Sunday, November 28th is the first week of Advent this year.  I hope you have plans to celebrate the coming of the Christ child in some way today.

Our family will be using the Faith Quest Advent Calendar and an Advent wreath.  (Click here to download the Advent Calendar.)

Here is the devotion for the first week:

The first candle we light is the Prophecy Candle. (Light the first purple candle.)  It reminds us that Christ’s coming was revealed by God through the prophets hundreds of years before He was born.  Let us remember that Christ came as the light of the world and that He is the light in our lives.  Because of Him coming, we no longer dwell in darkness.

Read Isaiah 9:1-7.

Hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus, God gave the prophet Isaiah these promises about the coming Messiah.  We are walking in darkness and death until we experience the light of God’s presence; God will lift the burdens of the oppressed.  And all of this is brought to us in the form of a Baby.  This incredibly amazing Baby is the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace.  He is the Beginning and the End, and not only is He Emmanuel, God with us right now, but He will come again.  As we prepare to celebrate Christ’s birth, let us worship the King of Kings and put Him first, as King of our lives.

Sing “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” together.

As you are celebrating Advent together as a family, here is a neat Advent album suggested by one of the parent’s at our church.  You can listen to the whole thing online for free.  (Check out the “Matthew Begats” song.  It’s a keeper!)

Tomorrow I fully plan to be up to my elbows in pie crust, rolls, turkey, stuffing, etc.  So, I thought I’d give you a little gift of two, yes TWO, Advent ideas today.

This first one, the Moving Nativity, is something that I remember the best of all the things my mom did with us when I was little.  (I think I was maybe 5 yrs old the first and most memorable time we did this.)  We set up our empty manger and stable in the family room.  My mom decorated our FisherPrice Little People with pieces of fabric to be the people in the nativity and hid them around the house.  We had to hunt them down and then, each day/week of Advent, we moved them closer to the manger.  They all arrived at the manger on Christmas Eve when the Baby Jesus came, and the Wise Men showed up on Epiphany (January 6).  This could be done in conjunction with your Advent Wreath or Calendar, and you don’t have to have a Nativity set to do this activity: make some out of pipe cleaners or decorate popsicle sticks or print some clip art and cut it out.

The other Advent idea I have for you today is the Jesse Tree.  This activity is probably best to do with school-aged children and older.  The Jesse Tree is a way to celebrate and meditate on the promises that Jesus fulfilled and is going to fulfill.

• John 1:1 says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Story of Jesus doesn’t start in the New Testament. His story is woven throughout scripture. In Isaiah 11, it tells us that the Messiah will come from the stump of Jesse.
• Decorate your Christmas tree or use a branch or even a sturdy house plant with symbols representing what the Old Testament prophets said about the coming Messiah.
• Pre-make the Jesse Tree ornaments and teach the scriptures as you decorate the tree or hunt for the clues together and have your children create ornaments to demonstrate the promises. (They could draw and cut out or fashion out of pipe cleaners or find household items to hang.)
• You could come up with 24 ornaments and use them as part of your Advent Calendar activities.
• Please contact me (liz@fcov.org) for a list of prophecy references to get you started.

I hope that you all have enough ideas to get you going for Advent.  It starts THIS SUNDAY (Nov 28)!!  I am really looking forward to celebrating with my kids and passing on the traditions I learned as a child that have shaped me as an adult.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving!

One of the things that I remember most consistently about Advent is our Advent Wreath.   An Advent Wreath is a way to prepare each of the 4 weeks leading up to Christmas.

This is a spiritual and can be a somber activity. Advent is the beginning of the liturgical church calendar. It is a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

There are 4 candles in the wreath (usually 3 purple and 1 pink) and one in the center of the wreath that is white. The purple candles represent Christ’s royalty. Purple also represents the attitude of humility and repentance with which we anticipate His coming. The pink candle stands for God’s love and faithfulness.  The white candle in the center symbolizes Christ’s holiness and perfection. As the number of candles increases, so we near the celebration of His coming. The ever-increasing brightness heightens our anticipation of this day.

