Week One

Finding time for peace this Christmas

SEEDS TO SOW: ‘CRAFTING’ PEACE *

Optional weekly challenge: 

There must be something practical about crafting peace. So each day this week intentionally craft out a peace moment. Breathe in peace and breathe out stress. Send a peace text to a friend or when you leave someone after a conversation just force yourself to say ‘Have a peaceful day’ this will remind you of your peace search this Advent.

Read 2 Corinthians 4: 1-15

Finding time to feel this Christmas!

This passage is very dynamic and marked by lots of intense contrasts, such as: false/true, blinded/seeing, shining/darkness, treasure/clay, death/life. Christianity as a movement was very new when this letter was written — the people first hearing it were at the ground floor and making sense of their new faith in the context of religious, social, and political upheaval

How do you think they would have felt hearing the drama and sweep of this passage? Bearing in mind this was at a time when literacy rates were a lot lower than now and most people would have encountered this text through hearing it, not reading it. How would that have affected the experience? What would have reassured, confused or daunted a first century Christian hearing all this?

Read Romans 13: 11-14

Finding time for the armour of light!

Why do you think Paul chose the metaphor of putting on the ‘armour of light’ in verse 12? Why ‘armour’ as opposed to clothing? How do we square the work of being peacemakers with wearing armour?

Read Isaiah 2: 1-5

Finding time for peace this Christmas!

God’s vision of peace is transformative, changing weapons of war into tools of peace. What can we do this Advent to make ploughshares and pruning hooks? How can we be a part of transforming conflict into peace in our everyday lives? By sharing little examples we can encourage one another to try new things and send ripples of peace around us this Christmas.

* SEEDS TO SOW: We are experimenting with adding a new Seeds to Sow phrase at the beginning of each section. These are open-ended and optional prompts and are designed for people wanting to develop their own resources in response to the themes. Perhaps if you are using this material as a group you could use these prompts to inspire a time of prayer, or drawing, or creative writing? They are a short and sweet, simply a starting off place for you and your imagination. Tailor and develop as suits your group.