After being somewhat frustrated, I did settle for this year on the Advent / Jesse Tree over at Truth in the Tinsel. You can get the link here. However, it is written to a much younger audience, so we are doing this along with the free devotional by Desiring God.
Which leads me to my question...what would you want in an Advent or Jesse Tree Devotional? I ask because I believe I'm going to team up with my childhood friend, Holly, and we are going to write one together for next year! I'm so excited about this opportunity and have been putting some thoughts together. I'd love feedback on what you would want in a Devotional. Here are some of my humble ideas:
- Have Jesse Tree and Advent type ornaments. I Love the Jesse Tree because it tells the gospel from the beginning and its awesome to trace the birth of Christ through Old Testament prophecy. I think starting with the beginning in Genesis is so very important. But why not include a specific part of the actual Christmas story along with it? This is how the Truth in the Tinsel one is and while I miss doing the traditional Jesse Tree this year, this is also very good to go so in-depth into the actual New Testament telling of the birth of Christ!
- Quotes from people over the years - research strong doctrinal quotes about this season.
- Activities for families to do together - from baking a cookie, to writing a Christmas Card to someone you might not otherwise send on to.
- Christmas Carols and songs of Praise to listen to.
What other ideas would you like to see? Please leave a comment so I can begin taking notes. Trust me, if I don't start now, November 30th will be here before I know it! How are you and your family celebrating the Advent season?
3 comments:
Ooo, I'm looking forward to this!!
This is our third year using Ann Voskamp's free printable devotional and ornaments, but only because I haven't found anything better. (or for FREE, which hers was!) I'm REALLY not a fan of her writing style and some of her weird word combinations bother me. Plus, it seems like she was in a bit of a hurry to publish, so there are some grammatical errors that force you to re-read in places to make sense of what she's said. I clean it up a little while I read to make it a little more understandable for my girls, and just leave out some of the overly adjective-filled run-on sentences out completely. :)
But I am looking forward to possibly being able to use something different! If you're looking for a proof-reader or just a test-market participant next fall, I'm here!!
Tammi that would be awesome! Thank you so much for offering - I will definitely take you up on that!
I didn't download Ann Voskamp's for that reason - her writing style annoys me and I can't get past the 1000 Gifts thing about making love to God. I know I've blogged about that before.
Any ideas, send them my way!
You know, I can't really think of any suggestions! I think it would be nice if the stories were in chronological order. Obviously, you want to kick things off with the "stump of Jesse" prophecy, but after that it would be nice to follow the thread of redemption as it weaves through the Old Testament. (I think, for the most part, Voskamp's does this, too... it's just a pet peeve of mine that she put Ruth's story BEFORE Rahab's!!!!!)
It would also be nice if the ornaments could easily be resized or to offer two different sizes. I've played around with hers for a while and still haven't figured out a way to make them the size I'd like! I guess that would only be possible with a Word-type document though. Much trickier with a PDF.
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