How to Celebrate Christmas with Advent Blocks w/ Clayton Greene

Welcome to another episode of the Collide Kids Podcast! Host Christen Clark sits down with Clayton Greene, a pastor and the co-founder and CEO of Goodkind, to explore how families can deepen their faith through the practice of traditions such as Advent.

Clayton discusses his journey supporting church plants and how an innocent remark from his daughter led to the creation of Advent Blocks—a tool designed to help families focus on Jesus during the Christmas season. Learn about the significance of Advent, ways to build spiritual habits, and how to start meaningful traditions even if your kids are older.

In this episode, Clayton and Christen highlight the value of integrating faith into holiday traditions and the daily rhythms of life, the fascinating story behind Advent Blocks, and the resources offered by Goodkind to help families engage with God and one another. Plus, Clayton shares a fun childhood memory and a great joke that kids will love!

Don’t miss the Kids Only Segment featuring a clever riddle from Pippa!

Check out Goodkind’s Advent blocks at goodkind.shop and use the discount code "COLLIDE" for 20% off your purchase.

Clip Finder: 

Innovative Faith-Based Products: "My side job is I'm the CEO and cofounder of Goodkind, the maker of Advent Blocks or the Graticube."
— Clayton Greene [00:03:36 → 00:03:43]

**The Future of Church Growth**: "We're not just out here starting a business, right, but we're planting something that is an organism. The church itself, the people are going to be growing and it turns into something that only God knows what it can be, but also that God has a vested interest in and he says that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it."
— Clayton Greene [00:06:58 → 00:07:07]

**Kids Say the Darndest Things**: "Mommy and daddy, you say that Christmas is all about Jesus, but it feels like Christmas is all about presents."
— Clayton Greene [00:08:25 → 00:08:31]

"Advent Calendar Traditions": "Advent as a Christian Christmas practice, it's all about anticipation. It's a time in the year where the church takes time to reflect and anticipate about God coming to Earth in Christ in the incarnation."
— Clayton Greene [00:10:33 → 00:10:46]

Starting New Traditions: "If there are things that you are already doing that have elements of your faith in it and it's meaningful and it's memorable and it's tradition, then I think you try to improve and build on that rather than starting something new."
— Clayton Greene [00:17:12 → 00:17:23]

Incorporating Spiritual Practices into Everyday Life: 
"We take spiritual habits, we take the calendar, and we're essentially diving into how does the calendar impact my life and the rhythms of my family? What spiritual practices are out there that I could do, and how might I actually put them in into practice with my family?"
— Clayton Greene [00:18:47 → 00:19:02]

“That’s My King” is a vibrant praise song with an edge by Dove Award winning artist, Yancy.  Filled with celebration, praise, and amazing wonder. Yancy put her rockin’ fingerprint on this song originally made popular by Cece Winans. It’s time for every generation to unite their voices to take a stand and shift the atmosphere when they push play on “That’s My King”! LISTEN NOW!

Bark proactively works to monitor, detect, and alert you to potential issues on your kids' devices. Visit bark.us to learn more about how you can keep your kids safe online. Use the code COLLIDEKIDS to get 15% off Your Bark Technologies Plan !

Transcript

Christen Clark [00:00:29]:

Hey, y'all. Welcome to the collide kids podcast. I'm your host, Christen Clark. The collide kids podcast is a show for kids and families where we learn together how life and faith collide. I'm so glad you're listening today. Thank you so much for being here and spending this time with me. Hey. If this is your first time listening, you should know that we have a kids only segment at the end of every episode.

Christen Clark [00:00:50]:

That's where kids just like you get to be on the podcast. If you'd like to be on the next episode of the Collide Kids Podcast, head over to my website, collide kids podcast.com, and click the tab that says kids only, and you can record yourself right there and be on the next episode. Before I introduce our guests for this episode, I would like to stop and thank the wonderful sponsor of today's episode, my friend, Dove award winning artist and worship leader, Yancey. Her new Christmas single, go tell it on the mountain, is available now wherever you get your music. Well, I don't know about you, but I am already in the Christmas spirit. And although my Christmas tree is not up in my house, I feel like it's up in my heart. You know what I mean? But one of the ways that I have really enjoyed getting into the Christmas season and learning to anticipate it better is through Advent and celebrating Advent with my church and with Advent calendars. And I met some really cool people a few months ago who shared with me a great way that families can introduce Advent to their families.

