Hope and Healing
This year, we use Echo as our storytelling to help us relate to God’s story to discover meaning and develop fresh insights. It is our prayer that you can engage with your family using creative writing, drawing, and conversation.
Each student will need a journal to complete the weekly activities. If you need one at home, please contact Heather.
Invocation
December 5th is the beginning of the second week of Advent! Do you have an Advent wreath? If so, bring it out now. If you do not have one, please let me know – we can provide one for your family. Your Advent Wreath should have five candles in all, four on the outer edge and one in the center. Each week we’ll light one more candle, ending with the Christ Candle on Christmas Eve.
Invocation: the act of inviting or welcoming or acknowledging that God is present in our space.
Today we’ll light two candles, say this invocation out loud: “We’ll light these candles in the name of God, our Creator; Jesus, our Savior; and the Holy Spirit, our Inspirer. The three in one! This is the Hope Candle (light one candle), this is the Peace Candle (light a second candle), we find hope and peace with Jesus.”
Opening Question
What gives you Hope? Peace? How can you help others feel hope and peace?
Review
The material we are using is called Echo, so let us echo the last section 🙂 Review the previous sections with your student (Jesus’ birth, baptism, and his followers). Is there any new insight or questions that you have reflected on?
Prepare
Each story has its own symbol, it will help us remember the story. Right now, turn to page 56 and students will draw their own version of Hope and Healing.
Parents and students, read together page 58 from your journal. To understand ancient Judea that Jesus lived in, it is helpful to understand Poverty, Purity and Patriachy. Please take some time to read page 59 and if needed additional research.
Where do you see inequality in our society today? What can we do about it?
Parents: It is OK not to know everything, even Pastors carry a lot of unanswered questions.
Read and Imagine
Students, open your journal to pages 60-61, pull out your pens or markers, and doodle or sketch what comes to your mind as you listen. Once you have completed sketching the images, share what you’ve done with a parent.
Parents, this week you will read to your student Hope and Healing, as you are reading they will be sketching.
Capture what you noticed
Use pages 62 and 63 in your journal. What stood out to you? What did you see or sense? What questions do you have about this story? ANYTHING (we mean anything) is okay to ask. A few that we had: Why did people in his home town try to throw him off a cliff? How did the evil spirits get in the man? How did Jesus know it was that woman who touched him?
Keep these questions handy, every so often, we’re inviting a Pastor to discuss with us! Send your questions to Heather and she’ll get them on our list.
In today’s stories, we had a few examples of the ways that Jesus show us hope and healing. Notice how often he said “Your faith has made you well.” What do you think that means? How can our faith make us well?
The second week of Advent is Peace. What dose Peace mean to you? What kind of Peace do you think the people in our story felt? How can we carry and share Peace?
When you pray…
Maybe you’re inspired to write or speak your own, if so, please do so! If you’d rather, you can just read together with the following:
Creator God, thank you for these stories that shows us how our faith, the way we live with God, is so important. Help us explore, ask, and wonder about your creation, your story, and help us find our story too. AMEN
Thank you for joining us today! If you have a student in Grade 5 or 6, sign them up for Club 56 today! If you have questions about this resource or would like additional information, please contact Heather or Pastor Ben.