the christian calendar on Children's Imagination

In his book of sermons titled The Magnificent Defeat, Frederick Buechner mentions two qualities of childlikeness. First, children have no fixed preconceptions of reality. If someone tells them that ...

It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.

Imagine for a moment becoming a baby again. Imagine giving up language and muscle coordination. Imagine losing the ability to eat solid food and control your bladder. God as a fetus! Or imagine yourse...

Egg hunts are proof that your children can find things when they really want.

Here’s an Advent illustration for kids — and those of us who used to be kids and remember what it was like. Suppose you and your mom get separated in the grocery store, and you start to get scared and...

A preaching professor at Harvard University tells the story of the year his 5-year-old son was working on an art project in his kindergarten class. It was made of plaster, resembled nothing in particu...

Ann was a working mother in her 30’s, and one of the millions of women who saw the marshmallow castle on the December cover of a popular women’s magazine. Ann confessed, later, that she felt like a “b...

“It seems, then,” said Tirian, smiling himself, “that the Stable seen from within and the Stable seen from without are two different places.” “Yes,” said the Lord Digory. “Its inside is bigger than it...

The birth of the child into the darkness of the world made possible not just a new way of understanding life but a new way of living it.

Kristen Welch, in her book Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World , described the growing discontent their family experienced after pursuing more and more stuff. She describes it this way with ...

What self denial! What self abasement! What self emptying! He, whom no infinitudes can hold, is contained within infant’s age, and infant’s form. Can it be, that the great ‘I AM THAT I AM’ shrinks int...

One Christmas Eve in Vermont when my children were small, we did the things you do when your children are small on Christmas Eve. We stuffed and hung their stockings. We put out a draught of cider and...

The idea that there's a force of love and logic behind the universe is overwhelming to start with, if you believe it. Actually, maybe even far-fetched to start with, but the idea that that same lo...

The idea that there’s a force of love and logic behind the universe is overwhelming to start with, if you believe it. Actually, maybe even far-fetched to start with, but the idea that that same love a...

“Dear Santa, there are three little boys who live at our house. There is Jeffrey; he is two. There is David; he is four. And there is Norman; he is seven. Jeffrey is good some of the time. David is go...

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?

My ten-year-old son Jim had to write a play for Christmas for his Sunday School class. He made it a dialogue between two animals at Bethlehem. It goes like this: Donkey: It sure is cold, is it not? ...

Descents are everywhere. From Hercules and Orpheus venturing into Hades, to Harry Potter following the pipes down into the Chamber of Secrets, to the Sheriff and Joyce Byers frantically searching for ...

God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.

Haunting gloom and flitting shades, Ghastly shapes, away! Christ is rising, and pervades Highest Heaven with day. He with His bright spear the night Dazzles and pursues: Earth wakes up, and glows with...

The Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fic...

'Twas just two days before Christmas and the reverend was stressing. There's a sermon to write and prayers of confessing... If that's you—we see you. You're definitely not alone, and...

"Once in our world, a stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world."

All we could ever imagine, could ever hope for, He is... He is the Prince of Peace whose first coming has already transformed society but whose second coming will forever establish justice and righteo...

The kingdom of the Christ-child gets to work when we stop, and pause, and look in wonder once more at the baby lying in the manger, and like Mary ponder in our hearts what it all means. Only through d...

Pastor: Jesus is coming! All: Jesus is coming! Pastor: Good morning, King Jesus! All: Good morning, King Jesus! Pastor: We worship you, humble King! All: We worship you, humble King! Pastor: Sav...

The angel said there would be no end to his kingdom.  So for three hundred days I carried rivers and cedars and mountains.  Stars spilled in my belly when he turned. Now I can’t stop touching hi...

In the midst of frenzied shopping and end-of-year weariness, we spread out a purple cloth,(a purple cloth is spread over the communion table) read again the ancient stories,(a Bible is placed on th...

What do you want for Christmas this year? If you were to ask a typical little boy, he’d probably give you two words: video games. There’s a little boy I know named Brian. For weeks he bugged his paren...

God, you come to us and meet us in the strangest ways: sometimes in the stillness at the eye of the storm or in the midnight of our lives; sometimes in the raging whirlwind or in the high noon of our ...