Savior’s come. The Angels are saying, “The World is in need of a savior!” We are in need of judgement for sin, reconciliation for the effect of sin, and salvation from the result of sin. Christ’s first coming is the introduction to His great passion for the world. It’s the beginning of His death and resurrection. Jesus was born on death row for our sake. Why Did God Choose to Come? The last deeply spiritual question children ask in their curiosity is this: Why? Why did God choose to come? Jesus offers the Church today the full meaning of the Christmas season through the often forgotten Christmas verse: “God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only son.” John 3:16 (NLT) This is our family’s verse during Advent. Each month, thanks to Mirela’s intentional motherly eye, we try to memorize a verse while we eat dinner. We’re able to work on the verse about 50% of the time (the rest of the time is filled with spills, screams, and lots of loud singing from our three kids—many of our meals feel like they’re straight out of the garbage crushing scene in Star Wars). We aren’t heroes, and honestly, we’re pretty great parents even when we don’t do the Bible verse. Back to our Bible verse for Advent, John 3:16. While John 3:16a feels cliché because of our over-familiarity, it’s far from trite. It’s history-shattering truth. Our children have successfully memorized the first half, and this alone is hard to grasp. God exists. God loves. He loves the world. The world is the object of God’s love. In John’s writing, “the world” speaks to forces, powers, attitudes, and beliefs that are in complete opposition to God and His ways. This verse says the Creator of the universe loves the world opposed to Him. That’s not all; God loves the world so much. God loved the world lavishly, overwhelmingly, or wastefully. I told my children to remember how Will Farrel’s Elf pours generous, overflowing amounts of syrup on each meal. This is how God pours His love out to the world. The second half of this verse explains Christmas. God gave. He wasn’t under compulsion by legal requirements or drama. He freely and lovingly gave His Son. The gift of the Child of Bethlehem is the tangible love of God into a world that didn’t deserve to receive such a gift. Our two-year-old always stresses SO MUCH. It’s part shout and part laugh. Her reciting the verse is 100% joy. Even in her youth, she has captured only a sliver of God’s truth and it’s enough for joy. The joy-inducing truth is that we have received this abundant love of the Father by the Son and through the Spirit. Who Do We Become Because He Came? C.S. Lewis wrote this on the miracle of incarnation: "The Son of God became a ma...

Christmas Tree Hunting In the early days of Advent, we drive out to the Beck family farm to cut down a Christmas tree. Our only rule is it must be shorter than “Mom” so it will fit in our house. This rule is always disappointing, especially as you walk around towering and beautiful trees. Instead of those giants, we pick a tree that only slightly dwarfs Charlie Brown’s. And yet, once we bring the tree into our house, we realize it’s too big. There isn’t room. We have to move furniture, change our seating arrangements, and move lamps out of the living room. It inconveniences everything. It disrupts our feng shui. Our children clamor to decorate it as fast as possible, placing all the ornaments on the bottom half of our tree. The whole, lovely experience involves getting muddy, dirtying our car, moving furniture, pulling boxes out of the basement, and attempts at teaching a five-year-old the aesthetic of a balanced Christmas tree. This is one of my favorite moments. It’s the moment we prepare room in our house for the Christmas season. It’s the moment we make our house ready for the ongoing celebration that is full of expectation of God’s arrival.  This physical discipline and family moment is an outward expression of what takes place within us. You are a Disciple and Worshipper of God Advent is a fresh invitation from God to prepare room in our hearts, minds, souls, and bodies to worship Him. This is the call to worship we hear as we sing in Joy to the World: “Let every heart, prepare him room.” This is not merely a missional call toward the world but it is a call to each other and ourselves in community. Many leaders and missional communities forget we are welcomed into a life of enjoying God, knowing His love, and experiencing His presence in our lives. We forget that we are God’s mission and on God’s mission. You and your community were created to live the gospel in unity with God. To taste the grace of God through repentance and faith. To worship God through confession. To know the depth of God’s love by listening to God. Christopher Friedrich Blumhardt notes the discipline we undertake of preparing room and searching for God’s work today…even in the ordinary. "One does not always have to wait for something out of the ordinary. The all-important thing is to keep your eyes on what comes from God and to make way for it to come into being here on the earth. If you always try to be heavenly and spiritually minded, you won’t understand the everyday work God has for you to do. But if you embrace what is to come from God, if you live for Christ’s coming in practical life, you will learn that divine things can be experienced here and now." This requires an intentional focus, just like the welcoming of a Christmas tree into your living room. How will you prepare room in your heart? How will you look for God’s presence? How will you turn your ear to hearing His voice?

We have a new resource for kids, families, communities, and churches. I'm very excited about it. This children's resource began as a simple guide for missional communities at Bread&Wine, a Soma Church in Portland, Oregon in 2009, during my first year as a member of that church planting team. At the time we had a quickly multiplying group of missional communities that included children of all ages and stages. As we grew in making disciples in that city our conviction grew about the need to equip the next generation for the mission and life in the church. We created Gospel Basics for Kids to be a robust gospel-centered and missional curriculum that could be used in any situation. We designed it to be relational, story-based, and equipping because we believe the good news about Jesus is good news for everyone and every age. Over the years, that simple guide has grown and improved with the work of many in the Soma Family and Saturate world to now include original songs, leader preparation guides, and original illustrations. This is one of our most beautiful resources, yet! I hope you'll enjoy it. Gospel Basics for Kids helps form children into disciples of Jesus who can make disciples of Jesus. If we are to see our children living out their identities as children of God, disciples, missionaries, and servants, they need the same gospel truths that transform us. Gospel Basics for Kids is a 14-week curriculum journey that engages children's understanding of the gospel, belief in the gospel, and living the gospel in their daily lives. Applicable for families, communities, and churches, this story-based approach roots children in the essentials of the gospel and the implications of the gospel in every aspect of life. There's a lot we're excited about that accompanies this great resource: A leadership preparation guide for each week that helps adults engage the content for their own lives before they lead the kids. Beautiful illustrations, coloring sheets, activities, and crafts to help kids deepen their understanding of the gospel. Conversation guides that help adults discuss the deep truths of Jesus with every child. Tips, songs, videos, and more for teachers and kids alike.

In this episode of the Saturate Podcast, Brad Watson and Jeff Vanderstelt talk about the tension many believers face: they want to see the way they're being discipled and discipling others transformed into what they see in the Bible (or read in Saturate). They're convicted. They're bought in. But, it's hard to know what to do. The reality is, being convicted and repentant, they're on a journey of making a micro and macro shifts over the course of time.

In this episode of the Saturate Podcast, Brad Watson and Jared Pickney talk about the importance of developing an intentional plan for developing people throughout every area of church life. They give examples, share important things to consider, and encourage leaders in practicing a long obedience in the same direction. Here's the file Jared talks about throughout the episode.

In this episode of the Saturate Podcast, Brad Watson talks with poet and apparel designer, Preston Perry, about loving people of different faiths and speaking the truth with boldness and grace. Check his work out on his YouTube channel: BoldTV.

In this episode of the Saturate Podcast, Brad Watson talks with Saturate Managing Director, Amy Lathrop about being an introvert in a missional community. They discuss the power, potential, and necessity of having all perspectives and personalities in a missional community.

In this episode of the Saturate Podcast, Brad Watson talks with Jonathan Dodson about the person of the Holy Spirit, who He is, and what it means to live a life transformed by him. What if the Church was awakened to know the presence of the Spirit in us? Get Jonathan's new book, Here in Spirit.