Christen Clark [00:01:53]:

And so he's gonna talk about it today. My guest is Clayton Green. He is a pastor and collaborative director for the Summit Church, and he is the cofounder and CEO of Goodkind, a company that creates resources to help people engage with God and with one another. These resources include Advent blocks, Graticubes, and more. He is also one of the hosts of the Goodkind podcast where he shares in conversations on how to be intentional with your spiritual practices and making the most of opportunities each season provides. Clayton resides in North Carolina with his wife, Christen, and their 2 children. So here is my advent conversation with Clayton Green. Well, Clayton Green, I am so excited to have you on the Collide Kids Podcast today.

Clayton Greene [00:02:48]:

Oh, I'm excited to be here. Thank you so much, Christen. My wife's name is Kristen, so it's just interesting to be talking to another Christen. So

Christen Clark [00:02:55]:

That is. She has a beautiful name.

Clayton Greene [00:02:57]:

She does. Spelled it with a k. But Oh, okay. It's yeah. I apologize for that discrepancy, but it is it's a great name.

Christen Clark [00:03:03]:

That's what the Christens do. When we meet each other, we ask, how do you spell it? Spell it. Right. That's the first question. Yeah.

Clayton Greene [00:03:09]:

Yes.

Christen Clark [00:03:09]:

But that's great. Love her name. That's so good. Would you just introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Clayton Greene [00:03:16]:

Yeah. So my name is Clayton Green. I live in Durham, North Carolina with my wife, Christen, my two daughters, Cara and Susan. My day job is I help support church plants across the country. So there's 70 church plants in something called the Summit Collaborative that I help them thrive and continue to work towards multiplication. And the reason I say it call it a day job is because my side job is I'm the CEO and cofounder of Goodkind, the maker of Advent Blocks or the Graticube. Because different people have AvidBlox, and some people have the Graticube. And, Christen, everybody should have both.

Clayton Greene [00:03:48]:

So that I mean, that's just that's my my thoughts on on that. So that is, you know, not even my part time job, but something that I do on the side and have fun with. So, we've already said we live in Durham, which you you know this neck of the woods. You said you were you're from close to here.

Christen Clark [00:04:02]:

Yeah. I grew up in Garner, which is very close to Raleigh, which is close to Durham. So we've driven through Durham a lot and know a lot of the same places that you've you've been before. So always fun to talk to other North Carolinians. Although, we did discuss earlier that this is gonna be a stretch for both of us to be talking to one another because you went to UNC and,

Clayton Greene [00:04:23]:

I Tutorials.

Christen Clark [00:04:24]:

Yes. And I I'm not allowed to, I don't know if I'm allowed to associate with Tar Heels because we're a big NC State fan family. So

Clayton Greene [00:04:33]:

Yeah. That's okay. And like you said, you know, Jesus says to love your enemies. So here here we are putting that on full display.

Christen Clark [00:04:40]:

Well, I love that you have all these things to share with us today. But before we do any of that and get into your job, because this is a show for kids, I always make my guests tell me a joke. So do you have a joke for us today?

Clayton Greene [00:04:53]:

Well, I wish that my 10 year old was here because she, she's in 5th grade, and, apparently, they have a class in jokes in 5th grade because she comes home about every day with a new joke or a new riddle. Super into riddles.

Christen Clark [00:05:07]:

Nice.

Clayton Greene [00:05:07]:

But you said jokes, so I'm gonna tell you the joke that she told me most recently, which I really like because it's a riff on an oldie but goodie.

Christen Clark [00:05:13]:

Okay.

Clayton Greene [00:05:13]:

So the question is, do you know why 6 was afraid of 7?

Christen Clark [00:05:19]:

Okay. I think I do, but you tell me.

Clayton Greene [00:05:21]:

It's because 7 was hungry.

Christen Clark [00:05:23]:

Oh. Yeah.

