Keeping Advent at home

Try these ideas for family devotions from the First United Methodist Church, Cumming, Ga.

• Gather around the Advent wreath each week of the season and read Scripture lessons (www.gbod.org). 

• Decide how your family will participate in a project to help others at Christmas.

• Make an Advent wreath to take to a neighbor who lives alone, or invite the neighbor to join your Advent devotions.

• The prophets said that Messiah has many names ... Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace and Emmanuel (“God is with us”). Talk with your children about these names and what they mean. Tell them about their own names.

• Find a hill where you can look down on the city lights after dark. Talk about how Bethlehem might have looked at night.

• Light the Advent wreath each night at dinner and pray for people you love — and people who need your prayers — by name, thanking God for all they mean to you.

• Decorate a shoebox with the Advent colors – purple or blue. Place Christmas cards inside the box. Each night at dinner, draw out a card and talk about how the person who sent it has brought you joy. Pray for that person.

• Ask everyone in your family to write notes or letters to each other. Tell them how you love them. Wrap the notes in gift boxes to be opened on Christmas day. Place them under the tree.