Source: International Mission Board, December 10, 2018<\/p>\n
Johann Hinrich Wichern (1808-1881) was eager to find a way to spread God\u2019s message among the people in Hamburg. He worked as a missionary among the poor. In 1833, he founded a school called Rauhes Haus (\u201cRough House\u201d) to redeem and serve neglected children and orphans by feeding, housing, and educating them.<\/p>\n
To help contain the children\u2019s excitement leading up to December 25, he created the first Advent wreath. The first wreath had 24 candles. The four largest candles indicated the Sundays of Advent. During daily prayer, a child lit a candle each day up until Christmas Eve when all the candles were finally illuminated.<\/p>\n
Many Germans today simply enjoy Advent wreaths as centerpieces on their table. Although the tradition was born in their country, they may be unaware of the symbolic meaning the wreath holds.<\/p>\n
\u00bb Read full story<\/a>. It includes more on historic and contemporary Christianity and Christmas practices in Germany.<\/p>\n \u00bb Then read A Look at Christianity in Post-evangelized Germany<\/a> (Missions Network News).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: International Mission Board, December 10, 2018 Johann Hinrich Wichern (1808-1881) was eager to find a way to spread God\u2019s message among the people in Hamburg. He worked as a missionary among the poor. In 1833, he founded a school called Rauhes Haus (\u201cRough House\u201d) to redeem and serve neglected children and orphans by feeding, … Continue reading GERMANY: Why a Missionary Created the First Advent Wreath<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8257,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8256\/revisions\/8257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}