Each day at home, the candles are lit, perhaps before the evening meal — one candle the first week, and then another each succeeding week until December 25th. The pink candle is usually lit on the third Sunday of Advent. As the candles are lit, say a prayer or do a devotion anticipating the coming Christ.  All candles, including the white candle, are lit on Christmas Eve. The white candle signifies the birth of Christ.

Each of the four colored candles can represent different truths about Advent that you would like to emphasize. (i.e. hope/promise/light/love, specific names for Jesus, people in the story – Mary&Joseph/Angels/Shepherds/Wisemen, specific prophecies Jesus fulfilled, the salvation colors – black(sin)/red(Jesus’ blood)/white(our hearts washed white as snow)/yellow(the promise of eternal life in heaven), giving – God’s gift in Jesus/being content/giving to the needy/Jesus’ gift of eternal life, etc.)  Check our Advent Calendar for what our church is focusing on this year.

Your wreath can be as simple or complex as you like. (i.e. four votive candles on a plate, decorated toilet paper tubes with tissue paper flames, or a wreath created especially for Advent)

Here are some more online resources you can use for Advent.

Focus on the Family

Advent Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries

Christ the King Presbyterian Church – Advent Devotional

I’m looking forward to hearing what you and your family are doing to celebrate Advent.  I’d also love to post any pictures of wreaths or calendars you are using.  Don’t forget to send those my way!

We’re a week out from Advent, my friends.  So, now it is time to really plan what you will do with your family to ready your home and your hearts for the coming of the Christ child.

I am really excited because tomorrow I get to share my love of Advent and all that it entails with our church congregation.  If you’ve heard me talk about it or been following the blog thus far, you will have already heard what I have to say.  So, I will not go into it again.

However, I do have something new for you.  Here is the Advent Calendar I have made available for our church (and for you now) to use for Advent.  Please click here to download the PDF.

Each day this week, I will be giving you another way to celebrate Advent, waiting for the coming King.  Today, we’ll look at how to make the most of this Advent Calendar.  An Advent Calendar is a way to count down, day by day, from December 1, or the beginning of Advent, until Christmas Day.  Here are some tips for using an Advent Calendar:

1. The complexity and spirituality of this can have a wide range: from a simple countdown to a daily Scripture reading and activity to something simply fun to do each day.
2. The object you use as a calendar can vary depending on what you have on hand to what ages of children you have and how crafty (or not) you are:
   • A box or envelope to open each day.
   • A calendar with “doors” to open for each day that reveal a picture or verse or activity.
   • A paper chain with one link per day.
   • A bulletin board or tree with numbered tags to look at each day.
   • Anything! Use your creativity!

Here are a couple of links to get your juices flowing.  Both of these sites have tons and tons of ideas to keep you busy or to give you a fresh outlook on an old story:

A Christian Christmas Advent Calendar

Teaching Mom’s Advent Calendar

Please leave comments with what you are doing with your family.  Send me pictures of any Advent Calendars you do and I will post them on the blog.

Advent is quickly approaching. (It starts on Sunday, November 28th.)  I have been hoping to really get our church involved in readying our hearts for the coming of Christ, especially the Sunday School classes and families.  So, prepare yourselves because this blog is about to become HQ for the Advent Crusader.

“Who is this Advent Crusader?” you say.

Well, it’s the new nickname I’ve coined for myself.  It might not catch on, but I will at least entertain myself for a few weeks.  Seriously, though, I didn’t realize that it is not the norm for people in evangelical Christian churches to celebrate Advent (the coming of the Christ child).  It was something my family did every year.  So, my quest has been laid out for me: to teach our families about Advent and give them some resources for how they might celebrate it with their families.

