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{From the Archives} Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room: Preparing Your Heart for Christmas

Kathie Phillips

“Let every heart prepare Him room…”

Last year I introduced our Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room series, posts dedicated to Christmas reflections.  Each Monday in December, through Christmas, we looked at different ways that you can make room for Jesus at Christmas.  Today’s guest post was written by Kathy R. Bruce, my beloved Mom.  Please visit her blog, The Looking Glass.

One year, a friend of mine wanted me to add more commitments to my already hectic schedule at Christmas. I told her that I could not squeeze anything else on my plate, to which she replied, “You need a bigger plate!”

things to doAre others’ expectations of and for you crowding out the true meaning of Christmas?  Are you so busy that you are forgetting what Christmas is all about?  Is busyness stealing your joy? How can you prepare your heart to receive the Christ for Christmas?

I love Christmas. It’s one of my favorite times of year. Approximately a month before the big day, I begin to prepare my house by making room for all my treasured Christmas items. I pack up my photos, everyday dishes, mantel clock, and loads of trinkets to make room for my decorations, trees, gifts and cards. All of these things are carefully put in the perfect places where they can be beautifully displayed.  I want everyone who visits our home to enjoy them as much as I do.

In all the preparations making room for my things, I can easily forget to make room for the main reason for the season. Yes, Christmas is for giving, loving, fellowship and glad tidings. But the main reason for this season is to celebrate the coming of The Lord Jesus Christ.

My desire is to celebrate His great love for me. To worship the One who put skin on and came to earth (via a humble birth) just to save me. That’s worth celebrating! So this and every Christmas going forward, I want to be intentional about preparing my heart for Christmas. I want to receive ALL He has for me.  I want to be intentional about recognizing that He is The Lord of Lords and The King of Kings. No more stumbling over the manger on my way to embracing the good but not the best.

If you want to be intentional too, here are some ways to prepare your heart for the Christ of Christmas:

1. Tell God how much you desire to focus on Him.

2. Confess that you can become easily distracted and caught up in the ‘hoopla’ of the holidays.

3. Ask Him to speak to your heart and show you what making room for Him would look like in your life.

4. Listen to His voice. Is He asking you to stop the frenetic pace of life so that you can spend time with Him?  Is He desiring that you spend your days in His Word rather than devouring latest Christmas magazines searching for ways to make your Christmas festive and meaningful?

5. Intentionally set time aside to be with the One whose birth you’re celebrating. How about the first moments of your day?  Offer the day and its schedule to Him.

6. Go and offer the Hope of the World (and the real reason for Christmas) to everyone you meet. Offer Jesus.

In all your preparations to make this the merriest Christmas ever, remember that Jesus is the reason for the season.  Jesus, Simply Jesus.

Kathy R. Bruce answered the call from God to ‘come to Me’ on Monday, June 23, 1980.  Her journey with God so far has been transformational, to say the least.  She has seen God enlarge her borders in many leadership capacities.  In 2008, Kathy earned a certificate in Leadership from the Women’s Leadership Development Institute.  Kathy is married to her biggest cheerleader, her husband John.  They are parents to 4 grown children and grandparents to 7 grandchildren.  She blogs regularly at The Looking Glass.  You can also follow her on Twitter.  

{Advent & Christmas}: KidMin Service Project for College Students

Kathie Phillips

Last month, a great idea was shared at a workshop that I attended at the Engage Conference.  The idea is perfectly suited for the season of Advent & Christmas and will bless your church’s college students.  I’ve expanded a bit on the idea but I’m sure you can add your own twist on the project.

December is a time when college students are studying for final exams before heading out for Christmas break.  Help make the stressful time more enjoyable by providing the students at your church with care packages that your kidmin (and their families) can contribute to and assemble.

Photo Credit: blogs.yu.edu
Photo Credit: blogs.yu.edu

Have kids and families (and your entire congregation for that matter!) donate items such as granola bars, ramen noodles, microwave popcorn, hard candy and chewing gum to help college students survive late-night study sessions.  You might even want to have the children/families write encouraging notes that can be attached to the packages.  Once all items are collected, have your kidmin arrange the items in fun, creative packaging and distribute to the students.

This idea could be as simple or elaborate as you choose but the impact will be priceless to many students who receive the packages.

If you’re looking for more great ideas for Advent & Christmas, be sure to check out my Advent & Christmas Pinterest board.

What fun ways are you, your ministry or your family serving others this Advent/Christmas?  Share your ideas below!

