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St. Albert church knocks on 100 doors to deliver true meaning of Christmas

St. Albert church knocks on 100 doors to deliver true meaning of Christmas

On the first Sunday of Advent, the St. Albert Alliance Church cancelled its usual service.

On this one particular day, there were more important things to do.

For the past month, members of the congregation have been bringing groceries to church.

In all, they collected about $25,000 worth.

On Sunday morning, rather than sing hymns or listen to a sermon, they formed themselves into 100 teams and filled 100 hampers with all the food collected.

Then they went out into the community and delivered some early Christmas gifts.

"I love today," said Matt Garvin, the church's pastor for community engagement. "We've been working toward this for the past month."

Each team was responsible to fill a hamper, add a Christmas card, and deliver it to a family of their own choosing.

"It's not just for families who are in need," Garvin said. "Although many, many of them are. But what we encourage each team to do is, to think of somebody they want to bless with the real spirit of Christmas."

This was the sixth year the church has distributed hampers.

The idea, Garvin said, arose from a simple question: "What does it mean for us to be the church outside the doors of the church? What does mean for us to actually express the heart of Christianity in the places where we live, learn, work and play. How do we together bless the community."

So they came up with this idea. And on Sunday, again, they put their faith into action.

"The heart of Christmas is a free gift," Garvin said. "And today, people get to experience that."