Arotahi is the Missionary Society of the Baptist Union of New Zealand. They have created a prayer resource for the season of Advent. We will publish a week of readings at a time a few days before the week starts.
Prayer or devotional notifications
To receive notifications of this prayer resource, turn on the 'Prayer or devotional content' notification in the Baptist NZ app (top-left menu --> Settings) and ensure your device operating system has notifications for Baptist NZ enabled.
Join us in prayer this season of Advent.
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9:6
For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building. By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 3:9-11
Advent ('coming') is the time of preparation for Christmas, beginning on the fourth Sunday before Christmas.
In the birth of Christ, as the prophet Isaiah prophesied, the foundation was laid - for hope, life and transformation. For you, for me, for all communities and to the ends of the earth. How good is this news! And yet, we acknowledge that our world is not quite as it was created to be. Pain, suffering and brokenness mar creation. Earth and all that is within it aches for the fullness of God’s goodness and transformation.
1 Corinthians 3:9 reminds us that we are invited to be God’s co-workers. We join in celebrating the glimpses of transformation. As well, we hope for the fullness of the Kingdom in our world. Advent is a season which holds these tensions together.
These readings go up until Epiphany (6 January 2026). Epiphany (‘to show forth’) is celebrated on the twelfth day after Christmas. It commemorates the visit of the Magi who travelled from afar to worship the child in Bethlehem. It was the fulfilment of God’s promise to them of the good news.
This prayer guide has a mixture of stories and reflections from our people and partners from around the world. As we read these, may we become more aware of the glimpses of hope, peace, joy and love that are springing up through people, places and land. As well, we anticipate the fullness of God’s promises for our world.
Sunday | 30 November
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.
Isaiah 9:2
Immanuel,
God with us,
you chose to dwell with your creation.
You are our sure foundation.
In this season of waiting,
remind us that all we build rests in you.
Teach us to walk gently as your co-workers:
to sow seeds of justice,
to give and receive with humility,
To open ourselves to the ways of your Spirit.
When the season’s lights tempts us to rush and hurry,
Keep us steady on your solid ground.
Hold us in your hope.
Guide us towards peace.
Grant us love for each other.
And fill us with your joy.
Light a candle of hope to proclaim God’s light in the midst of darkness. As you do, take a moment of reflection. In this season of Advent consider these questions:
Where do you see God dwelling amongst our world?
How are we invited to build upon the foundations that Christ has laid?
Monday | 1 December
If we skip ahead in the Christmas story, we read about the Magi in Matthew 2 who bought gifts to their King:
“After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.”
Matthew 2:9-11
The Bangladesh Baptist Church Fellowship (BBCF) has established several student hostels in cities and towns across Bangladesh. Arotahi partners with BBCF to support five of these hostels.
These hostels provide a safe and nurturing environment for students - many who have travelled from remote villages - to stay. Having such a home environment encourages these young people to thrive, not just in their studies but in all areas of life. There are places for them to play, explore, grow and connect. These are gifts for these young people now, but also for their future.
In this season, gifts are often on the mind! Perhaps you are someone who loves giving and receiving gifts. Perhaps you leave it right to the last minute! Thinking beyond the traditional image of a colourful package under the tree, what are some gifts that you hope for our world?
What gifts bring hope and joy to young people? What gifts create opportunities and tap into the potential of communities? What gifts span generations? Many of these gifts won’t come neatly tied up with a bow. They might involve time, prayer, relationship building and seeking peace for our neighbours.
God,
We lift up these hostels in Bangladesh to you.
May all who step foot in them know your good gifts:
The gifts of hope, peace, love and joy.
May they fill them, and overflow to their neighbours.
In your name,
Amen
Tuesday | 2 December
And again, Isaiah says,
“The Root of Jesse will spring up,
one who will arise to rule over the nations;
in him the Gentiles will hope.”
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:12-13
“A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.”
And God, that’s what we long for.
That thrill of hope -
To permeate all we know,
To transform our world from the inside out.
Yet, hope feels slippery -
Close but just out of reach.
A stranger in our world -
Buried under the debris of life.
Folded into pain, silence, and busyness.
Our screens tell stories
of hunger and destruction,
And people pulled apart.
Where is that thrill of hope God?
I see only a weary world
Still, as the prophets waited, so do we.
