Advent in Art card preview - World Vision New Zealand

Advent is the four-Sunday period before
Christmas Day. It marks the start of the Christian
Year and is traditionally used by the Western
Church worldwide to reflect on the coming of
Christ. Advent – ‘to reach for’, ‘to come’ - has
to do with waiting and hopeful expectation.
Advent is the time Christians look forward: to
celebrating the birth of Christ and also, ultimately,
to the return of Christ.
I encourage you to find four candles and to
repeatedly light one as often as you can in
the first week; in week two light two candles,
and so on. The traditional colour for Advent is
violet or dark blue – the colour of royalty. You
may like to find a piece of violet or blue cloth
or paper to place your candles on, or to use
violet/blue candles. (Purple is near enough
in colour.)
You can read the full story of Christmas in the
Bible in the books of Matthew and Luke in
chapters 1 and 2.
You can have a copy of the image and text
emailed to you each Sunday in Advent by
registering at: www.adventinart.org
(You will not receive any other emails.)
I would be delighted to hear if the cards have
been useful or not, and how you used them.
My grateful thanks to Wayne Forte for allowing
us to use his images (www.waynefort.com), and
to Alison Squires for curating them.
Advent in Art is a project of World Vision New
Zealand for the spiritual nurture of staff.
This set of cards has been prepared to help
you reflect on that story, and to look forward
to Christmas.
A fifth candle – a white Christ candle - can be
used for Christmas Day (and the 12 Days of
Christmas that follow).
Mark Pierson
Christian Commitments Manager
World Vision New Zealand
mark.pierson@worldvision.org.nz