Yay! Advent is my favourite season in the church calendar, and it’s almost here! Actually, Lent was pretty cool this year, too, with our superduper Lent with Kids series, but the inspiration for that came from all the fun and surprisingly helpful things we did at home during Advent. So here we are! I […]
On this last day of the Christmas season we are remembering that there was a great deal of suffering surrounding Christ’s birth. Mary was socially isolated to the point of giving birth while basically homeless. Joseph was charged with the responsibility of protecting a baby with a price on his head. And hundreds of children […]
If you love surprises, chances are you live in a rich and safe part of the world. There is a famous (but possibly not ancient, nor Chinese) curse that says ‘May you live in interesting times!’ (This Advent we are spending time with Mark Pierson’s Advent in Art series, a set of paintings by James B Janknegt, curated by […]
In this week’s Advent in Art painting, Christ is born! We’re a little early, as I’ve said before, because in the Southern Hemisphere we don’t expect anyone to be around after Christmas Day itself. We have to get the whole story in before everyone goes camping. Kids really benefit from repetition and preparation. They love […]
Nine months is a long time to wait, but thousands of years is longer. Week two of this year’s Advent in Art cycle places the Christmas story in context of a much larger narrative of hope and a longing for justice. As we meet them in today’s painting, Mary and Elizabeth, like all mothers around the […]
If you want to celebrate Advent in just one simple and rich way, this might be it. Find a quiet moment – five minutes will be fine if that’s a realistic ambition – and spend some time with this painting. You could do this by yourself, of course, but exploring art as part of worship […]