For we believe that hope remains.
Not a flimsy thought,
Not a hollow promise,
But something alive.
Hope breathes life.
It’s a welcome guest.
It’s a steady stronghold
For all people, everywhere.
The thread that holds our weary world together.
Wednesday | 3 December
By Ruby Duncan, Chair of Mission Council
Can anyone else feel the creeping impact of aging? I feel like my body is letting me know that it will make sure I understand my limits from now on. It’s frustrating. You still have dreams of what you want to do, but your physical self isn’t complying.
For Elizabeth this wasn’t only a threat to her dreams, but to her whole identity and place in society. She was getting older and still childless. In her village that was social suicide.
Then, it all turns around! Zechariah stumbles home from the temple with some crazy story about angels (which he can only relate with hand gestures!) and next thing she’s pregnant!
Over the ensuing years, while she knows her boy is special and has some particular purpose that God has in mind for him, she can see he doesn’t quite fit in with the other kids. Then instead of following in his father’s footsteps (which would be the norm), her son heads off to build a hut along the Waikato and goes off grid! I don’t know if Elizabeth was proud of him or worried about him. Mary and Jesus' brothers found it a bit hard to take the weird wandering nature of Jesus, and I wonder if Elizabeth was a bit the same. I can’t imagine she saw as much of him as she would have liked (although he may have been a bit uncomfortable to have around). His days end in prison with his head on a plate. If Elizabeth was still alive that must have been rough.
What is the greatest gift we can give our children? Perhaps it is the freedom to follow their strange and peculiar calling. We want our children to be happy. To have friends, a house, a car, a spouse. All the normal. But that may not be the path they travel. They may not quite fit in. They might be a bit tricky to have around. But as we start considering gifts, maybe our gift is to set them free to follow strange and meandering (even painful) paths to where they fit in this world.
God of heaven and earth, you see in each of us things we cannot see.
You treasure us.
You delight in us.
May we have the grace to set each other free.
May we have the generosity of spirit to allow for difference in one another and celebrate it, and especially in our young ones who need our understanding more than our expectations.
Amen
Thursday | 4 December
By Sean Delany, Te Whāriki.
A Promised Ruler From Bethlehem
Marshal your troops now, city of troops,
for a siege is laid against us.
They will strike Israel’s ruler
on the cheek with a rod.
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.”
Therefore Israel will be abandoned
until the time when she who is in labor bears a son,
and the rest of his brothers return
to join the Israelites.
He will stand and shepherd his flock
in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they will live securely, for then his greatness
will reach to the ends of the earth.
And he will be our peace
Micah 5:1-5
Ihoa o ngā mano, Matua, Tama, Wairua Tapu, e te Kīngi o ngā kīngi, te Mana o ngā mana, te Tapu o ngā tapu, Io matua.
Nāu te rangi me te whenua i hanga, te moana me ō-reira mea katoa.
Nāu te Kupu i kōrerotia e te Wairua Tapu nā te māngai o ngā poropiti mai rāno tae noa mai ki tēnei wā.
I hōmai e Koe Tāu Tama kōtahi a Ihu ki te ao, kia kāhore ai e ngaro te tangata e aruaru nei ki Ōna tapuwae engari, ka puta, ka ora.
As I prepare for a trip overseas into the Middle East, I am reminded of the scripture in Isaiah 6:8: “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here I am. Send me...”
“Mission, church, God, Jesus, Christian” are all loaded terms which bring forth so many responses as of 2025 - some negative, some positive.
When I move around the country, I am aware that each community has its own heartbeat, its own context. And so, when it comes to “mission”, I hear the words of Fraser Campbell when he preached many moons ago at Motueka Baptist Church: “what has God been doing in this community before I showed up?”
Despite what we hear on the airwaves and the television, the Wairua Tapu is active within our communities. Many times, it isn’t a show and dance, but made up of regular people with hearts to see Te Rongpai bring transformation to their particular communities. We are blessed to be able to take part in this good work and to walk alongside others as they too journey with the Wairua Tapu, such as we all were prior to coming into the fullness of the knowledge of Ihu Karaiti and His aroha noa.
