19 Nov A Weekly Advent Devotional

Advent is the beginning of the Christian year. While much of the world falls into flurry and fuss preparing for the year’s end, the Church slows to remember God’s coming—his advent—in Jesus, Immanuel.

To help you and your household enter into Advent this year, we’ve produced a series of five cards that you’ll find below. They follow the four weeks of Advent, culminating in the celebration of Christmas Day. For each week, we’ve provided a Scripture reading, a devotional note, a question for you to ponder, and a collect (a short, written prayer). We invite you to join us in this Advent pilgrimage.

You can use these cards by yourself, but it’s best done with others as a community devotion: with children and family, or with flats or friends. Take turns reading aloud and involve everyone in the conversation around the reflective questions.

We encourage you to print out the cards and put away your devices. To print, save the image and print as A5.  If you don’t have a printer, please join us at our Advent Evening in Auckland (Friday, 27 November, 2020) or Wellington (Tuesday, 8 December, 2020), where we’ll have printed copies as a gift for everybody to take home.

Alongside this resource, in this edition of Common Ground we’ve included instructions on how to make an Advent wreath. This is a fun exercise of foraging and sharing resources with your neighbours.