4 Advent activities you can use in your youth ministry

December is a stressful month for many families.

Sure, there’s joy and wonder. But there are also chaotic schedules, Christmas concerts and parties, and in many places, high school finals—not to mention, the inevitable crush of winter illnesses.

As youth leaders, we feel this stress too. Our already full schedules often get even crazier during December as we try to support students by showing up at their events while also carrying out our regular ministry responsibilities and planning additional churchwide Advent and Christmas programs.

Amidst all of this craziness, how can we actually nurture faith that lasts beyond youth group in young people, especially while focusing on a story that teenagers in church may have heard their entire lives?

I know this tension well. Yet the Advent season can give us a great opportunity to leverage the Faith Beyond Youth Group Compass, a navigational tool designed to help you orient your ministry around five practices that nurture character and long-lasting faith in teenagers.

Advent activities for your youth group

Here are four Advent activities you can use in your ministry to nurture faith beyond youth group in the lives of your teenagers.

Activity #1: Light candles on an Advent wreath

In many places, faith communities mark the four Sundays of Advent by lighting a different candle on an Advent wreath, each focused on a different characteristic: hope, joy, peace, and love (or in some traditions, faith). A central candle—the Christ candle—is lit on Christmas Eve or Christmas to signify the birth of Jesus.

How to use the activity with young people: Even if it’s not a typical practice in your faith community, you can use an Advent wreath to help young people mark and think about the meaning of each week of Advent. You can also have teenagers make an advent wreath to take home with them or simplify the practice by just using five candles, including one white Christ candle. At the start of your gathering, explain that during the four weeks leading up to Christmas, you’re going to pause to reflect on four characteristics Jesus showed during his ministry and that his followers are still invited to demonstrate today: hope, joy, peace, and love. Each week, light the number of candles that correspond to that week (e.g. light one the first week, two on the second, etc.) Then, read a Scripture passage embodying that virtue. Next, invite a leader or student (who you’ve asked in advance) to share how they’ve encountered that characteristic or demonstrated it to others recently. Invite them to ask a question for people to either reflect on or discuss with others. Finally, pray. Leave your candle(s) lit until the end of your gathering, then invite a young person to ceremoniously extinguish them.

Scriptural connection:

• Hope: Psalm 25:4-5
• Joy: Philippians 4:4-6
• Peace: John 14:25-27
• Love: 1 John 4:7-12

Which Faith Beyond Youth Group Compass point the activity connects to and why:

Teach for transformation

• It connects to ritual and tradition, utilizing a practice Christians throughout the world have used for centuries to prepare for Christmas.
• It shares your authority by inviting young people to actively participate by lighting candles, making wreaths, and sharing their stories of encountering hope, joy, peace, and love in their daily lives.
• It engages young people’s senses and invites them to slow down and encounter God during a crazy season.

Activity #2: Keep a waiting jar

Invite your group to pause and consider how God is present in the moments we spend waiting by recording them and placing them in a jar.

How to use the activity with young people: Introduce the idea that Advent is a season of preparation and waiting by exploring the story of an angel telling Mary she was pregnant. Together, wrestle with what Mary might have done to prepare for Jesus’ birth and discuss how she might have encountered God as she waited. Then, remind young people that they spend time every day waiting—for a friend to text, someone to pick them up, a cake to bake, a big event to occur, or even for their turn at something. Distribute a jar to each student. Give them paints and ribbon to decorate their jars. Then, give them 30 small slips of paper. For the next month, invite students to write three things on each slip of paper every day: 1) Something they waited for; 2) How waiting made them feel; and 3) Where they saw God as they waited. Each week during Advent, invite young people to bring their jars to youth group and share what they’re learning about waiting, patience, and God from this practice.

Scriptural connection: Luke 1:26-38

Which Faith Beyond Youth Group Compass point the activity connects to and why: 

Practice together and make meaning

• It gives young people daily opportunities to practice noticing God’s presence in their lives as they wait.
• It encourages teenagers to practice together, both during youth group and beyond, which helps build their “muscle memory.”
• It encourages them to integrate faith with daily life by making meaning out of waiting.

