Praise God as church’s across the state of Texas attempt to change attitudes from Black Friday to Bless Friday!
“Bless Friday,” is a time away from shopping centers and seasonal sales, involving congregations organizing community service projects for Black Friday with the hopes of someday making such volunteer work the norm in Texas. As millions of Americans are off to the stores for frenzied shopping, Chuck Fox, the founder of Bless Friday, said in a statement posted on the event’s website that he was pleased with the churches opting to become involved.
“People get our message that when we focus too much on buying things, we lose sight of the real reason for Christmas – remembering and honoring Christ. We want to begin our Christmas celebration by serving others just as Jesus did,” Fox said. An annual observance, Bless Friday began in 2010 and was inspired by a sermon preached at St. John Vianney Catholic Church in Houston following Thanksgiving in 2009.
“Chuck Fox takes his father to mass there each Sunday night, heard the sermon about how we in the United States are losing sight of why we celebrate Christmas. Chuck was convinced by the message and decided to help change the culture,” reads the history section of the Bless Friday website. “That week he went back to his home church, Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church, talked with his pastor, Dave Peterson, and organized some service opportunities for the next year, 2010.”
In an interview, Fox talked about the contrasts between this year’s Bless Friday and past observances, including how the effort is now stretching beyond the Lone Star state. This year, we have more churches in more cities and it is spreading out from Texas. Denominations include Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal, and Catholic Fox said.
Black Friday has become known for its large-scale shopping driven in part because of the many sales stores are offering. The occasion has been increasingly criticized as being a horrid example of the commercialization of Christmas, often with numerous reports of violence known to follow the shopping sprees.
“Our country has a great capacity to regenerate itself,” Fox said. “My hope is for us to begin our Christian celebration with service. Then we will place focus on Christ and everything else will fall into place,” he said.
