Christmas often comes and goes with lots of fanfare but little focus. For many, it can seem like a blur. What if your community took the time to make a plan before the season started and considered ways to care for one another, grow in your love for Jesus, and reach out to your neighbors? How can you use the times you are already getting together to make the most of this season?
Use these three questions to make a plan for how you will cultivate an environment for gospel enjoyment, community growth, and missional expression during this season as you continue to grow in your love for Christ, one another, and your neighbors.
We’ve included handful of ideas for each question to get you started. We know all of these ideas won’t work for every group, but we hope they are a springboard to help you think creatively about what this could look like for you. We also include an example of a community’s plan at the end.
What is one way your community will love one another during this season?
- Do a “gift” exchange. You could do a traditional one where you all draw names and give physical gifts, or you can draw names, write thoughtful notes on how you see Christ in them, and encourage them in the gifts God has given them for the community.
- Share stories of what Christmas was like for you as a child, using this time to engage in the communal practice of sharing and listening to stories.
- Give opportunity to share anxiety, worry, and sadness during this season, and pray for each other.
- Take turns babysitting the children in your group so parents can go shopping together.
- Have an Advent feast where you celebrate intentionally and have a big meal together.
What is one way your community will love your neighbors together during this season?
- Offer to haul away the Christmas trees in your neighborhood after the holidays.
- Get gifts and thank-you cards for the cashiers at your local grocery stores.
- Throw a Christmas party as a community and invite neighbors, coworkers, and friends.
- Look at what is happening in your town or city and serve together at those events.
- Invite your friends or coworkers to your church’s Christmas Eve gathering and have dinner together afterward.
What is one way your community will intentionally grow in your love for God during this season?
- Read the Christmas story in sections as a community when you get together leading up to Christmas. (You can use the stories from The Jesus Storybook Bible to engage the kids.)
- Walk through an Advent guide. Check out Saturate’s Advent Community Guide here.
- Walk through an Advent reading plan this season, and ask each other what you are learning when you get together each week. Access Saturate’s daily Advent devotional Preparing Room here.
- Sing Christmas hymns and carols together.
Example of a Plan
November 30 — Ask people to share memories from childhood and how they are feeling this year headed into the season. Pray for each other (inward/community focus).
December 7 — Read the Christmas story and sing carols together (gospel enjoyment).
December 14 — Have a Christmas feast, share blessings with one another, and invite friends, coworkers, and neighbors (communal and mission focus).
December 21 — Wrap presents together as a community. Some adults can play with the kids, and the rest wrap presents. Have drinks and sweets.
How will your community make a plan to intentionally pursue your love for Christ, one another, and those you are on mission to this Christmas season?
At Saturate, we’ve created several resources to help disciples, families, and communities walk through this Advent with intentionality, hope, and joy in our Savior, Immanuel, God with us. You’re invited to join us.
FINDING JESUS IN THE WAITING
This Advent, we invite your community to work through the “O Antiphons” during your weekly community gatherings. These are six liturgical poems, written by the early church for reading during Advent. Each one focuses on an Old Testament metaphor for the coming Messiah and will guide your community through a time of reflection on Scripture and prayer.
PREPARING ROOM
This 25-day devotional is a guide into the glorious reality of God Himself coming to us and our world. We hope this guide helps you engage the themes of Advent while inspiring you towards worship, community, and mission.
Available in both ebook and audio book formats.
ADVENT COMMUNITY GUIDE
We designed this devotional as a way to help you and your community think about the themes of Advent and Christmas. There is one devotional reading for each week of Advent, and one for Christmas Day. This resource can be used as a devotion for families or in gospel communities on mission. This resource coincides with the incarnation stories in The Jesus Storybook Bible. Coloring sheets for each week are available.
THE HOLIDAYS IN MISSIONAL COMMUNITY LIFE
In this episode of the Saturate Podcast, Brad Watson talks about the challenges and opportunities missional communities face during Christmas to make intentional plans to grow together in their enjoyment of the gospel, as a community, and on mission.
HOW TO MAKE A PLAN FOR THE HOLIDAYS
While the holidays can be a very busy season, they are also especially ripe with missional and communal opportunities. What if this year you intentionally crafted a plan within your community to grow in your collective love for one another, love for neighbors, and love for God through the Christmas season?