Activity #3: Make a justice collage

Advent readings often highlight various passages from Isaiah that deal with God’s love of justice, God’s desire to be good news, and God’s willingness to comfort all people. While young people have probably heard people in church say these things before, in many ways, these concepts are abstract. This activity gives young people the opportunity to connect what’s currently going on in the world around them with ancient scripture passages in meaningful ways.

How to use the activity with young people: Explore God’s character by reading two passages from Isaiah. Then talk about examples of injustice young people currently see, both locally and globally. Provide recent newspapers and relevant magazines. Ask them to cut out pictures and headlines about injustices and glue them to a large sheet of paper to form a collage. Once your collage is done, give teenagers space to lament what they see, identify ways in which they see God comforting people impacted by these injustices, and consider how God might be calling them to either fight the injustice or join God in comforting those affected by it.

Scriptural connection:

• Isaiah 40:1-11
• Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

Which Faith Beyond Youth Group Compass point the activity connects to and why: 

Make meaning

• It enables young people to wrestle with the injustices that surround them and consider what their faith has to say about them.
• It gives teenagers the opportunity to lament and reflect on current events.
• It moves teenagers from merely observing current realities to responding to them in Christ-like ways.
• It fosters integration between the faith they learn about in church and their daily lives.

Activity #4: Tell the Christmas story using nativities

Invite teenagers to use nativities to tell the story of Jesus’ birth.

How to use the activity with young people: Before your gathering, collect a variety of different nativities. You’ll need one for every 4-5 people in your ministry. At your gathering, divide young people into groups of 4-5 people. Give each group a nativity and explain that their job is to work together to use their nativity to tell the story of the first Christmas. Give groups about 5 minutes to prepare, and encourage every person in the group to have a role. Then, invite each group to share their story with the large group. After every group has shared, ask:

• How do the physical nativities compare with one another? What looks the same? Different?
• How do people’s versions of the Christmas story compare with one another? What details do we agree on? What details differ? Why do you think this is?
• Throughout this activity, what, if anything, made you think about the Christmas story differently? Why?

Then, read Luke’s account of the Christmas story together in the large group. Afterwards, ask:

• How did our group’s Christmas stories compare to what’s actually in the Bible?
• Which parts of the Christmas story tend to get emphasized in our community? Why do you think our community emphasizes these parts of the story?
• Which parts of the Christmas story tend to get neglected in our community? Why do you think this is?
• Why are the wise men in (some) nativity sets but not in Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth?
• To which Christmas story character do you most relate? Why?
• When it comes to the Christmas story, what do you wonder about?

Scriptural connection: Luke 2:1-20

Which Faith Beyond Youth Group Compass point the activity connects to and why:

Teach for transformation

• It engages young people in a familiar story in new, experiential ways.
• It invites teenagers to teach the Christmas story by putting it into their own words.
• It fosters cognitive dissonance between what teenagers think they know about the Christmas story and what’s actually found in the Bible.
• It gives young people space to explore to wonder about the Christmas story and explore their questions and doubts.

While these four Advent activities won’t magically make December less crazy for you or the families you serve, they will help you orient your ministry around what’s most important. By intentionally taking time to integrate these Advent activities, you can teach for transformation, practice together, and make meaning so that the wonder of Christmas leads to a long-lasting faith beyond youth group in the teens you serve.

Tweet this: This Advent season, the Faith Beyond Youth Group Compass can be an essential tool. Here's how: https://ctt.ec/5M6hV+

Related post: 5 ideas to make Advent and Christmas more meaningful with students

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Building on two decades of the Fuller Youth Institute's work and incorporating extensive new research and interviews, Faith Beyond Youth Group identifies the reasons it feels like you’re working so hard but having so little impact, and offers five ways adult youth leaders can cultivate character for a lifetime of growing closer to Jesus rather than drifting away. With practical insight and tips, you’ll find out how to cultivate trust, model growth, teach for transformation, practice together, and make meaning so that teenagers can become adults who hold fast to Jesus and boldly live out a robust faith in the world around them. 

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