Advent readings with children

I’ve tried to stress Advent season for our church this year, which may be a new thing for some folks. One question that may come up is how to observe this as a family – and with that, how do you include children?

One thing we have done this year is to use one of my favorite children’s books, “The Jesus Storybook Bible” at bedtime. I begin by asking the kids what season we are in, and then asking what we do during Advent. The answer, by the way, is that we prepare and watch for Jesus. Then we read a story from the Jesus storybook bible.

Anne found a great little resource to help with this on the blog of Adriel Booker, where she lays out a schedule matching a reading from the Jesus Storybook Bible with each day in December leading up to Christmas. She even has a pdf file you can open and print out (as we did).

If you have young children, or even if you don’t, the Jesus Storybook Bible is a terrific resource. It intentionally shows how the stories of scripture point towards Christ. The subtitle of the book is “Every story whispers his name,” and the power of this particular storybook bible is that it does this in a powerful way. This easily leads to a few simple questions you can have with your children in order to both teach and anticipate together the coming of Christ.

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