Elders and other lay leaders within church congregations are encouraged to become familiar with this CHRIST Program. If you like what you see, participate yourself and educate your members about the program.

The CHRIST Program itself can not succeed with half-hearted Christians. Encourage your congregation to pursue their faith walk with energy and devotion. The Church Universal needs Christians who are on their faith walk, and who choose to make the CHRIST Program a part of that walk.

Remain consistent with your denomination's teachings and your Church calendar. We suggest that beginning mid-November you also present your denominations views on members becoming more active Christians and discuss using the CHRIST Program as an empowering tool. Help members develop personal plans for using CHRIST. These plans should reinforce members understanding of the true meaning of Christmas, and also include your denominations recommendations on how to interact with the secular world. We encourage all clergy to work at imparting salvations testament by not only presenting the Gospel message during the Christmas Season but also encouraging the congregation to share it with others.

The CHRIST Program was designed to be a good, but not perfect, fit to every denomination. Clergy are urged to not make separate versions of CHRIST. The existence of several similar programs would reduce the effectiveness and cause more confusion in the secular world. Such confusion would very likely be used to renew secular control of Christmas and the other Christian holydays.

We think that most leaders are trying to do a good job, but are a bit confused and misinformed regarding Christian holydays. When no religion is given preferential treatment, the allowing of any religion's holyday activities does not break any laws. Christmas is a Christian religious holyday and celebration. Christians collectively own the symbols and meanings associated with the Christmas Season. The creation and/or use of "politically correct" messages, displays, symbols, and decorations that replace the Christian ones constitute interference with the Christian religion.

As a government or school leader, you are being respectful to Christians:

• if you do nothing different during the Christmas Season.
• if you allow Christian employees to have Christmas decorations and/or a Christmas party.
• if employees who practice other religions are granted similar freedom when celebrating their holidays.
• if you allow local Christian groups to set up Christmas displays on your property.
• if Christian students are allowed use of the school auditorium for a Christmas concert.
• if you encourage your city or town to decorate downtown with lights, garlands, wreaths, bright ribbons, etc.

There is nothing in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, or The Bill of Rights that prohibits local government or schools from being courteous to people of faith. The phrase "Separation of Church and State" does not appear anywhere in those important documents either.

There is no law that precludes a retailer from welcoming Christians to your store. By law you may have any greetings displayed, any background music playing, and your sales staff can give any personal seasonal greeting. No one can sue you if you have a "Merry Christmas" banner in your store, or display a nativity scene in your store, or do anything else appropriate to celebrate Christmas. Your retail site can be made more inviting to Christian customers shopping during the Christmas Season without cost. Simply adjust your products, promotions, and environment. The most welcoming retailers:

• Display traditional Christmas decorations.
• Use traditional Christmas greetings such as "Merry Christmas."
• Use religious music as background music.
• Feature Christian gift items prominently.
• Do other things that reflect the Christian point of view.

Perhaps the ultimate Christian welcoming gesture is to directly remind people of the reason for the season by displaying the baby Jesus prominently and appropriately.

Christians are far less concerned whether a store is locally owned or foreign owned, or what religion the owners adhere to than they are about having their faith respected. All non-appropriate items may remain in your store and be available for purchase, but should be in less prominent locations and have unobtrusive advertising.

A store manager wanting to think outside the box has unlimited marketing opportunities to encourage Christian shoppers to come to your store. You could offer Christians who wear a Christian symbol an extra 10% off all their Christmas Season shopping, or enter them into drawings in which Christian gifts are given away. You might have a "buy one, get one free" sale in which one item goes to the customer and the second one goes to a local charity. Some stores already give a percentage of their Christmas gross receipts to local charities.

The Christmas Season promotes love and peace, in addition to celebrating God coming to Earth as Jesus. Many Christians are tired of being bombarded with inappropriate advertisements or ads for inappropriate products during our Christmas festival. For example, while violent video games are popular and profitable, they do not mesh well with the story of Jesus' birth. Please consider restructuring your advertising year to include a Christian compatible Christmas Season and avoid targeting our children with inappropriate advertisements. Revaluate your product line with the thought that Christians would like to buy gifts that are appropriate for the largest Christian celebration of the year. To enterprising manufacturers, tremendous new product niches now exist, and Christians are looking for those products. The number of Christian gift items available is relatively small. There is nothing stopping every designer from developing entire lines of Christian inspired jewelry, apparel, etc. Your products are extremely visible, highly promoted, but often inappropriate to the Christmas Season. Please reschedule the release dates and/or marketing of inappropriate products to fall outside the Christmas Season. Consider developing new products that are more compatible with the Christian faith. Christians employing selective spending will reward such efforts — year round. Since the worlds major religions all have similar precepts, new products that Christians like will likely also be sought after by responsible parents who adhere to those other religions as well.

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