Hold Intergenerational Advent Interviews
Advent season can create space for generations to know one another better. Pair children and teens with adults and invite them to ask one another a few simple questions.
Record the interviews. Play the interviews in whichever manner works best for your congregation, e.g., during a worship service, meal, or Christmas party.
Possible questions for adults and teens:
What was Christmas like when you were my age?
What Christmas tradition is meaningful to you?
For what is something important you have had to wait for?
Where have you experienced God’s faithfulness?
What gives you hope right now?
Possible questions for children:
Why did God become a baby?
Why do we call Jesus Emmanuel?
Why did angels appear?
Why were shepherds invited?
Celebrating Christmas Around the World
Christmas is celebrated in countless cultures, languages, and communities. Invite members to share a song, prayer, food, tradition, story, or image connected to their experience of Christmas in another part of the world.
If your congregation does not include people from different cultural backgrounds, invite them to learn and share about Christian communities elsewhere. What does the global church teach us about the size and beauty of God’s family?
Create a map showing the places represented.
Age adaptations
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- Young children: Add markers to a world map.
- Older children: Learn a greeting, song, or Christmas tradition from another country.
- Teens: Research a Christian community or interview someone from another cultural background.
Create a “God With Us” Art Gallery
Invite children and teens to create art around the theme God With Us with crayons, collage, paint, clay, pencil sketches, poetry, mixed media, photography, digital art.
Display the artwork and add to the gallery throughout Advent. Include captions or short reflections from the artists. Then talk about it: which image helps you see the Christmas story in a new way?
Prompts
What does hope look like? Peace? Joy? Love?
Where do people need love?
What do you imagine when you hear the name Emmanuel?
Draw a place where you have experienced welcome.
What does light in darkness look like?
What is something you still wonder about God or the Christmas story?
Start a “Where Is God With Us?” Photo Project
Invite children, teens, and adults to notice signs of grace in ordinary life.
Throughout Advent, participants photograph or draw moments of kindness, friendship, generosity, beauty, hospitality, reconciliation, or care.
Create a physical or digital gallery titled: Where Is God With Us?
This activity is not meant to suggest that every circumstance is easy or that suffering should be ignored. Instead, it helps people practice noticing where love and grace are breaking through. Jesus shows us that God is not distant from ordinary human life. Advent trains our eyes to notice where love is already at work.
Try a Reverse Advent Giving Project
A reverse Advent calendar shifts the emphasis from receiving something each day to gathering something others need. At Christmas we celebrate that God gives himself to us in Jesus. Because we have received his generous love, that love begins to overflow through us toward our neighbors.
Choose a local ministry or community organization and ask what would actually be useful, e.g., food, hygiene supplies, children’s books, winter clothing, school supplies, or diapers.
Invite young people to help collect, sort, pack, and deliver the items.
Age adaptations
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- Young children: Decorate collection boxes and sort items.
- Older children: Help organize and count donations.
- Teens: Contact the organization, plan logistics, or tell the congregation why the project matters.
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