The Season of Advent is all about waiting and preparing for the arrival of Jesus. Honestly, we really don’t like waiting, we want everything right now, right? But what about waiting for Jesus? Is that different?
How do you feel about waiting? When you hear that awful word, “wait,” what comes to mind? How does God view waiting? How long are you willing to wait for a friend or a coworker? Or even someone you don’t like? Are you a fast food follower or a slow cooker/crock pot Christian? Do you expect God to answer now, or are you willing to wait? These are just some of the questions you and your community are invited to consider in the prayer stations of the Advent Waiting Sacred Space.
This Sacred Space will help your community connect with God using all their senses. The Advent Waiting Sacred Space Prayer Experience is a downloadable kit that comes with all the signage to print out for each station, a Leader’s Guide with supply lists and how to’s and photos of each station as a guide for creating your own! The Kit includes 14 Prayer Stations in all!
The Advent Waiting Sacred Space prayer experience is flexible and can be used in different ways based on your community’s needs. It can be set up for a weekend at your church, used on a retreat, or set up for an entire week hosted by you in the evenings, so your community can experience it and bring friends who might never come on a Sunday morning. Or rather than using all the prayer stations at one time, you can do one or two stations each week to go along with your teaching/sermon during Advent. You choose the format that works best for you.
Help your community step away from the craziness of Christmas, and slow down to prepare their hearts for Jesus! Download the Advent Waiting Sacred Space Kit from Freerange Worship!
Join us December 2nd in Seattle for a contemplative retreat facilitated by Christine Sine.
Joy To the World – we all sing it at Christmas but how much do we really experience joy? Most of us are too busy, too distracted and too exhausted. Join Christine Sine for this contemplative retreat where we invite you to prepare for Christmas this year by refocusing your life on what really matters and rediscover the joy of the season. Pause to reflect, renew and restore yourself for this wonderful celebration and create practices to guide you through the season. Through prayer, contemplation and creative activities this retreat invites you to slow down and savour the wonder of Christ’s presence in us and around us. Snacks and coffee will be provided.
When: December 2nd: 9:00a.m. – 12:00p.m.
Cost: $25. Please order a ticket in our store. Once you purchase a ticket, the address and contact information will be provided as this event is held in a private home.
In November and December Godspace blog will focus on preparing our hearts and lives for Christmas. For the upcoming months we want to focus on preparation for the festive season. Our theme is Joy to the World. This is a favourite Christmas hymn for many of us, yet I wonder what is the joy that we look forward to in this season and how can we help bring it into the world? I hope you will join us in expressing joy, sharing joy and celebrating joy this year.
by Christine Sine
Last week I talked about the fact that I planned to celebrate Celtic Advent this year which begins November 15th and covers the 40 days before Christmas. My theme for the year is I choose joy and it has been fun to think about how I will mark this celebration in a way that is meaningful and that grows my faith as I move towards the manger and our celebration of Christ’s birth. I challenge you to do the same over the next week before the festive season deluges you with busyness and overindulgence.
Today I put together my Advent garden – a little different from previous years as, at least at this point, I don’t have any candles in it, though that will probably change. Its hard for me to think about the wonder of Christ’s light coming into our world without celebrating with candles.
This year’s garden incorporates a spiral path, marking my own journey towards the birth of Christ. I love the spiral, it is present in so many parts of God’s created world, and seems like a very appropriate symbol for the season. I have painted stones for each week with the prompts choose joy, tend joy, embrace joy, share joy, grow joy and celebrate joy on them. These stones have slowly accumulated on my altar this week, reminding me to focus on the joy spots in my life.
What Is Your Response?
Visiting our local mall yesterday I was horrified to see that the Christmas decorations are already fully present. We are moving rapidly into the festive season and I want to challenge all of us once more to take time to consider how we will prepare not for the festivities so much as for the inner change that God desires to bring about in our hearts at this season. How will we embrace the true joy that God so longs to see blossom in our hearts?
by Lilly Lewin
This is a week on the calendar is all about remembering.
Reformation Day on October 31st. This year marks 500 years since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the Door at Wittenberg
All Saints Day on November 1st. We are invited to remember the saints of the church and those who have died in the past year and years gone by.
Day of the Dead November 2nd (November 1-3 depending upon where you live) Celebrating and remembering those who have died, both family and friends.
What things help you remember?
Writing down a list.
Making notes in your phone. Maybe even setting an alarm on the phone or texting yourself so you won’t forget.
I need touchable, tangible reminders, like candles and cardinals and days on the calendar. I need smooth stones like in Joshua 4 to remind me that God has, and is doing big things in my life. Jesus uses all of these things to help me remember his love and care for me.
As I am writing this post, a cardinal is sitting in the tree outside my window. Cardinals have always been my symbol of hope. When I am uncertain, or having a bad day or a bad season, God has used this red bird as a reminder to me of his love and as a visual symbol of hope. I have neglected my bird feeder lately because of my feud with the squirrels so I haven’t seen much of my cardinals. So today I am grateful for this tangible reminder that God is with me and knows my needs.
I need people too! I need people to remind me that God is at work and that I am loved. My husband Rob is good at reminding me of this. And I have some good friends who help me see more clearly and ask me good questions. We need people to help us remember and to help us cut through the clouds and fog when we get too busy to see things clearly or when life gets too crazy. We need friends to help us remember God’s love.
Often, I need to take time to look back at my calendar, and my photos in my phone to remember what has been going on. Because I take a lot of photos, I can use these as visual reminders of all that has happened in the last few months and use this a prayer of reflection, thanking Jesus for the people and places that he has used to bring joy in my life and also to remind me that I might be doing way too much! And it might be time to slow down!
