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At the beginning of the calendar year we make resolutions and plans for entire year. Why don’t we do the same before Advent? After all, for people of faith, the liturgical year and rhythm that revolves around the life death and resurrection of Jesus, should be more important for us than the secular year.
Planning for the Coming Year
This is the time to plan your scripture readings, prayer rhythm and retreat times for the coming year. Get together with your spouse, your family, or a group of friends and do some planning. Here are a few questions to ask yourself first
- Do you want to follow the church calendar with your daily readings?
- Do you want to read through the Bible in a year?
- Do you want a contemplative approach to bible study?
- Is there a specific theme you would like to consider?
- Are there blogs you visit regularly that augment your Bible reading? Is there a focus these blogs offer that can run in synch with your readings?
My favourite scripture reading plan is still the daily lectionary readings that begin in Advent. These cycle on a three year rotation. There is an Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament and Gospel reading. Part of what I love is that the readings from each section of the bible follow the same theme and have helped me to understand a lot about where Jesus drew his scriptures and theology from. However not all the books of the Bible are included so it is good to identify these and work out a way to incorporate them as well in your readings.
Choose Your Scripture Plan
Here are some resources to help you identify which plan you might like to try. I have tried to put together a list from a wide variety of denominational perspectives:
The Voice is a great source for the daily scriptures of the liturgical year. The site also has one of the most comprehensive explanations of Advent and the symbols we use during the season.
Sacred Space – Daily Prayer with the Irish Jesuits
Pray as You Go – also from the Jesuits. I love this daily prayer for your phone.
If reading the daily lectionary readings is a little much for you check out Lectionary Liturgies which posts liturgies for Sunday worship based on the RCL weekly readings.
biblegateway.com provides a variety of reading plans that can be downloaded as an app.
The Bible App – also provides lots of reading plans for different seasons of the liturgical year as well as those themed around a topic selected by the user.
The Daily Office from the Mission of St Clare and based on the Book of Common Prayer
Daily readings from the Presbyterian Mission Agency USA
BibleStudyTools.com provides several plans for reading through the whole or parts of the bible in a twelve month span.
Reflections from Forward Day by Day
Northumbria Community provides resources for praying the daily office through morning, midday, evening and compline services.
Or if you really want to be challenged this Advent try this Social Justice Advent Guide for Families from the North Carolina Council of Churches. It uses the Lectionary Year A scriptures but it would be easy to adapt these for any year.
And Rachel Held Evans has a post on 28 Ideas for Advent that is definitely worth a look.
This is one of a series of posts on resources for Advent and Christmas. Check out the other posts here.
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I love getting ready for the Advent season and am already planning our activities and decorations for the season so thought you might like to do so too.
This year I will be creating an Advent Come to the Manger wreath. If you decide to do the same please do send us your photos.
Make an Advent Wreath
The most traditional project to prepare us for the new liturgical year is to create or acquire and advent wreath. An Advent wreath typically consists of greenery with four candles, three purple and one pink. Each candle has a specific meaning:
Candle one (purple) represents hope. It is often called the prophets’ candle.
Candle two (purple) represents peace. It is often called the angels’ candle.
Candle three (pink) represents joy. It is often called the shepherds’ candle.
Candle four (purple) represents love. It is often called the Bethlehem candle.
Many advent wreaths also include a Christ candle in the middle of the wreath.
To celebrate with an Advent wreath, you light a candle on each Sunday of Advent. The first Sunday, you light candle one; the second Sunday you light candles one and two, etc. You can often find readings to go along with the candle lightings on the internet or at Christian bookstores. Or find a Christmas book that represents the theme of the week and read it with your children.
There are lots of ways to make Advent wreaths. It is a fun craft to do with kids and adults alike and may establish a new family tradition for you.
Here are a few that I find useful:
Here is a link to a fairly traditional Advent wreath. It does require an electric drill, fine tooth saw and wire cutters so obviously not something to let your kids do on their own.
This short video How to make an Advent wreath uses old coat hangers.
And here is a simple eco-friendly wreath
Or perhaps a junk wheel wreath with mason jar tealight.
And I love this one for making an Advent wreath with children’s hand prints. One of my friends used her own and her husbands handprints for the wreath and gave it to her grandkids prints as an Advent gift.
Go bird friendly with your Advent wreath and Advent decorations. We tried this last year. The gelatine suggested in most of these goes moldy if you leave it inside too long, however we plan to try it again with lard which should be more durable and also nutritious for the birds.
Create an Advent or Winter Spiral
This is not a long standing Advent tradition but is associated with Waldorf schools in the United States. It has similarities to walking the labyrinth and I think is a wonderful tradition to consider establishing for your family.
Kimz Kitchen has great instructions for making an Advent spiral with dough.
Mountain Hearth has the most ambitious of all – a beautiful Advent walk that as they say really sets the mood for a different sort of holiday season filled with more stillness, reverence, contemplation and beauty amongst the prevalent hustle and bustle of shopping, parties, and general busy-ness that surrounds us in November and December.
Create an Advent Garden
This is an idea that I came up with last year when I was feeling a little bored by the traditional Advent wreath which we had used for the last 20 years. I am a keen gardener and decided to create my own mini garden specifically for Advent.
I filmed this short video to explain my process and the reasoning behind it. This was a very meaningful and fun way to celebrate the season. I am planning to replenish the garden each year as an ongoing Advent activity.
Make Your Own Advent Calendar
Advent calendars always seem to represent the more commercial side of Christmas to me with cheap chocolates, wooden toys and glittery paper being the predominant images. However this is a wonderful tradition and there are many ways in which we can make it meaningful for our families
I love the suggestion from the post Celebrating Advent with Children, to make an Advent calendar with matchboxes, placing slips of paper in each one with different activities to do each day.
