With Thanksgiving and Christmas quickly approaching, your thoughts are likely turning to stocking up the pantry for holiday meals, scouting out the sales for your Christmas list and, most importantly, making plans to spend time with loved ones.

Within hours of celebrating the bounty of God’s blessings at Thanksgiving, however, the jarring reality of ‘Black Friday’ will hit as consumers swarm the stores in the wee hours of the morning to snag the best deals and kick off the Christmas shopping season.

This year, make plans now to better steward the resources God has entrusted to you by shopping for your loved ones at the companies most compatible with your faith-driven values and worldview.

To help you shop wisely and support companies that actively seek to welcome and include you as a Faith Driven Consumer, we’ve developed this free, down-loadable 2012 Faith-friendly Christmas Shopping Guide, which rates more than 25 major holiday retailers according to how closely their corporate decisions and behavior align with a biblical worldview.

Think about this: Christmas is the biggest shopping season of the year with $586.1 billion in projected 2012 holiday sales – a 4.1% increase from 2011. As the most widely celebrated Christian holidays, it’s a time when you, as a faith-driven consumer, can actively support companies that respect your deeply held beliefs and worldview – while celebrating the birth of Christ with your family.

While it’s easy to get caught up in the gift-buying rush during the holidays, many Christians are actively considering whether the companies they shop with welcome them and are inclusive of their values. In some cases, you’ll find that your favorite retailer is actually quite hostile to a biblical worldview and actively manages its operations in ways that seek to undermine your faith and religious freedom.

In other cases, you’ll be pleased to know which companies actively seek to welcome and include you as a Faith Driven Consumer – and you’ll feel good about positively directing your buying power to brands that respect and more closely align with your faith.

To get the 2012 Faith-friendly Christmas Shopping Guide and click the icon to download your very own PDF copy to take with you as you hit the stores this season.

And help us get the good word out about this helpful resource by sharing this link with your friends, family members and your church.  You can also ‘like’ us on Facebook and follow us on twitter.