4th Sunday in Advent

21 December 2025

Bible readings for today

Liturgical Colour: VIOLET

Collect

Living God, you called your people out of Egypt
and gave them the covenant;
prepare our hearts to hear your call,
so that we may receive with joy the gospel of your Son
and be your faithful people, now and for ever.
Amen.

E te Atua ora tonu, nāu i ārahi mai tāu iwi i Ihipa,
i hoatu hoki te kawenata ki a rātou;
whakaritea ō mātou ngākau kia rongo i tāu karanga,
kia whiwhi ai mātou i te rongopai a tāu Tama i runga i te hari koa,
kia pūmau ai mātou ki a koe āianei, ā, mō ake tonu atu.
Āmine.

4th Sunday of Advent: Love / Aroha

Leaders Input

Fourth Advent Candle/Sunday: Love
“And in the end, everything else will turn out to be unimportant and inessential, except for this: Father, Child, and Love.” – St. (Pope) John Paul II

The fourth candle of Advent represents Love, the ultimate love of God that He might send His only Son for us. Called the “Angel’s Candle,” the fourth candle of Advent is lit the Sunday before Christmas, and it is the color purple, leading us to eagerly await the new Kingdom of God on earth.
[From hallow.com]

The Reason for it all
As we get closer to the Advent season, I am reminded to keep everything in perspective. I can get overwhelmed with Christmas programs, lessons that need to be written, children that need my attention, and just normal everyday life. It seems as we do get closer to the holidays, we get busier. School programs, church functions, and family get-togethers all seem to crowd our calendar so much that it’s hard to enjoy it. Have we scheduled in time for Him?

“Jesus is the reason for the season.” is a popular saying these days, but do we truly believe it? What on our calendar shows that He is our priority? Everything we do should lead us back to Him. The lessons, crafts, and activities that we do with our children show lead them to the birth of Jesus.

Philippians 2:5-7 tells us, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.”

Do we realize what Jesus did for us when He was born a child on this Earth? This verse says that Jesus “emptied Himself”. He did that for you and me. Can we empty our schedules to fit more of Him in?

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

We have all heard this verse and probably memorised it as a child. Do we realize what it’s saying? God loved us so much that He GAVE His only Son. He GAVE His Son to us because He loves us.

Wow! That’s quite a love! Do the items on our calendars show our love towards Him? The question is: What am I doing to celebrate the real reason for it all?

When Christmas is hard for kids
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.

Busy Families
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.

Lighting the Candle of Love

Each week we gather together and light another candle. We see the light growing brighter and brighter as we get closer to the birth of the “Light of the World.”

Here is one way to do it (there are lots of different ways!):
The focus this first week of Advent is Love.
Light four candles to symbolize Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love.

Say: This is the candle of Love. God loves us so much that He sent His only Son to be with us and show us how to love others. We remember the angels who announced this great love to the world and celebrated the birth of Jesus.

Read: Luke 2:15-20, about the shepherds visiting Jesus and sharing what they heard from the angels.

Ask: I wonder how the shepherds shared the message of God’s love? I wonder how we can show God’s love to others this week?

Pray: Thank you, God, for your great Love, shown to us in Jesus. Help us to love others as you love us.

Here's another simple liturgy for lighting your candles in the Advent Wreath, from Build Faith written by Rev. Matthew Kozlowski.

Kids Talks

A easy low stress way to travel through advent with your kids is (instead of a talk) to simply to share a part of the Christmas story each week and wonder about it together. Try these:

Read a story from the Jesus Storybook Bible each week - Get Ready! He's Here, Light of the Whole World, The King of All Kings.
For littles - how about reading a different Christmas picture book each week. Ask around families to see if they have a favourite or visit your local library.

The Gift of Love - a simple talk on the greatest gift - God's love.

God's 'Sticky' Eternal Love - simple talk and activity (not Christmas specific but could work well after a Christmas story).

