Preparing

When I think about preparing for Christmas the first things that come to mind are deciding on and buying presents, decorating the tree, and attempting to send out a family Christmas card (a goal we have yet to accomplish). Admittedly, the last thing that usually comes to mind is the most important: preparing to celebrate Christ’s coming. First of all, I’m thankful that God’s grace covers all of my failings, including my inability to constantly remember the real reason we celebrate Christmas. Secondly, I’m thankful that there are traditions we can adopt in our family to help us focus our attention on Christ during this time of year when it’s so easy to get distracted by all the exciting things going on.

Advent Season

You’ve probably heard the four weeks before Christmas referred to as the Advent Season. Advent comes from a Latin word that means coming. During this season, we keep in mind both “comings” of Christ: the first that happened in Bethlehem, and the second that is yet to come. Celebrating advent isn’t just about being thankful to God for Christ’s first coming to earth as a baby at Christmas, but it’s also about enjoying his presence with us now as the Holy Spirit, and looking forward to the day Jesus will return to earth and make all things new.

Jesse Tree

But you might be asking yourself, “What exactly does celebrating Advent look like, anyway?” One way to celebrate Advent is to use a Jesse Tree.  A Jesse Tree Project (taken from Isaiah 11:1) is a four week survey of God’s work, from creation to Christ, looking at one person or event in the Old Testament each day that points to Christ. Once a day, a short devotion is read together, and then an ornament that corresponds to that day’s devotion is hung on a tree as a reminder of the person or event in the Bible that points to the coming Christ.

Ornament Swap

If you’re interested in starting a Jesse Tree tradition with you family, we would love for you to join our Jesse Tree Ornament Swap.  Here’s the way it works: we will be using a book called The Advent Jesse Tree (These will be available for purchase for $10 each)  For each of the 25 days of advent, this book has two short devotions, one for adults and one for children.  There is a symbol that corresponds to each day’s devotional, and that symbol will be used to make a simple ornament to hang on your tree.

If 25 people sign up to participate in the Ornament Swap, then each person would sign up to make 25 of ONE type of ornament.  Then, on November 27th at 2:00pm, we will all meet up at Kelly Blanchard’s to swap ornaments.  Each person will go home with a complete set of Jesse Tree ornaments.

Not crafty? Not a problem!

What’s that you say?  You’re not crafty?  No worries!  These ornaments can be as simple as printing an image of the symbol you choose from the book, punching a hole, and threading some string through the hole.  If you’re feeling a little crafty, but aren’t sure where to start, I’ve got plenty of resources to give you ideas and get you going.  Send me an email if you’re interested in signing up!  My email address is below.

Making the Tree

All the children who attend Children’s Worship at City Church  will be sent home with a simple “tree” (one per family) on Sunday, November 27th, for use as a Jesse Tree.  If you prefer not to start this tradition, feel free to re-purpose your child’s tree!  If you don’t have a child in Children’s Worship, or if you don’t have a child at all (Jesse Trees are for everyone!), and are interested in the activity, I’m happy to provide directions on how to make a Jesse Tree of your own.

jennifer.c.murphy@gmail.com

Similarly, the phrase, Jesus loves Children’s Ministry at City Church more than I do, is a motto I need to constantly remind myself of.  My focus, as Director of Children’s Ministry, is to enable parents and leaders to help children encounter Jesus and to disciple them in the gospel of grace.  As with parenting, the question is not if I will fail at this job, but when.  It’s in those times of failure that I hope to be able to point you all (children, parents, volunteers, and all of City Church) to Jesus, the One who loves us more deeply than we can even begin to imagine, and who will never, ever fail us.

At last month’s Vespers¹, I gave a summary of what this job entails; I’ll share that here for you as well.  In my position I’ll focus on ministering to three groups of people: children, volunteers, and parents.

Children

Babies from 0-3 years are welcome in our Nursery.  Children’s Worship is for children who are 4 years-2nd grade.  My hope and goal is for each of these children to experience Christ’s love while they are in our care, whether that be through teaching, prayer, playtime, story time, singing, or simply interacting with volunteers.  I’d be happy to share more details about either nursery or children’s worship with you. Feel free to contact me with any questions or thoughts. (jennifer@citychurchrva.com)

Volunteers

We have a wonderful roster of volunteers.  It’s such a joy to work with all of them and to see how much they enjoy loving and serving the kids at City Church.  I strive to train, equip, and support them in their positions, but most importantly, I pray that they, “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,”² so they can then pass that love on to the kids.

While I’ve got your attention, I’ll shamelessly use this opportunity to do some recruiting. We always need more volunteers.  If you’re interested, let me know!

Parents

Though I have a mere two years of experience as a mom, I understand that parenting is a challenging, exciting, confusing, and tiring job that brings both joy and heartache.  I want the parents at City Church to feel loved and supported and know that they aren’t alone on this journey.  While I can’t provide anyone with a step-by-step guide to parenting, I, along with the Session³, hope to encourage you with the gospel of grace and pray for and with you.

We’d like to begin this conversation by setting up a time to get together with each of our City Church parents.  I’ll be contacting you in the near future to plan a time that I, along with Erik or another member of the Session, can meet up with you if you’d like.  Feel free to get in touch with me as well!

¹ Vespers is a shared meal all are welcome to attend; it happens on the 4th Sunday of each month after the service.
² Ephesians 3:18
³ The Session at City Church is comprised of three elders and our pastor who have been elected to lead our congregation.

Unless you’re a parent, I bet you’ve never sat in church wondering what’s going on with the kiddos in nursery.  Once you read Tess Shebaylo’s summary, you might view those little ones in a different light. (Who knew babies could “pillage”?!) I love what Tess has to say, especially concerning an unexpected benefit of serving in nursery.

The following overview is taken (with Tess’s permission) from her weekly review of Sunday childcare at City Church:

Anything significant happen?

Nothing too significant this week.  All the kids played nicely together.  I forgot to pray with my team (FAIL), but I did read a story and like three kids actually listened to it.

All the supplies were SO organized and I found everything I needed so quickly!  Also, the facilities team did a great job putting stuff where it goes.  I feel like setup took no time.  Some parents admitted to stockpiling name tags at home, so I’ve gotten some promises to bring those back.  Everything pretty much seemed to go well.  Other than some tears when parents left to go into church, nobody had actual temper tantrums.

Any new kids?

There was a new little boy; he marched right in and started playing with the toys and the other kids like he’d always been there.  That’s what I like to see!

Anything else?

Samuel is obsessed with the color yellow.  Cash is disturbingly mobile.  Jack, JR, and August can play with a puzzle for two hours.  Raynie desires all of us to know that she can “shump” (jump) up and down.  Some kids just want to be snuggled.  Some kids have runny noses, but nothing major.  Some kids say “I have to go potty!” and then it’s really just a false alarm.

Also, August’s dad brought a box of more toys, books, and puzzles!  As soon as he set them down, the kids pillaged the box and started playing with everything immediately.

Though we think of this as a service we provide to the parents, and another way to love them and their kids, I feel like it’s just as much of a service to me / us.  Some of you are parents, but many of us are not, and it’s awesome to see folks get to interact with kids and babies, and to interact with them myself.  Being around little kids both exhausts and refreshes me in some weird way, and I love that the parents let us share this experience with them.  I think this is how God designed community to be.

For more information about the City Church Forum, click here.

For more information about the speaker, Fritz Kling and his book, The Meeting of the Waters, click here.