"What's in the box?" An assembly for Advent (primary level)

You will need:

A canvas bag or a box

Inside it, you will need:

The figures of Mary, Joseph and the Christ child from a Nativity set

An Advent wreath with 4 candles and matches

A mirror

Sit down in the chair and do nothing, with the bag or box clearly visible in front of you.  Look in it once or twice and smile at the children.

When they start getting impatient, say “raise your hand if you want to find out what’s inside this bag.”

Ask them how it feels to be waiting to find out what you’ve brought.

Tell them that Advent is a special time in the church’s year.  Advent is a time of WAITING and GETTING READY.  The word “Advent” means “coming.”  What are we waiting for?  Who is coming?  Explain that people of many different religions get ready for Christmas - the tree, the presents, Christmas dinner - but Christians are waiting for another part of Christmas.  What special story do Christians remember at Christmas?  Who are Christians waiting for during Advent, apart from Father Christmas?

Ask if they know how Christians get ready for Jesus to come.

Bring out the Advent wreath and place the candles in it.  Mention that purple is our “waiting” colour.  If you have a pink candle in your tradition, mention that it’s a colour of happiness – our waiting is joyful because we know that Jesus is coming into our lives.

Turn off the lights and light the candles.  Explain that we light a new one every week.

Tell the children that the Bible talks about Jesus by saying “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”

We are waiting for Jesus, who is the light of the world.  As the world outside gets darker and darker, our Advent wreath gets brighter and brighter, as Jesus gets closer and closer.

Take out the figure of Jesus from the crib scene and place it in the centre of the Advent wreath.

Ask if anyone knows the difference between a LIGHT SOURCE and something that reflects light.  Come up with as many light sources as you can.

Then take out the mirror and hold it up behind the Advent wreath.

What happens to the light?  (Many different answers are okay here - it gets reflected, it bounces back, there is more of it, etc.)

Take out the figures of Mary and Joseph and place them on either side of the Advent wreath.

If Jesus is the light of the world, shining in darkness, Mary and Joseph – and all who follow Jesus – are like mirrors.  We reflect the light of God into the world.  The light comes from God, but we can make it brighter and bigger, we can make it shine into new places, we can see the light reflected in each other.

You can turn the lights back on here, or leave them off as you finish and reflect.

I wonder what ways there are to see the light of God in other people?

Prayer:

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility.  Grant that as our world grows darker this winter, we may feel the light of Christ growing in our hearts, as we get ready to welcome him into the world.  And help us to shine with the light of Christ, reflecting his brightness into the darkness.  Amen.

Youth Group Prayer Space

Last week, the youth group made their own prayer space.  I had a variety of materials out on a table on the balcony.  Adapting a Journey to Adulthood lesson plan, I started by having them take off their shoes.  We talked about when in our lives we take off our shoes - to bathe, to sleep, to go to dance class, to enter the drama studio at school, to enter Buddhist temples and Muslim mosques, etc.  We talked about what shoes protect us from - they protect us from the dirt and glass of the road, they make us able to kick harder.  Without our shoes we are more vulnerable.  We are exposed.

I reminded them of God's commandment to Moses to remove his shoes because he was on holy ground.

Then we went out onto the balcony and found the materials.  We looked at them for a while and then the young people picked a spot for their prayer space.  I made it clear to them that they didn't have to use all the materials on the table - they could choose which ones they wanted and which they didn't.

We also made a list of stuff we want to add to it.

We will add cushions and a prayer box for private prayers that we don't want to put on our prayer wall.  We will also exchange the plastic tub that currently serves as our altar for a small wooden table or stool.

All the pictures and the fabric are held up with drawing pins pushed into the grooves of the wood, so they're not actually making holes.  I plan to replace the drawing pins holding up the pictures with Blu-Tak, but I don't think Blu-Tak would work to hold up the fabric.

The red fabric will, at their request, be replaced with blue.  "Red is too violent; blue is peaceful," one of them said.

Sign posted at the entrance.  Note the "no shoes please" addendum, which they insisted on.

They made a prayer wall.  The map of the world is at its centre, and there are Post-It notes and a pen to write prayers with.  Believe it or not, the "I heart church" note was done without ANY adult prompting.

Our altar.  There's a scallop shell, lots of candles, an icon that has the Madonna and Child on the left and Christ Pantocrator on the right, and a rubber stamp with a cross on it.  There's an inkpad on the floor so they can stamp themselves  or each other with the cross, and to the left, you can see a dark shape - that's a Bible.

Overview of the whole space.  They included a CD player and some meditative music.  I suspect we'll add to our library as time goes on.

I included a stack of laminated pictures.  The young people decided they each wanted to pick one that was meaningful to them.  The two kids who were absent will pick theirs later. Top left: a picture of the birth of stars, taken by the Hubble telescope. Top right: statue of Mary Magdalene turning to see Jesus in the garden.  Bottom left: Quilt square showing the burning bush.  Bottom right: The New Jerusalem.