Steve Beegoo our Head of Education was recently in discussion with Ed Drew from Faith in Kids about the importance of preparation for Advent.
Ready?
“Oh yes I’ve bought all the presents!”
“We have all our Amazon orders on their way!”
“Of course we have got our Christmas visits sorted!”
“Yes, we know all our plans and we are ready!”
Now if these statements are yours, you are either disturbingly well-organised or a terrible liar! Many of us in our thinking about Christmas, are caught up together with the rest of the Western world, in a flurry of logistics and planning around what we are getting, and who we are seeing. Are we prepared?
How about some preparation of a different kind?
“Oh yes we’ve bought in resources which will help us think about Christmas!”
“Of course we’ve thought through what Bible reading we might do!”
“Yes, of course we’ve planned our visits to celebrate with our church!”
“Yes, we know all our plans and we are ready!”
Again, if you are anything like me, the above is a ‘working towards’ let’s say! How about we all pay attention to making Christ the highlight of our Christmas. Let’s not allow the chaos of consumerist, secular preparation to take over our attention to the advent season.
Resources
I was speaking with Ed Drew at Faith in Kids recently, who said,
“If a family is going to open the Bible together for the first time, it will happen during Advent. Our families should know Christ is at the centre of Christmas. Let’s place that first chaotic Christmas into the chaos of your Christmas. You and I are passionate that if Christ is the highlight of their Christmas, then this will be their best one ever.”
Maybe some of us should be opening the Bible more with our children? One of the key indicators of whether children continue in the faith as adults, is whether they have seen their parents reading the Bible, and have experienced reading the Bible in their families.
There is an adventure of Christmas for us to engage with as families, and this is especially important for us as Christians as an opportunity to pass on our Christian faith to our children. This is particularly true as the world tries to enforce its own story on our sons and daughters. Faith in Kids have produced an excellent video and resources to help families put Christ at the centre during Advent.
Ed explains: “The Adventure of Christmas is a book of 25 ten-minute family Bible times, each day, through December, with a question for each age group from 3-4s up to teens and even parents, so the whole family can watch each other working it through.”
You can find their resource here.
Advent calendars?
Many of us will at least be thinking about a calendar. This can provide a very helpful daily opportunity with our children to encourage them into the truth of Christmas. In our home, we have a chocolate-bearing cloth tree, with pockets, in which we add fun questions and actions linked to generosity and what the Lord would want us to remember in our life with him as a family during advent.
Faith in Kids has developed an excellent calendar, which Ed is very excited about; especially the stickers.
“Personally, I’m all about the Advent Calendar. It’s got stickers! It’s the journey, from Nazareth to Jerusalem and onto Bethlehem. It’s the reminder that real people were in real places, making progress. You whack on the stickers, you make the journey! Have I mentioned the stickers?”
A limited window
Whatever resources we use, and there are some great ones out there, the Lord tells us to “make the most of every opportunity because the days are evil.” The time is far too short with our children, in our homes. It is a limited window.
As we open the windows of our calendars, may we also open the windows of our lives to our children, that they may join in with the adventure of faith. May we open the Bible and discover again that there is a real highlight to Christmas, which is the light of Jesus Christ himself.
Faithinkids have provided a discount code ‘adventurewithjesus’ to be able to receive 10 copies of the advent calendars and/or the books at half price from www.thegoodbook.co.uk
You can also look out for their downloadable resources for churches and podcasts coming later in November.