Advent fun sheets

We have put together activity sheets for each Sunday in Advent. Download the love fun sheet or the whole series

Kids Activities

Hop scotch: Play this game but instead of hopscotch numbers - have words from the todays story, or Christmas words. Use either a twister board or a dice with the words taped on. Each time a child has a turn, the leader will spin the board or throw the dice to tell the child which word to NOT jump on. Speed the game up as time goes on as children line up and take their turn.
Scavenger hunt: Write words from todays story on slips of paper or other items and hide them in a designated area for a scavenger hunt. Once you've found all the words, get the kids to use them to retell the story or lesson from today.
Love race: (for older kids with writing skills): Divide the children into teams and each team will have a blank A3 poster to run to, one team player at a time. When it is their turn, they will run to the poster and write a word from todays story or lesson. No repeats! Have a time limit and continue running back and forth until time is up. The team with the most words from today will be the winner!
Heart lacing: Use coloured thread or cord to lace around heart shapes. This can be adapted for different ages - for preschoolers use thick cardboard or wood with large holes and thick cord. For older kids you can use card with holes punched in it and wool or even felt and coloured embroidery thread needles. Here's one example.
Love balloons (check you don't have any kids who are scared of loud noises or extra sensitive to noise): Blow up many balloons and place a slip of paper in each balloon with words/pictures from today's story. Then play a game of popping the balloons. Once all the paper is free get the kids to put the words in order on a poster board or on the table.

[adapted from sermons4kids.com]

Christmas Craft

The fourth week of Advent is for love - the amazing love of God who sent his only Son for us. It's sometimes associated with angels as it was the angels who announced this amazing news to the world! Here are a few crafts to remind us:

Paper Heart ornaments - to hang on your tree.
Felt Hearts - for older kids to make an easy ornament.
Easy Paper Christmas Angels
Mini Paper Angels - with template. Just enlarge if you want to make bigger ones.

Kiwi Advent Illustrations

You can download these Kiwi Advent Illustrations over on our Strandz

Or this one - Emmanuel God With Us

Intergenerational Advent

Intergenerational Resources for all the weeks of Advent (Year C 2024)

Advent 1: See
Advent 2: Listen and hear
Advent 3: Rejoice and Act
Advent 4: Feel
Christmas: Celebrate!

5 Week Lectionary-based Advent + Christmas Series (Year C 2021)

Advent is about anticipating
Advent is about getting ready
Advent is about noticing the signs
Advent is about sharing the story
Christmas - something is here!

Intergenerational Christmas resource (Mainly Ministries).

Rags to Riches - An intergenerational all age service (SUNZ)

Collected Resources
A collection of Intergenerational Christmas Service ideas from the Uniting Church in Australia.

Engage Together - Advent: Lectionary-based Children’s Talk + Multi-age activities for Sundays in Advent

Art in Advent

If you want to mark Advent in a simple rich way, how about creating a space where your kids can spend some time with Advent art. Two of my favourites advent depicting artists are John Swanson, Julie Vivas, and He Qi.

Try these questions or make up your own:
What do you see?
What is different from the bible story? What is the same?
What might this show us about God? About people? About our world?
What do you think is important in this picture?
Does anything in this picture have more than one meaning?
I wonder what God might be saying to you through this picture today?

Nativity - Hanna Varghese

I wonder

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.

Strandz

As we approach Christmas, we're mindful that the flurry of Christmas services are not far off. We've kept suggestions here quite light, but feel free to go and explore our Christmas ideas over on www.strandz.org.nz or our previous pages.

Meri Kirihemete!

Media

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.

Visio Lectio

Thanks to Rev. Sarah West for this week's print image from Visio Lectio, shared with permission.
PNG Download
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Gospel Conversations

A huge thank you to the Diocese of Dunedin for their amazing Gospel Conversations videos this year! At last we've reached a Christmas story! It is Matthew's wonderful telling of how the gentle man who was to bring up Jesus learned of God's gift to the world. It's not the most familiar part of the Christmas story - not the part we find in Nativity Plays - but it's a story rich with joy and hope and fulfilment. Join Damon, Esther, Anne and Michael as they ponder something of the gift this story is to us.

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.