To update family worship during the holidays, don’t throw out your old traditions, add to them.
We wrote and designed Far From Home in the hope that it would quickly become a family worship tradition during Advent and Christmas. BUT what if you already have a family worship tradition during Advent and Christmas? Like the lighting of an Advent wreath? Or an Advent Calendar? Or the setting up of the family nativity scene? With a few simple adjustments you can create a family worship tradition for Advent and Christmas that feels familiar and brand new at the same time. Here are 3 practical tips for adding Far From Home to what you are already doing.
Advent Wreath + Far From Home
The Advent wreath is a favorite family worship tradition for households who want to count down the weeks to Christmas while following the biblical story line of the incarnation.To add Far From Home to the lighting of a family wreath, use a simple liturgical statement as you light the week’s candle. Then with the wreath lit as a theological reminder of Jesus’s saving work among us, use Far From Home to work through the story and our place in it. Here are some sample wreath lighting statements to blend the two activities:
Prophets candle - Jesus is the light of the world, foretold by the prophets, who brings us out of darkness to our glorious HOME.
Bethlehem candle - Jesus is the heavenly light who filled tiny Bethlehem to show that even the small and unimportant have a HOME in him.
Shepherds candle - Jesus, the shepherd of light, has come to lead us like sheep out of the wilderness to our HOME of peace and joy.
Angels candle - At the birth of Jesus, an army of light sang “peace on earth” to announce the savior who was making a HOME for sinners.
If you use the fifth Mary candle - Mary, the not-supposed-to-be-mother, held the light in her arms and by faith saw HOME reflected in his eyes.
Advent Calendar/Box + Far From Home
In our house, the Advent Box is a favorite family worship tradition. Ours is a wooden box, with the numbered days of the month painted on the doors. We stuff it with chocolates every year, and when it is time for family worship, we hand around chocolates, and read through Far From Home together. When our children were very young, we passed around the chocolates AFTER we did our family worship. It was holy bribery. There, I said it, and I’m glad.
Dynamic Nativity + Far From Home
Instead of just setting up the family nativity scene all at once, you could make it more dynamic and gradual. For example, set up the pieces and figurines ONLY as they appear in Far From Home. This method doesn’t work PERFECTLY because we don’t have pieces for all the characters of the nativity (Anna, Simeon, Elizabeth, Zechariah are missing), BUT there are creative workarounds. Action figures and other figurines can serve as stunt doubles. You could make some paper dolls. I have a young friend who made a beautiful plaster dragon, painted red and all, that slips into our nativity when we read the Revelation 12 passage.
Whatever you do to update your family worship tradition, make it meaningful, and have fun!
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