Communities can be likened unto the forest or ‘ngāhere. In te reo Māori, we sometimes use the metaphor: “Te Waonui-o-Tāne = The Great Forest Wilderness of Mankind”, from the upper canopy to mid canopy and down to the smaller more vulnerable plants, flora and fauna, insects, animals, birds etc. There are the larger trees such as the mighty Rata, Kauri, Rimu and Kāhikatea’ that are more prominent in the sense of their stature and sheer size whilst the smaller plants you can miss as you walk through the ngāhere.
Ihu Karaiti chose the less-obvious path in the community of which He was able to build His Haahi upon. We are direct recipients of that “Mahi Pai – Good Work.” He uri tātou nā Ihu Karaiti = We are offspring of Yeshua.
I am not sure where I picked up the saying, “when things are going good, remain humble. When things aren’t going so good, remain hopeful.” This year has brought many struggles whether through personal, relational, work-related let alone the recent floods that hit the area where I live.
Despite the challenges, I remain hopeful through the commitment Arotahi has shown me and my whānau these past 3 yrs, our local haahi and pastor Paul Cossey, our good friends and whānau, the challenge of “pushing on” and being “curious” as to what the Lord has in store for us all in the days to come.
Kia hohou nei te rongo o te Wairua Tapu ki a kōutou ki a tātou katoa.
Friday | 5 December
By Elizabeth Jones.
In Canadian author Carol Shields’ last novel “Unless” published shortly before she died in 2003, she writes: “A life is full of isolated events, but these events if they are to form a coherent narrative, require odd pieces of language to cement them together, little chips of grammar that are hard to define since they are abstractions of location, or relative position, words like… therefore, although, into, of, since, by, nonetheless, else, hitherto, despite, nearly, already and not yet”.
In reflecting on my own grandkids, words, like children, carry a powerful impact beyond their size:
tThey are not yet grown but are already so grown up.
tI am already close to being a nonagenarian, but I have not yet arrived!
Where “Everyone gets a bargain” is already advertising but Christmas has not yet arrived.
One could even say the Christian faith is balanced on words from the Gospel message:
Christ has already come but He has not yet come to our increasingly disjointed world where families suffer trauma and loss and grieve.
At Advent, as we reconnect and meet with our families and share the joyful mystery of the incarnation of Jesus, let us pray for healing of the nations at Christmas and be assured again and challenged by the mystery held in the already and the not yet of God’s great plan for mankind.
This verse comes from “Out of Such Sun and Air” by Colin Gibson*:
Out of such cloud and mist
What Christ may come.
Blurring the clear and simple lines
Of our settled scheme of things.
Calling on faith and hope and trust
Daring to danger, trial, and risk
Come Christ, however you may come.
* Gibson, C. (1988). Out of such sun and air (2nd verse). In Singing love. Auckland, New Zealand: Collins Liturgical New Zealand.
Saturday | 6 December
By Gay Cochran.
Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
your justice like the ocean depths.
You care for people and animals alike, O Lord.
How precious is your unfailing love, O God!
Psalm 36:5-7
As Christmas approaches, I sense God inviting me to lift my gaze from myself and fix it on Him. The past six months have brought significant change—new homes in Dhaka and Chandpur, Bangladesh, a new language, shifting roles, and unfamiliar rhythms. These transitions have stirred deep needs but also revealed surprising discoveries and generous hospitality.
All this unfolds against a backdrop of global unrest—war in Ukraine and Gaza, and political instability nearby. Bangladesh remains governed by a caretaker government, resulting in ongoing unrest. In such chaos, Advent quietly enters as a call to anticipate Christ’s coming—a fresh revelation of God’s love in our salvation story.
Psalm 36:5 reminds us, “Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.” This love isn’t distant or abstract. I’ve seen it in others' kindness, in moments of stillness and turmoil, and most profoundly in Jesus’ coming.
Theologian Walter Brueggemann says, “God’s faithfulness is the chief desire, the central yearning of our life.” Advent draws us back to that center—God’s enduring presence in our past, God's nearness in pain, and God's activity in our daily lives.
Where have you encountered rhythms of love and compassion this year? As we seek peace in a troubled world, may we look beyond our needs to the presence of Christ—God’s love made tangible. This Advent, may we re-anchor ourselves in God's faithful, ever-near love.
Image: From the cover of Arotahi’s Daily Advent Readings 2025 PDF
