Chinese New Year symbols

Hey me darlings - let me tell you about this fun thing we did at cell last night. Blogging about my Chinese New Year weekend reminded me. We met again for cell after a long break so we did a word game as an ice-breaker. Then we started talking about how the others had spent their CNY (no, I did not tell them how I had spent mine:)

But we started talking about the things associated with Chinese New Year and I realised that it could be just as hard for a Chinese Christian during CNY as it is for me during Deepavali (remember I blogged about that too?). So we started thinking of what could be Christian about the things associated with Chinese New Year and we came up with this:

• Red banner hung across door way = a proclamation that the Blood of Christ covers this household!
• new clothes = As a person takes off old, dirty clothes in exchange for something clean and new, so the believer can take off the old, filthy “self” and exchange it for the clean and pure “self” provided by Christ.
• Greet elders with oranges = pray a blessing that the Fruits of the Spirit would be with the person
• sweet snacks = because His name is like honey on our lips and He has promised "with honey from a rock I will satisfy you" (Psalm 81:6)
• firecrackers & other noise-makers = "Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.." (Psalm 98:4)

I really think my cell members are inventive :)