Clayton Greene [00:05:25]:

Right? No. Because the yeah. So here's the thing. Because 7, 8, 9 is what you think it's gonna be. Yes. But she said because 7 is hungry. So it, like, even gives more to the core issue of what was happening in 7's life. You know? Rather than just telling you what they did, it was more about who 7 is.

Christen Clark [00:05:41]:

I love that.

Clayton Greene [00:05:41]:

Like a being than it is a doing. So 6 was terrified.

Christen Clark [00:05:46]:

Yes.

Clayton Greene [00:05:46]:

But then 7 and 8 of Snickers, and everything was fine.

Christen Clark [00:05:49]:

And it was all good. All good. Yeah. That's good. Probably from all that leftover Halloween candy.

Clayton Greene [00:05:54]:

Yeah. Would that be a great Snickers commercial? Where it's like 7 is like, oh, I'm so hungry, and 8, 9, 6 are all scared, then 7 eats a Snickers. I think they should do it. I think it would work, at least on YouTube.

Christen Clark [00:06:05]:

Yeah. I think they should. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about first about your job working with church plants. Can you just explain what that is? What is a church plant?

Clayton Greene [00:06:14]:

Yeah. Is it

Christen Clark [00:06:15]:

like a fern or a ivy or something

Clayton Greene [00:06:17]:

like that? Yeah. It's they're it's ferns, and everybody gets together on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and puts them all up in in the sanctuary.

Christen Clark [00:06:26]:

All the ficus.

Clayton Greene [00:06:27]:

Yep. Yeah. Every church was a church plan at some point. Every church has a founding kinda time or opportunity and all the way back from when we read about churches being formed in the in the New Testament. Mhmm. So as Paul is moving to different cities, he's starting new churches. Church planting is what we we say now in my line of work. And I like the idea of planting because it's something that has to grow.

Clayton Greene [00:06:52]:

Mhmm. We're not just out here starting a business, right, but we're planting something that is an organism. Right? The church itself, the people are going to be growing and it turns into something that only God knows what it can be, but also that God has a vested interest in and he says that that it's gonna the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. So we continue to go to different places and different cities that God has called pastors to go and start a new congregation. And in many cases, these new congregations are actually partnering with existing congregations to bring new life to existing congregations that for whatever reason, God is telling in the story of that congregation, there is a renewal that is needed. So it's really, really fun to see a renewal of churches and actually some new churches in areas where there are not churches to be started as cities are growing and people are moving, and we wanna continue to see God's mission going forward.

Christen Clark [00:07:46]:

Yeah. And I love that perspective too that every church started as a church plant. Like Yeah. So every church so even if you go to a large church that's been around for a 100 years, at some point, they had to get started.

Clayton Greene [00:07:57]:

That's At some point was like, we should have a church right here. Who's gonna be the pastor? You know? It's like yeah. Everything started that way.

Christen Clark [00:08:03]:

So you also said you have a hobby where you you have advent blocks, and that's actually how I got to meet you was learning about your Advent blocks. Would you share a little bit about that and what that's all about?

Clayton Greene [00:08:14]:

So Advent blocks gosh. The story goes back. I was recounting today 7 years ago when my daughter Cara was 5. She said to me and my wife, Christen, spelled with a k, mommy and daddy, you say that Christmas is all about Jesus, but it feels like Christmas is all about presents. Now kids listening to this in the car right now, that does not give you permission to say that to your parents because it hurt my feelings. Okay? We're all doing our best as parents, and I was doing my best. And in that moment, it just what we were doing day to day was not lining up exactly to what we were saying we were going to do. Fast forward to the next year, tried to find a resource that would actually help bring to the center of a home a rivaling anticipation because we weren't gonna stop presents, but something that would actually build anticipation to Christmas about Jesus' birth as much as it was about cookies and lights and music and presents.

Clayton Greene [00:09:08]:

So I couldn't find anything. I ended up drawing, how some pieces of wood could move in our our living room that would kinda be a decoration, but kinda would be like an advent type of practice. I asked my friend Chris to write a book. It ended up being a 25 day guide. We did it that next year. That was 2019. It was just 5 families that did it. And then the following year, we wanted to expand it to a few more people and a couple of 1,000 joined us.

