Building an Advent/Christmas Series for Youth Group with Simplicity and Depth
This is part three of an ongoing “Youth Group at the Holidays” series. We will do our best to publish these articles a few weeks prior to the holidays to give you time to prepare. Part one helped you prepare students for Thanksgiving. Last week offered five ways youth workers can structure an Advent/Christmas series to help students Christmas afresh. While there’s some overlap between that article and this one, they are complementary articles from different perspectives. Enjoy!
Christmas is an important season for Christians. We reflect on the glory of what is called the incarnation, whereby Jesus came to the earth by being born as a human baby boy. This was the first crucial step in His ministry on Earth. We even have songs that highlight this, my favorite being “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”, which describes this event as “veiled in flesh, the Godhead see! Hail th’ incarnate deity! Pleased with us in flesh to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel.” It is truly a remarkable time of reflection on what Jesus did in order to bring about our redemption.
And yet, the story is one we know, maybe even too well. Many people have heard this “Greatest Story Ever Told” every Christmas season for their entire life – in movies, plays, live nativity events, family traditions, etc. – and it’s become monotonous.
Making Christmas Relevant?
In an attempt to alleviate this, many youth workers try to find ways to make it relevant, to update it for modern students. Often, they design a teaching series around a holiday theme: Christmas Carols, Christmas Movies, Superhero Origins, etc., utilizing pop-culture references and big productions to try and tap into some of the holiday excitement.
However, I propose that we avoid this tendency for three main reasons.
They lend themselves to forced analogies and cliches that don’t accomplish the intended purpose. After all, people don’t always respect cheesy in the way we think, and it could backfire.
The Christmas narratives in the gospels provide enough material, storytelling devices, and awe-inspiring moments to last a lifetime; even if you have heard them before, there are usually details you missed.
The reality of what is taking place in Jesus’s incarnation has been a sufficient topic of discussion for most of church history (with entire Councils being called to respond to heresies related to this very topic). We have more than enough to discuss beyond the basic Christmas story.
The Christmas story must not change. The events are the same each time we tell it. However, there are ways of constructing a teaching series to highlight details and concepts that will help us see this familiar, glorious story in a new light. The purpose is not to trick students into caring but to remind all of us of the glory and wonder of what Christ.
Simplicity and Depth
We should focus on two concepts: simplicity and depth. By avoiding “flash” while pushing deeper into the story, we can help students and leaders dive into Christmas with renewed interest and passion this season.
I believe these three alternatives might infuse your Advent series with new life, maintaining the simplicity of the Christmas story while opening up opportunities for greater depth. Kyle Kennicott’s article offers some other suggestions that could also serve you well as you plan your Advent/Christmas series.
The “Songs” of Christmas: Elizabeth, Mary, Zechariah, and Simeon (Luke 1-2)
Yes, you could still call this “Christmas Carols”, but instead of just covering famous songs, this approach utilizes the “songs” present in the narratives of Luke 1-2, where the Holy Spirit empowers various individuals to announce the significance of the events leading up to the life of Jesus. Elizabeth, when Mary comes to visit in Luke 1:39-45, belts into song. Mary, immediately after in Luke 1:46-55, responds with her Magnificat. Zechariah, after John the Baptist is born and named in Luke 1:67-79, explodes in a prophetic message about the ministry of John the Baptist and Jesus. Finally, when Jesus is presented in the Temple after His birth, Simeon unleashes a blessing in Luke 2:28-35, while also indicating Jesus’s ultimate work on the cross. This would fit nicely into a four week series.
Each one of these passages would provide an enormous amount of material, as you could work through the language they use and its significance, the Old Testament connections throughout, the foreshadowing of both John the Baptist and Christ, etc. It would be a powerful way to invite students into the longing and expectation of a messiah, which culminate in the angel’s celebration of Jesus’ birth. You would be able to talk about the main elements of the Christmas story throughout, but you would be approaching it through a new lens: from the perspectives of the characters that surround Jesus’s birth. This leans into the storytelling side of things, making it a good way to engage students and draw them into the story.
The “Christ” of Christmas: Preincarnate, Incarnate, Ascended (John 1:1-18)
Another option is to focus on the theological birth narrative in John 1:1-18, where Jesus as the “Word become flesh.” The way I have done this before is to focus on Jesus as the Word in three sessions: The Pre-incarnate Word (John 1:1-7), the Word Became Flesh (John 1:8-15), and the Ascended Christ (John 1:16-18). The way you teach this will obviously not depend on the narratives as much, although making connections to them would be wise. After all, it does provide a loose framework of the gospel story (God, sin, redemption, restoration).
Your primary focus in this kind of series would be on the identity of Jesus: who is the Christ of Christmas? He is the pre-existent God of the universe, the God who took on human flesh to work redemption, and the risen God who is at the Father’s right hand. You would be able to very easily introduce concepts like Trinity, hypostatic union, revelation and the work of the Spirit, old covenant/new covenant, and every phase of Jesus’s work (including His role as advocate, intercessor, and Spirit-sender). This would probably work best as a 3-lesson series.
The “Roots” of Christmas: Isaiah, Micah, Hosea, and Jeremiah (Matt. 2)
This one is probably the biggest departure from “traditional” Christmas series, but I think it is worth highlighting. In Matthew 2, there is a repeated emphasis on how events in Jesus’s birth narrative fulfill Old Testament prophecies/foreshadowings from Isaiah, Micah, Hosea, and Jeremiah. One approach could be to use those as a foil to go back to the Old Testament passages and show why they are significant. You would essentially be teaching Old Testament passages and connecting them to the Christmas story, what they tell us about who Jesus is and what He would do. After all, the Advent season is all about anticipation: the Old Testament saints’ anticipation of the messiah, and our anticipation of his return.
Another option would be to spend three weeks covering the key ages of Israel’s history highlighted: Moses’s age (Egypt’s significance), David’s age (Shepherding Israel), and the Exile (Attack on Judah and Promise of Savior). You could explores Jesus’s identity as prophet, priest and king, highlighting the typological relationships between Jesus and Moses, David, and Isaiah/Jeremiah, or even show Jesus as the fulfillment of Israel in a more narrow sense.
This would be a great series for more of a biblical theology/typology emphasis, as you would be using a lot of Old Testament connections, typological and prophetic fulfillments in Christ, and tying those into the Christmas narratives. It would require a lot more background and direct teaching, but it could be a good twist on the classical approach without avoiding the key texts.
Don’t Forget the Point
It can be very easy to get excited about a “groundbreaking” idea that no one has tried before, but it can also run away from you very quickly. Regardless of how you teach, how you brand the series, or how different you think your approach is, your main point MUST be the same: to proclaim Immanuel, God with us.
If you miss the significance of who Jesus is and why He came to the Earth, you have failed at Christmas. You aren’t trying to stimulate the general holiday spirit (Buddy the Elf can do that!). You are trying to bring those in your ministry to encounter the Savior of the world, the God who came to be with us so that we could one day be with Him, where He is, forever. The hope of the gospel is timeless, which is why it truly is “good news”!