Advent for the Little Ones

I always have grandiose plans for Advent, that always take perfect shape in my head about December 15th.

One of these years, I will remember to put those plans, and the equipment for enacting them, in an accessible place on January 6th, when all the nativity stuff comes down and is stored away until the next year.

This year, however, I managed to get out our Advent Calendar and the wire frame to our Advent wreath.  Hopefully, I will be able to secure a few candles and some greenery before dinner tonight.  I may even, if I am very lucky, find a copy of the Advent booklet I put together for my church last year.

If not, we will do the short, short version.

When I wrote this for the Advent booklet for my church, I said that it was "especially for use with small children or those with special needs"--that is, for the Little Ones among us.

But it's also a good Emergency Use liturgy.  Because slackers, bumblers, and over-committed domestic engineers surely have special needs of their own.  And they can take great comfort in the parable of the generous vineyard owner and his eleventh-hour workers.

So, if you can't manage anything else, do this with your advent wreath.

If you're behind on your wreath-making, print of 24 copies of an Advent Wreath coloring page, and every night color the right number of candles on the page at the candle-lighting part of this liturgy.

A very, very short Advent liturgy

Leader: Jesus came to earth to save us.  He is coming again to bring us to his home.  He wants to come into our hearts every day.

[Light the correct number of advent candles: one during the first week, two during the second week, three during the third week, and four from the fourth Sunday until Christmas Day.]

Leader: This is the message we heard from Jesus and are telling you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)

[Teach the children this prayer, or say it on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves]: Dear God, send your Light, your Son, Jesus, into our hearts.  Help us to follow him so that we may be your children.  Amen.

[Sing the first verse of I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light, UMH 206, together.]
I want to walk as a child of the Light
I want to follow Jesus.
God set the stars to give light to the world.
The star of my life is Jesus.
In him there is no darkness at all.
The night and the day are both alike.
The Lamb is the light of the city of God.
Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.   

This liturgy was composed by me for my church's use.  I offer it freely for your domestic use or for publication within a (single) local church body.  I would love to hear from you if you use it in this way, and your kindness in crediting me would be appreciated.
 Please link back to this blog entry if you share this liturgy online.
Please contact me for permission to publish it in other contexts.
I do not own the copyright to I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light.  You will need to investigate licensing that hymn if you want to include it in any sort of publication or performance.

Theo, on the other hand . . .

These are such sweet names for a Sunday School group.

Something tells me, though, that long about December of Theo's third grade year, it will occur to someone to rename the groups something else.

Something like Third Grade Quiet Lifers and Fourth Grade Contemplatives.

Just a guess.

Yard Sign FTW?

The second church we visited did not give us pie.

They did not give us anything.  I've decided to see this as evidence that they don't need to bribe people to join them, not as evidence they don't want us.

The youth group, however, dropped something by after Isaac visited.

My opinion: Cute, but not as good as pie.
Isaac's opinion: Way cool!  Totally better than pie!

So, props, at least, for knowing their audience.

Well, That Was Awkward...

It is interesting, at least to me, the sort of assumptions people make in conversation with acquaintances. I say acquaintances because these conversations are usually between people who have met, perhaps once before, but are not good friends.

For example, at the pool party I was at last night, thunder was heard about 5 minutes before everybody's parents showed up. This was no big deal, because everyone was done with swimming anyway, but everyone did have to huddle under the porch or go inside.

During this period of utter and total boredom, the topic of the weekend came up, as it always does with high schoolers, and one girl complained of not being able to finish a swim meet due to storm.  She took the trouble of explaining to me that every time you hear thunder, you have to stay out of the pool for 30 minutes. I informed her that my meet on Tuesday also had been delayed due to thunder and I felt much the same way about that.

She expressed surprise at not knowing that I swam, a familiar occurrence with me. Anyhoo, as swimmers inevitably do, she asked for my times. I casually gave her the usual lineup of events used for comparison between swimmers. After hearing me out, and asking if I was serious, she told me I was "really fast." I said that I had been told that before, but really thought that I needed to work harder in practice and focus more. For me, it was no big deal, because I don't really care if people think I'm great or not. (I'm not.) All I want is to be remembered, and that doesn't take greatness. Which is a good think, because greatness takes work, and I'm lazy. But she was clearly embarrassed at her faulty assumption, so I laughed it off and asked if she was going to the city meet, thus turning the conversation away from myself. 

But that conversation got me thinking. How often do I make assumptions of a similar nature? How often have I looked at somebody and said, "Well they clearly don't do sports," and then later learned that they bat cleanup, or play goalkeeper, or man the point for the basketball team. On the topic of ball, how many times have I assumed that the people I play basketball with at the Y are eating well tonight? Have I ever sat down and thought about what a "gated" community really means -- and what it meant that we were having a church party there?*

Obviously none of these assumptions or ignorances are anywhere near the slight offense I took last night. I have no real misconceptions about my own accomplishments, and I readily admit to my own laziness. But it did annoy a little bit that I had been condescendingly informed of how a swim meet works, when I have swum in over 100 meets in my life.

What assumptions do you make in your daily life that may be annoying somebody --  or worse? How often have you found out?

Cheers,

Isaac

*I am by no means insinuating that everybody in [our town in the Deep South] is racist, or even that anyone at said party is prejudiced, and I applaud the champions of civil rights that [said town] can claim an association with. But inequality is a valid problem even today, and sometimes a question begs asking. 

Are We There Yet?

New job, new city, new house, new church: why not a new blog, too?

Well, here we are, then.

This will be mostly like the old blog, except without all of xanga's :ahem: idiosyncrasies.

You'll notice that we're still unpacking here, as well as in the house, so . . . you know, ignore the mess, try not to make too many "helpful" suggestions, and bring pie, if you can.

True story: this pie was just brought to us by the "Food Ministry" team from the church we visited this past Sunday.  As far as bribes to come back go, it's pretty solid.  We'll have to check out all the other churches, though.

Another true story: when we first moved back to North Carolina after our time in Paris, we visited all the United Methodist churches in our town.

The first week, we visited a church that was having Stewardship Sunday, where they collect all the pledge cards (if you don't already know, don't ask) and have a little celebration after church.  This was a relatively new thing at the time, just like the Chimes of the Trinity (also don't ask), and you could see people looking around and asking themselves, "Is this how we should be doing this?"

Well, they looked at us visitors and said, "Well, why don't you join us?  It's a free lunch and all!"

And we, being grad students, said, "Gosh, that would be lovely."  At it was.  A lovely fried chicken catered dinner.

So the next week, we went to the church down the road, and that was the week it was having its Stewardship Sunday!  And they were having their celebration after church, and it was partly catered and partly potluck, but they said, "Hey, why don't you join us?  Don't worry about not having anything for the potluck--just come enjoy a free lunch!"

And we, being grad students, said, "Gosh, that would be lovely."  And so we ate more fried chicken, and all the traditional North Carolina potluck items, like cole slaw and potato salad and banana pudding and thoroughly boiled green beans with fatback.

The next week?  Guess.  (You'll never guess.)  The big UMC church downtown that we visited?  Stewardship Sunday.

I swear, I am not making this up: we hit five Stewardship Sunday celebrations the first two months.

We also took advantage of at least four churches' VBS weeks, but that's another story for another time.

Well, we've hit two UMC churches so far here in [our town], Alabama.  We've got three more to visit (I think).  I'll let you know about the rest.