Clayton Greene [00:09:33]:

And then from then, it just continued to be a resource that we are trying to get out to families as much as possible every year because we say it's a Christmas practice that helps kids and parents focus on Jesus and not just the presents. And it's pretty wild at how helpful it has been to our family and some we've heard stories of so many others as well.

Christen Clark [00:09:53]:

Yeah. Would you just explain a little bit about what Advent is? Because I know I grew up in a church. We didn't talk about Advent, but I knew of people that did talk about it, and I saw the word. And, you know, whenever you go to the store and see the big advent calendars full of chocolates and treats and stuff, you're like, oh, I wanna be a part of that. But I didn't know what it was until I was an adult. So let's help some kids out learn a little bit about that now. Can you explain what advent really is?

Clayton Greene [00:10:20]:

So advent calendar, chocolates or little presents or whatever, super fun, building up anticipation. You take the entire month and it kind of creates a lot of fun related to it. We usually do a chocolate calendar in addition to our Advent blocks. Advent as a Christian Christmas practice, it's all about anticipation. It's a time in the year where the church takes time to reflect and anticipate about God coming to Earth in Christ in the incarnation. And so rather than just celebrating that on one day, you take a period of time and you think about it, you anticipate it, you read about it, you study it, and it leads up to a celebration that we call Christmas. And a lot of churches that not all, but in a lot of churches, there will be like a wreath and 5 candles.

Christen Clark [00:11:07]:

Mhmm.

Clayton Greene [00:11:07]:

There's a Christ candle, there's a hope candle, there's a faith candle, there's a lot of different colors and things that traditionals will do. But the whole point is setting yourself up to anticipate and then celebrate the fact that God came to earth in Christ. And so the traditions of the church doing it for 25 days or doing it for 4 Sundays really I mean, it dates a long, long time ago in church history and it's just something that we continue to do today. Sometimes with your family, sometimes with your church.

Christen Clark [00:11:34]:

So you said you have blocks. How does that work? How how do the advent blocks work with your celebration of advent?

Clayton Greene [00:11:40]:

Advent blocks, it's 25 days. It starts on December 1st. The way the blocks work is there's 27 blocks in the kit and you line them up 1 to 25. There's a star block that goes on top of the 1 and a world block that goes on the top of the 25. And then every day, you do a reading and you turn the block from the one to an image and then the 2 to an image and then 3 to an image. And the image corresponds to the story that you read for that day. The stories from December 1st to 25th to go all the way through the Bible from Adam and Eve all the way up to Jesus' birth.

Christen Clark [00:12:13]:

Oh, wow.

Clayton Greene [00:12:14]:

And that that star moves on top of the day that you're reading. So the star represents God coming to earth over at the other end. That's the basic way to explain it. But the writing is absolutely beautiful. It'll make you laugh. It always at least one time in the 25 days makes me cry. But, it the thing that ends up being really great about it is because it's beautiful enough to be a decoration, but also it's playful enough that anybody, whatever age the kid is, they can actually hold it, play with it, engage with the story. And so it really brings the whole family together.

Christen Clark [00:12:47]:

Yeah. So if you have middle school boys living at your home or toddlers, they can all enjoy and not destroy this Yeah. This decoration. That's good.

Clayton Greene [00:12:56]:

Exactly. I don't recommend that you throw the blocks, middle school boys. They're they're wooden. They're sturdy. Like, you just just hold those. But I do yes. And what we have been really surprised about is as long as you have somebody in the sweet spot range of 3 to 13, everybody doesn't have to be. As long as you have somebody in that range and you're reading to that person, by the end, almost everybody is participating in it.

Christen Clark [00:13:17]:

What is it about holidays that you think is so important? Because I love that we're, you know, we're we always talk about Christmas. We just had Thanksgiving. So now we're in this advent season holiday traditions. Is that something that's important to you and your family?

