Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Children's Sermon- What is Advent

To begin the Advent season, I had the Children's sermon. I was torn as to do I discuss "hope"- which is what the first candle represented or do I discuss "Advent." After some prayer and thinking things through, I decided "Advent."
So I asked the children what that wreath was called that they lite those specials candles on was called- one child came up with "Advent wreath" so I then asked "-okay but what does that mean? We have the Advent wreath, the advent calendar, the advent season, but what does that mean???" They looked at me with blank stares. So I asked if any of them were the big brother or sister in their families and they raised their hands. "So do any of you remember what you did before your younger brother or sister came along or maybe what your parents did before the arrival?" I got cleaned and paid attention to me. "Cleaned- exactly they cleaned the house because who wants a dirty house with a brand new baby? and did they get a room ready? Did they maybe paint the room, get a crib and furniture? So they got ready for the baby. Hmm What happens at the end of this month? "Christmas!!!" Right and that's who's birthday? So what should we be doing? Getting ready for a baby?!?! YES- Advent means to prepare or get ready for Jesus. Now does Jesus really care if our houses are clean and perfect or does he care about our hearts and minds being clean and focusing on him? Right - he wants us to focus on him. So throughout this month, when you hear the word Advent, I want you to think "get ready because Jesus is coming" and I want you to take a little extra time thinking about, talking about Jesus and his story of coming to the world as a baby.

I then shared that we had Advent Calendars available in the entry for families that didn't have an Advent Calendar and that there were Advent devotionals
available for the adults. And we closed in prayer.

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