4th Sunday in Advent

18 December 2022

Bible readings for today

Collect

God, your purpose exceeds our understanding:
grant us the grace you gave to Mary.
Help us recognise your presence,
and, at our end, know the joy of your embrace.
Through Jesus Christ our Liberator,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen

4th Week of Advent

Lighting the Candle of Love

Today is the 4th week of Advent and we light the candle of love.
What you need:

Advent wreath
4 candles
matches

What you do:

Invite a family member to light all four candles, remembering what each one stands for (hope, peace, joy and love)
This is a good opportunity to talk about love.

Some helpful conversation starters (note- as you all talk and share together, gently lead the conversation into specifics- Statements like I love my friends are helpful. Statements like I love Sophie and Elyssa can be more helpful because they can allow you to explore the specifics of relationships)

I wonder who you love.
I wonder who loves you.
I wonder how you show people that you love them.
I wonder how you know when someone loves you.
I wonder how we know that God loves us.
I wonder what some ways might be that we can show God that we love him.

Advent Wreath Liturgy

A simple liturgy for lighting your candles in the Advent Wreath, from Build Faith (Use the fourth week!) written by Rev. Matthew Kozlowski

Aroha - Love

Christmas is close

Our te reo word for the week is aroha, which means love. You can download this graphic on our Strandz website

This week is exciting because Christmas is so close. Some children will know what they’re receiving as gifts, others will be planning holidays, others will have helped decorate the house or baked or already had Christmas parties. As a leader, it’s important to be mindful that there might be children for whom Christmas is a difficult time. There might be unusual family tensions through job loss, illness, having moved to a new city, lack of finances, etc. Your children might live in a separated family where they’re not quite sure which parent they’ll be with when. The first Christmas after a traumatic event can be particularly difficult. As a leader, it’s important to allow the excitement and joy of the season to bubble up, and still be aware and support others who might be struggling. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge that even though Christmas is a joyous, exciting, amazing time of year, that for some people, Christmas can be hard and that we need to support, love and pray for those who are struggling.

The Birth of Jesus (Matthew 1:18-25)

I wonder...

What was it like for Joseph to hear that Mary was going to have a baby?
What would it be like for Joseph to have an angel appear to him in a dream?
What might the angel have been like? How did Joseph know it was an angel?

Christmas on the Move

All resources from Christmas on the Move, a Strandz advent resource, can be found here
Today is the day for Mary and Joseph to arrive at the stable, ready for the arrival of the baby on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. This can be linked to the Gospel reading.

Craft boxes for home

As Christmas draws close, and families adjust to being on holiday, tensions in the house may be running high. Children will pick up on parental stress, something that’s hard to avoid at this time of year. If you’re extra busy finishing at work and preparing for the holiday, and your children are demanding more time than you’re able to provide, try creating special craft boxes for your children.

Make one shoe box size box for each child - or one box for all of them to share and put a few special arts and crafts things inside. Include some special paper, felts, stickers, pipe cleaners, glue, buttons, paper or card- whatever you have or can easily get. Wool, popsicle sticks, tape, crayons, aluminum foil are also possibilities. When things get a bit rough, pull out the boxes and sit them down. Say something like, ‘You’ve got___ (an amount of time appropriate for their age) to create a Christmas card, or a poster or whatever you think might be of interest. By redirecting their need for your attention, they can work on something fulfilling and you might just get a few extra minutes to finish something that needs to be done.