We want to bring Christ-centered meaning back to Christmas.  We want to put a time in each day during this season where we take a deep breath, sit down with our kids and remember that Christmas means that God, Creator of the Universe, came to Earth as a tiny, helpless Baby to forever restore mankind’s relationship with Him.
…because that was how God had it planned all along.
…because He promised it from the creation of the world.
…because He loves us so much that we were worth His one and only Son.
God sent us His Son… Emmanuel, which means “God with us”.  Okay, how can that NOT make you excited about Christmas??? (I can barely type because I’m shaking with excitement and my eyes are welling up with tears!)

So, this morning in her quest to get the Body of Christ excited about the Christmas season, the Advent Crusader (heretofore to be known as the AC), met with the ladies of Moms Connect.  This was a joyous adventure which included yummy food, lots of laughter and great community (all power-ups for the AC).  The ladies shared ideas for Advent that had worked in their families, and hopefully many hearts were sparked to pursue their own Advent celebrations.

One mom talked about story books that her family has read that help them to prepare for the coming of the Baby Jesus.  She said that all her kids enjoy them (preschoolers up through teens).  Here are the links for the three books she mentioned:

Jotham’s Journey

Bartholomew’s Passage

Tabitha’s Travels

Thanks for the suggestion!  Please, everyone, feel free to comment and share what your family has done to celebrate Advent.  We can all benefit!

There will be much more Advent stuff coming on the blog and on my Twitter feed @fcovkids!  So, keep on coming back!  The AC will return!! [insert gleeful, yet slightly mischievous, laugh]

After years of having the to-blog-or-not-to-blog discussion, the moment of truth has finally arrived! (Thanks for being a part of it!)

Through many discussions and much prayer, I feel like I finally know why I want to blog.  I have always thought that, as a parent and children’s director in our generation, a blog would be a great way to communicate with the families I minister to.  I just couldn’t quite come up with a clear purpose.

You see, although getting out information about programs and events is important, that wasn’t enough.  It needed meat.  Over the last year (or so), God has really been impressing on me the need to minister to the family unit.  We are really good at segregated ministry (men, women, children, youth, singles, singles with children, seniors, young marrieds, college… need I go on?), but we miss out on something amazing when we stop ministering to the family. It is our job as parents to disciple our children, but that doesn’t mean that we stop ministering to one another.  There has to be a way to care for each member of the family, while ministering to that family so it is intact and functioning the way that God designed.

Being a mom of small children, I understand the need (yes, NEED) to be mentored and equipped and encouraged to raise our children in godly homes, to love Jesus and to love others.  It is not easy!!  Yet, so many of us are trying to figure things out on our own, succeeding and failing by trial and error.  God has stirred my heart for our families, particularly the parents, of our church.  We can accept this responsibility that God has given us and do it well.  By the power of the Holy Spirit in us, and the unity of the Body of Christ, we can be the disciplers of our children!

So, now that my little soapbox is done, here’s the purpose that I have finally come up with for this blog… for Faith Quest Children’s Ministries… for the families of our church.

1) Information about our programs and events. You can download the latest Bible Quest.  You can access our calendar of events.  You will get updates about who won Orange Day or when an offering project is ending.  You can find out what all our confounded abbreviations mean.  All that stuff is important and this is a fun way to get it out to you!

2) Resources for parents. You will find ideas for engaging your family in spiritual discussions and activities, ideas for having fun as a family and resources that you can use to help you feel equipped for discipling your children.

3) My thoughts on parenting. I’m parenting right alongside you.  Sometimes I have victories and sometimes defeats.  Often times God teaches me something through my own children that is amazing, convicting, encouraging… you name it!  I want to share those with you.

4) Your thoughts on discipling  and parenting your children. Please join in the discussion.  This blog by no means is to become “Sermons by Liz”.  We function best when we work together as the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:12-27). I’ll just provide the platform.  Let’s work together to encourage and challenge one another (Heb 10:23-25).

I’m excited to see how God uses this to grow us each into His likeness, to make us fall more in love with Him and to guide and mold us as we raise our precious children.

Watch for advent and Christmas activities for families in the coming days!  You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog.  Also, you can follow @fcovkids on Twitter.