What things help you remember?
What things remind you of what God is doing in your life?
Sometimes we need touchable, tangible reminders in our life that God is at work and that we are still loved.
What things does Jesus use in your life to help you remember his care and love?
Take some time to consider this. And if you haven’t ever thought about a tangible symbol of God’s love for you, like a Cardinal, then be willing and be open and ask God to show you. Take time to notice this week what God uses to remind you of God’s love.
Who are the Saints in your life you’d like to remember?
Who are the people in your life that have impacted you? Who are the people you’d like to remember?
Living or dead. And maybe you didn’t meet them or know them personally, but through your reading or through a podcast, you’ve come to appreciate them and they have encouraged you on your journey of faith. Eugene Peterson would be one on my list, and CS Lewis and Brene Brown just to name a couple of writers who have impacted my life.
Make a list of these people.
- If the person is still living, write, text or call them and thank them for impacting you.
- Spend some time praying for that person.
- Find a quote or a picture of them and sit with this and allow God to remind you of how they have impacted your life.
Story telling.
Talk about and remember impactful people with a friend or around your table with friends and family. Take time to tell why this person has impacted you or why he or she is important in your life.
Take time to remember family members that impacted your life and tell these stories to others. I love sharing stories of my grandparents with my kids.
Stories help us remember and can remind us of what God is doing and has done in our lives.
Find out more about a saint or a person of faith.
Take time to investigate someone you’ve wanted to know more about and ancient saint or a current one. Someone like Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, or St. Hilda.
Pick someone to learn more about during the month of November. You could do this as a family, or as a small group and have a story telling time at the end of the month. Let each person choose a “saint” or just choose one as a group. Share why this person is important to you or what you learned that you didn’t know before!
Prayer Station Idea:
Find a fish net and lay it out on a table. Ribbon or yarn(wool) in many colors. Cut lengths of ribbon and have small scissors for participants to use to cut more. Participants will pick a color that reminds them of a person who has helped them connect with God. And they will tie the ribbon on the fish net and pray for that person or thank God for that person. Then they will take another ribbon in a color that reminds them of someone they would like to impact with God’s love. And use this ribbon as a reminder to pray for that person. (based on Fisher’s of People, Matthew 4:19)
Who has helped you know God’s love? What person has helped grow and connect with Jesus?
PICK A COLOR of Ribbon that reminds you of that person and tie it on to the net. Pray for that person and thank God for them.
Who do you know who needs to be caught in the net of God’s love and go beyond their ordinary life into a life of abundance in Jesus?
Pick a color of ribbon that reminds you of that person and pray for that person. Take home a ribbon to remind you to continue to pray for that person.
It’s never too late to take time to remember. Take some time this week, this month to remember the people that have impacted you and helped you know God. Take time this week, this month to remember that good things God has done and is doing in your life and be thankful. Ask God to give you tangible reminders and Remember that you are loved.
FreerangeWorship
By Jenneth Graser —
I worship you holder of the earth.
By Shawn Braley–
The preacher screamed at us, “Do you want to burn in hell forever?” as he proceeded to holler and yell at the top of his lungs re-enacting what someone who would be burning in hell might sound like, I was scared. I was 13 and I was sitting in the back row with a couple of other Jr. High and High School kids. They weren’t phased. They stared at the back of the pew in front of them as if to communicate boredom. But I was frightened. What if that was me? How much does one have to believe to believe enough?
I’m now 30 and, honestly, I still wonder some times if I believe enough. As if that’s something that can even happen.
I look back at that moment in my life because I needed some sort of reformation. I needed a new way of seeing what it meant to believe in something. Is belief fueled by fear? I don’t think so. Fear is a liar that has never led me to anything worthwhile. Yet, I still choose it time and time again.
Around that same time that the preacher was yelling and hooting and hollering, I remember learning about the reformation. Martin Luther, sick of the man-made religious rituals of the Catholic Church at the time, took to doing something about it. He wasn’t content with some private faith that ignored the things he disagreed with and just went along with the status quo. He wanted something real. I remember being struck by his insistence on redemption being found by having faith and experiencing grace. I wasn’t experiencing grace. I had little faith.
I needed a reformation.
The ways in which I see the world as anything other than beautiful leads me to believe that I’m still falling into my old patterns of fear. I recently took a step away from doing full time ministry. I worked with friends, new and old, to start a new church in downtown Cincinnati. It was a labor of love that had rested on my heart for most of my adult life. I’m frightened. I didn’t leave with a plan. It was a stressful and painful experience. Is failure all that God has for me? I’ve wondered that and hungered for a reformation of spirit and resolve.
I know this is more of a personal reflection than it is a post about the Reformation of Reformation Day. But here’s where I’m headed: I’m never not needing to reform. Every single morning I have to wake up and nail the 95 theses of some old pattern, some lie I’m believing, some shame I’m clinging to, and let God call me out of those things and into reform.
There’s this old hymn that I heard once that had the refrain, “I will remember who I am.” It was repeated over and over. As I sang it, I realized not only does God call us to remember who we are in Him: His sons and daughters, but we’re also called to re-member ourselves. Whatever this world has done to us, we are re-membered, re-formed in Jesus. Whatever brokenness we see in ourselves, we are re-formed in Christ. And that is the reformation that changes the world.
When I reflect on that, I realize the walk with Christ isn’t as much about believing “enough” as if that could ever be possible, but instead, it is all about being reformed into the image of the invisible – something so seemingly outside of me and yet, part of me – and resting in that hope.
May today’s Reformation Day be a day of personal reflection and re-forming in ourselves. If each of us take part, we might actually see the world changed for the better.
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