Clayton Greene [00:13:31]:

I love holidays because it helps us understand when we are in the year. I've gotten more into all the holidays in the last 5 years than I was before admin blocks. And it's because our world these days, as opposed to when you were in Garner, every month or every day can tend to feel the same way. When when we were growing up, like, you couldn't get, raspberries in the grocery store year round, but now you can. Like, it's just like there's kind of that flattening that I don't know is necessarily good. You know, it's good for harvest time to be harvest time. And it also, to be fair, is good that we have access to food in the grocery store all year round. But I mean, that the rhythms of a year so I really am into what Memorial Day does to the rhythms of the year, which I can never remember.

Clayton Greene [00:14:16]:

That's the one that kicks off the summer. Right?

Christen Clark [00:14:18]:

Like,

Clayton Greene [00:14:18]:

what does that feel like to be like summer's here and let's enjoy summer for what it is? So that's one. The second thing is in terms of faith, holidays, Christmas and Easter being the most notable, but holidays in general provide memorable opportunities. Like, we are very literally creating memories regardless of what we are doing. You will remember the things that you do as traditions year over year over year. And so, as a parent, if I can put our faith into those memories, then the likelihood that that faith then goes with my children over the long term greatly increases.

Christen Clark [00:14:52]:

Yeah. I think that's so true because I don't know. Like, I think there's some families that are a little bit scared, traditions or just faith in general in their in their children. Like, they don't wanna force them into their salvation experience or force them into having a faith of their own. But as parents, I think we also need be the ones guiding them through it. And I think when we can do that, like you said, infusing our memories with things that are built on our faith, I think that's a great way to do it without being forceful about it.

Clayton Greene [00:15:19]:

Yeah. And and what what you said is completely fair and a worthwhile thing to think about. But my challenge in that situation would be think about how, like, we don't force Target on our kids, but they certainly know how to do it. Right. So we don't we don't ever actually teach or force our kids to go into a store and to use a credit card in order to buy something from Target. But you better believe they will do it in their life. Mhmm. Because they saw us do it and they did it with us Right.

Clayton Greene [00:15:46]:

Over and over and over again. So we have to live and repeat and pass on our faith in a way of they're doing it with us over and over and over again. And those are actually the things, you know, train up a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from it, is training, not necessarily teaching. Now, teaching is a component of that, but living those things over and over and over again doesn't force their faith. There's still a decision to be made. Right. But it definitely does put something hardwired into how they view the world and the things they know how to do that has the greater ability to carry on with them outside of the home.

Christen Clark [00:16:20]:

Absolutely. I think that's so important. And like you said, it's really about what they see us doing. So it's not always that we have to have it all together. They can see us mess up and they can see us do it well, but we're showing them that this is something important to us, and that's that's really good. Now one thing that I think is important is starting these traditions when kids are young. But what if there's a family listening and their kids are like mine? They're in middle school, and they never did advent blocks or anything like that. Is it too late to start a tradition like that now?

Clayton Greene [00:16:49]:

Good question. I would say absolutely not. It's not too late in order to start a new tradition. But also and I might be undercutting the number of people that are gonna get Advent blocks. But if you are already doing something that has an element of your faith and there already is a tradition, I would say lean into that and build on it rather than trying to recreate the wheel. Because like I said about memories before, if there are things that you are already doing that have elements of your faith in it and it's meaningful and it's memorable and it's tradition, then I think you try to improve and build on that rather than starting something new. If you haven't done anything, there's a ton of grace for that as well. So, yeah, just start something now.

Clayton Greene [00:17:28]:

You know, this year is better than next, and next year is better than the one after that. So, I mean, I I think you definitely have the permission to be able to do that. And but also make sure you celebrate the wins and the things that you've done up to this point. You know, a a candlelight service at grandma's church might not give you everything that you want. It might give you everything you want, but it also is a tradition that can be built on and added to.

Christen Clark [00:17:50]:

I think this is a great thing. And I and I love that it like, you guys have created something that's beautiful. It could be a decoration, but it's also something that the whole family can get involved with. So that's really good. Would you just talk a little bit about your podcast? Because you guys have a podcast. Is it all about blocks? Is that what your podcast is?