{Advent & Christmas}: Edible Advent Wreath

Kathie Phillips

To kick off the beginning of Advent, our elementary children made edible Advent wreaths in class yesterday.  They loved them and so will the children in your ministry! (Thanks to one of our awesome leaders, Megan, for this fabulous idea.)

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Donuts with a hole in the middle (any will work but I’d suggest glazed or powdered)
  • Green sugar (we used a store-bought one in a shaker bottle)
  • Jumbo marshmallows
  • Pretzel sticks
  • Twizzlers (we used the pull & peel kind), cut into 2-inch pieces
  • Paper plates

Assembling the ‘wreath’ is fairly simple to talk children through. Here’s what you’ll have them do:

1. Place a donut on a paper plate. (The donut represents the wreath.)

2. Place the marshmallow in the center of the donut. (The marshmallow represents the center candle.)

3. Sprinkle the green sugar on the donut and marshmallow.  Careful…some of our kids were very generous with the sugar.

4.  Stick one pretzel stick in the marshmallow and the remaining pretzel sticks around the donut. (The pretzel sticks represent the candles.)

5. Make flames for the ‘candles’ by peeling apart the Twizzlers and wrapping the pieces around the top of the pretzel sticks.

That’s it!  A simple (and delicious!) way for children to learn about the Advent wreath.

If you’re looking for more great ideas for Advent & Christmas, be sure to check out my Advent & Christmas Pinterest board.

What fun ways are you bringing the Christmas story to life through food?  Share your ideas and pictures below!

{Guest Post}: Four Lessons I Learned While Reviewing Sunday School Curriculum

Kathie Phillips

Note from Kathie: Today’s post, written by Jackie Jamison, who blogs over at Sunday School Helper.  

After two years of haphazardly trying to find curriculum for my elementary Sunday School class without much success, I decided to create a website to help others in my position by providing independent reviews of the major Sunday School curricula on the market today. Sunday School Helper, a curriculum review website, was born.  Through the process of reviewing over 35 curricula, here are the top four lessons that I’ve learned about Sunday School curriculum.

Most Sunday School curriculum is better than you think.

When I started reviewing curriculum, I was skeptical about the quality of most Sunday School curricula.  But when I systematically immersed myself in studying curriculum, I found a lot of material that was genuinely interesting, age-appropriate and biblically sound. There were only a few that I genuinely didn’t like.  It occurred to me that God really is invested in teaching the next generation and has given a lot of people who really love Him the passion and creativity to write curriculum.  A lot of the Sunday School curriculum out there is better than you think.

All curriculum will appear hard to use at first.

It takes a surprising amount of time to make sense of sample materials. This is because it’s hard to absorb a new curriculum format.  ANY curriculum will appear hard to use at first.  Even curricula that are not designed to be used digitally will appear very cumbersome if you’re evaluating them on the computer. Most curricula have lessons with numerous pages (over 10 pages per lesson is not uncommon). This is a lot of material to sort through in a meaningful way. Curriculum is not written to be easy to evaluate—it is written to be easy to teach.

All curriculum requires work to implement—but not that much.

I ran across one curriculum from Group that is literally open-the-box-and-go (which is convenient for a volunteer but makes the quality of the curriculum suffer), but aside from that, all Sunday School curriculum is going to take work to implement. Some will need more modification to work for your group—but there is no such thing as a curriculum you don’t need to customize. It requires work to translate a curriculum to your teaching style, and it requires time to prepare your heart to teach.  With that said, I found most mainstream curriculum was designed to be easy to prepare, and there weren’t lots of differences in how time-consuming the prep work was.

Writing your own curriculum is probably not the best option long-term.

According to the Barna Research Group, 18% of churches write their own curriculum.  I was in this category, too, until I saw the high-caliber of curricula on the market. There are great reasons to write your own lessons sometimes, but over the long haul it takes an enormous amount of time that in many situations could be better used customizing something that’s pretty good to make it great.  With such great options on the market, that have already taken into account different learning styles, and systematically covering the whole Bible, and testing activities to know what will be effective, I have decided to write my own curriculum a lot less.

If you need help finding Sunday School curriculum, read my reviews at Sunday School Helper. I have profiled almost 40 of today’s major Sunday School curricula, and have broken down curriculum by cost, age group, translation, level of creativity, level of depth, and much more.

I am the mom of two young kids, and the director of my church’s children’s ministry. I have been working with children and youth in Sunday School and Christian camp settings for over ten years. I am a freelance writer with a background in natural resource planning and live near Charlottesville, Virginia.

 

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