W/C 12th December

Our reading this week is: James 5:  7 - 10 

Be Patient

⁷ Brothers and sisters, be patient; the Lord will come. So be patient until that time. Look at the farmers. They have to be patient. They have to wait for their valuable crop to grow and produce a harvest. They wait patiently for the first rain and the last rain.^[a] 8 You must be patient too. Never stop hoping. The Lord is coming soon. ⁹ Brothers and sisters, don’t complain against each other. If you don’t stop complaining, you will be judged guilty. And the Judge is ready to come!

¹⁰ Brothers and sisters, follow the example of the prophets who spoke for the Lord. They suffered many bad things, but they were patient.

Prayer for the week:

Dear God,
Thank you for the excitement of waiting for things to happen.
Thank you for the excitement of Advent.
As we look forward to Christmas, please help us to remember its true meaning.
Please help us to remember the birth of Jesus.
Amen.

In school:

We thought about waiting. 

We thought about when we might need to wait for a short amount of time:

- Waiting for our turn to use a pencil sharpener or rubber on our table.
- Waiting for breaktime or lunchtime to start.
- Waiting for our teacher or another adult to help us during lesson time.
- Waiting in a queue for our school dinner.
- Waiting for our turn in a game with our friends.
- Waiting to be collected at the end of the school day.

Sometimes we might need to wait a few weeks or months for something to happen:

- Waiting for our year group or class’s turn for swimming lessons.
- Waiting for each half-term to end so that we can enjoy the holidays.
- Waiting for after-school football or netball matches against other schools.
- Waiting for our favourite lessons or topic.

Sometimes we might need to wait a year or even longer for something to happen:

Point out that sometimes, we might need to wait for a year or even longer for something to happen.

- Waiting for our birthday.
- Waiting for a school trip or camp to happen.
- Waiting to move up to our next year group.
- Waiting to move to secondary school.
- Waiting to compete in the next school sports day.
- Waiting for the summer holidays.

we thought about the fact we are waiting for Christmas. 

We looked at the Bible and saw how it is split into two parts. The Old Testament was written before Jesus was born and the New Testament was written after Jesus died. The New Testament describes the birth of Jesus and his life. After Jesus was born, he had to wait too. He didn't start his special work until he was about 30 years old. He didn't start God's work any earlier because he knew it wasn't the right time. 

Questions to think about at home:

When was the last time you had to be patient? What were you waiting for? Did you find it easy or difficult? Why? 

Christians have been waiting nearly 2000 years for Jesus' return. Why do you think advent is important to them?