Clayton Greene [00:18:06]:

Yeah. We're just it's we're talking about small blocks and big blocks and plastic blocks and wooden blocks. So really Advent blocks kinda kicked the whole thing off. Right? So there are some things we learned about Advent blocks that were really successful that allowed families to be consistent that we became very interested in in terms of how to make spiritual habits stick. Right? So if we're all trying to build spiritual habits in the home, there are some things that we can learn from habit scientists as well as from the bible that that help us be more consistent in those things.

Christen Clark [00:18:37]:

And

Clayton Greene [00:18:37]:

so that's really the rubric or the structure that we have given as we have continued to create other products. And that's what we do on the podcast as well. As we take these principles, we take spiritual habits, we take the calendar, and we're essentially diving into how does the calendar impact my life and the rhythms of my family? What spiritual practices are out there that I could do, and how might I actually put them in into practice with my family? And then how could I be more consistent with it? I typically am more of, like, the host. I have not been to seminary, but I do help, church plants. I have 2 people that are most consistently on the show, Chris and Amy, both did go to seminary. So I'm just sitting there asking them questions, trying to understand the spiritual practice for myself. And then our designer and our our videographer are also on our our habits and holidays episodes where we dive deep into every individual month of the year and kind of try to pay attention to what God's doing throughout the different seasons.

Christen Clark [00:19:33]:

That's such a great resource for families. Because if you don't know where to start or you need some ideas or you just wanna hear some good information about that, they can go check out your show. What's it called?

Clayton Greene [00:19:42]:

The Good Kind Podcast.

Christen Clark [00:19:43]:

Good Kind Podcast. Okay. We'll put a link in that in the show notes so people can check that out for sure. And then you guys also said you had a book coming out very soon. Can you tell us about your book coming out in January?

Clayton Greene [00:19:52]:

So it's building spiritual habits in the home. Then that's that's the title, and that's what it's all about. And it is I don't know if you've read James Clear, Atomic Habits. Mhmm. Great book. We say that the book is Atomic Habits Meets Jesus. Love that. So there are things like making it easy where James Clear says rather than challenging yourself to exercise for 30 minutes a day, challenge yourself to drive to the gym, like, make it as easy as possible.

Clayton Greene [00:20:16]:

There's things in there about how tangible resources can actually cue you to doing things that you often would forget to do. There's things about time and place and how what time of day you are trying to do a habit can greatly impact the success of you being able to do that habit. How place can greatly affect how you're thinking about something. And so, essentially, just walk through 6 different things that can help you with what you're already doing be a little bit more consistent or to start new things that you have been wanting to do, but you haven't quite been able to do yet.

Christen Clark [00:20:47]:

Okay. That sounds awesome. I love that. And I love that book that kicked my butt when I read that. I was like, wow. I gotta get started on some good habits.

Clayton Greene [00:20:54]:

The way it happened is I mean, AdventBlox is a little bit built around that as well in terms of, like, why it actually works and why you stay consistent. But every time I've ever one ever read any of those books, I mean, there's tons of them. There's a book called Hooked. There's a book called The Power of Habit. There's a lot of different books that I've read in this space. And every time I read it, I'm applying it to my faith and my spiritual habits. And then now we just actually just kinda wrote it down and directly applied it that way.

Christen Clark [00:21:18]:

That's great. I love that. Clayton, this has been so good. I've loved talking with you today and learning about Advent and your Advent blocks. I think that's gonna be a great resource for families to get a hold of. How can they find out more about Advent blocks and order themselves a set? Yeah.

Clayton Greene [00:21:32]:

So you could Google Advent blocks. That's one option.

Christen Clark [00:21:35]:

Okay.

Clayton Greene [00:21:35]:

Another option is you can just go straight to our website, which is goodkind.shop.

Christen Clark [00:21:40]:

Okay. And what does the name goodkind mean? What does that mean?

Clayton Greene [00:21:42]:

We try to help people practice the good kind of habits and holiday practices.

Christen Clark [00:21:47]:

Oh, I love that. That's really good. Well, this has been so cool, Clayton. Thank you so much for being on the show. Before I let you go, I always ask my guests to tell me a memory from when they were a kid. So what memory do you wanna share

Clayton Greene [00:21:59]:

with us today? It kind of goes along with the consistent traditions that you do or the things that that you're going to remember. I remember post Christmas every year, my family would go to this thing called the beach ball classic. And it it almost it itself rivaled Christmas for me, where my family would go down, my my dad would take a couple days off of work, my mom would was a teacher and then was at home for a period of time. So we would all go down together, me, my mom, my dad, my brother, sometimes our neighbor

Christen Clark [00:22:27]:

would

Clayton Greene [00:22:27]:

go, and we would just go watch high school basketball for, like, 2 or 3 days in a row. We would just go do it all day, we would eat, we would watch basketball. And it just was this time of non rushed time with my family in person where we just were together for a long periods of time. And I don't know why, but that is one of my favorite memories from growing up. So anything like that that the families that are listening are doing, I think those things end up kind of really putting a closeness in the hearts of our kids of just being with us and doing it consistently.

Christen Clark [00:23:00]:

I love that. That sounds so fun too just to watch sports all day long.

Clayton Greene [00:23:04]:

Yeah. And in person, I think that was a big thing about it

Christen Clark [00:23:07]:

as well. Well, Clayton, thank you so much for being on the show today. This was great meeting you.

Clayton Greene [00:23:11]:

It was nice to meet you as well. Thanks for having

Christen Clark [00:23:17]:

me.

Christen Clark [00:23:21]:

That was so good. I love learning about family spending time together. You know, Clayton shared a lot of really good information with us today. I love that he was talking about helping church plants. He said church plant is just starting a church and renewing once that once were. And so to be involved in that is a really cool thing to help a new ministry get started in the area that might not have a church or to help a church in an area that needs some support. He also shared about Advent, which is the anticipation of Christ coming to Earth, and we celebrate that as we prepare for Christmas when Jesus was born, but we also are anticipating the coming of Christ in the future. If your family is looking for a great way to include Advent or to celebrate Advent in a different way this year, these Advent blocks from good kind are a great way for your family to prepare and engage with the story of Christmas together.

Christen Clark [00:24:11]:

And like Clayton said today, it's not too late to start a new tradition. But he said lean into adding to what you're already doing. The things that are meaningful and faith based is better than trying to start a lot of new other things. So build on the old instead of adding a new thing might be an easier way to go. If you would like to get your own set of the advent blocks and include that in your celebration this year, go to goodkind.shop and they have a special discount code for collide listeners use the code collide to get 20% off your purchase Well, now it's time for the kids only segment. This is the part of the show where you get to be on the podcast, and you're in for a treat. My friend, Pippa, has a riddle for us today. So listen to this.

Christen Clark [00:25:01]:

"I have a riddle for you. See if you can get it. Okay. What has enters but no exits? Keys but no locks. Spaces but no room.

Christen Clark [00:25:17]:

I don't know what.

Christen Clark [00:25:18]:

A keyboard. Did you get it?"

Christen Clark [00:25:21]:

A keyboard. Oh, that was so good. I love that. Thank you, Pippa. Hey, if you'd like to be on the podcast too and you have a riddle you wanna share or your favorite bible verse or your favorite Christmas song, just head over to my website, collidekidspodcast.com, and click the tab at the top that says kids only. You can record it there, or you can send me a video. I'm on Facebook at the Collide Kids Podcast or on Instagram @collidekidspod. And I would love for you to follow me there.

Christen Clark [00:25:48]:

And don't forget to subscribe to our new YouTube channel, collide kids podcast. That's pretty easy to remember where you can watch the full length interview for today's episode. You know, a great way to support the podcast is to leave a rating and a review. It really does help other people find out about the show, and you can always share this episode with a friend or family member that you know needs to hear it. I think that would be a great way to let them know you're thinking about them. And anytime you think about it, I always appreciate your prayer support as well. Well, I hope that sometime this week, you can pause and reflect and think about how you and your family are gonna celebrate Christmas this year, and maybe how you can include some fun practices like the advent blocks or maybe some different spiritual practices that will help your family prepare your hearts for Christmas. And in case no one has told you today, I would love to be the first to remind you that God loves you so much.

Christen Clark [00:26:40]:

In fact, John 3:16 reminds us that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. Thanks for listening.