Another possibility is this recycle bin Advent calendar. – what a great way to introduce kids to the season and to the need to be more responsible. The combination of inward reflection and outward caring is wonderful.
Countdown Christmas Traditions– also has a fun kid friendly Advent calendar. As you click on each day of Advent you read about traditions in different countries of the world.
CAFOD: Just One world in the U.K. has some great Advent liturgies available as well as a downloadable Advent calendar for kids.
Susan Forshey put together this helpful Advent calendar Forty Days of Joy and Love which is a great concept to use for your Advent calendar without investing in funky toys or more unnecessary chocolates.
And here is a really fun one to explore – The Hubble Telescope Advent calendar
Catholic Mom has downloadable instructions for an Advent chain which has some similarities to an Advent calendar, but is especially designed to encourage kids to think beyond themselves at Christmas.
A couple of years ago MSA Board member Jill Aylard Young put together a similar kit called Advent in A Jar which is downloadable from the MSA site.
Explore Christmas traditions and recipes from around the world with your family
If you wanting to establish new traditions to enjoy with your family or friends, read through these descriptions of traditions from around the world and discuss the possibility of adapting some of these as part of your own celebration during the Advent and Christmas season.
The Worldwide Gourmet, has a wonderful array of recipes associated with the Advent and Christmas season in many different parts of the world. Just reading through some of these has my mouth watering. Choose a few to make with your kids and create some special prayers for the countries the traditions come from at the same time.
Set up a nativity set.
This is always a fun activity that tends to grow even more important as we age. Set it up with the manger empty and the wise men at the other end of the room or house. Throughout the Advent and Christmas season the wise men move closer to the manager and of course on Christmas morning the Christ child appears in the manger.
One of my friends has a rich collection of nativity sets from around the world which she sets up in different parts of the house to remind her that the story of Jesus is powerful in every culture. World Nativity has an amazing set of images of nativity sets from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. YonderStar is another site that sells Nativity sets, many of them fair trade. They also contribute 10% of their profits to Nature Conservancy and Food for the Poor.
One creative twist on the traditional nativity set is to give each family member an empty manger on the first Sunday of Advent. A small cereal box covered with bright paper will do as well. At bedtime, the children draw straws for each kind deed performed in honor of baby Jesus as his birthday surprise. The straws are placed in the child’s manger or box daily. It is amazing how much love a child can put into Advent when she or he is preparing for his redeemer’s coming in grace.
On Christmas, each child finds an infant in his manger, placed on a small table or a chair beside his or her bed. Usually it is a tiny doll, beautifully dressed. This custom fills the child with a longing in Advent, and provides an image of the redeemer as the first happy glance in the morning and the last impression at night during the entire Christmas season.
Make a Jesse Tree
The Jesse Tree represents the family tree, or genealogy of Jesus Christ . It tells the story of God’s salvation plan , beginning with creation and continuing through the Old Testament, to the coming of the Messiah. The name comes from Isaiah 11:1, “Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.” (NASB)
Each day of Advent a homemade ornament is added to the Jesse Tree, a small tree made of evergreen branches. These symbolic ornaments can each represent a prophecy foretelling of Christ. Other variations include creating ornaments that represent the ancestors in the lineage of Christ, or using the various monogram symbols of Christianity as handmade ornaments. Before a symbol is hung on the branch, a Bible passage or a story from a story Bible is read.
My Jesse Tree: The Ultimate Guide has a good explanation and lots of ideas on how to make a Jesse tree.
Here is a pattern for making a Jesse tree Advent calendar and another for making a more traditional Jesse tree. The Reformed Church of America has a good set of Jesse tree Advent devotionals
This is part of a series on Christmas/Advent resources:
Getting Ready for Advent/Christmas Worship Resources for 2015
Advent Activities for Families and Kids for 2015
Join Our Advent Photo Challenge
Celebrate With Simplicity This Christmas
Preparing for a Blue Christmas – New Ideas for 2015
Helping Kids Give Back This Christmas
Choosing Your Scripture Readings for the Coming Year
Tom and I have just returned from a personal retreat time up at Anacortes. These quarterly retreats are some of the most precious spiritual times of our lives. This week much of my time will be spent preparing for a retreat day here at the Mustard Seed House. If you want to simplify your life this year and focus on what really matters during the Advent and Christmas season this is a great way to do that. There is still time for you to join us either for the morning or for the full day.
Earlier this year I discovered the Japanese art of Kintsugi, the art of mending broken pottery with lacquer resin sprinkled with powdered gold, or silver or platinum. The technique visibly incorporates the repair into the new piece, highlighting the breakage instead of disguising it. The process usually results in something more beautiful and often more valuable than the original. Yet we easily discard that which is no longer perfect or functional. Mending, repairing and reusing are lost arts.
Knowing that imperfect objects can be remade into something more beautiful than the original gives me hope that that the imperfections in my life can be mended to make me into a more beautiful vessel then I was before.
None of us are without flaws yet God is able to mend and make all of us whole. And when God mends it is like pure gold has been added to our lives. There is beauty hidden in the brokenness all of us struggle with. God does not discard us because we are broken. Our remade selves are grounded in the transformation of our brokenness.
What is your response?
Watch the video below about the art of Kintsugi. What comes to your mind as you listen to this craftsman talk about his art? What areas in your life have already been mended with gold? What is the new beauty that has been formed in the mending? Write these down and spend time thanking God not just for the mending but for the brokenness that made possible new areas of beauty in your life.
Now read Colossians 1:15-20 from The Message
We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.
He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.
Now listen to this video
What is one broken or dislocated part of your life in which you still long to see transformation and wholeness? Name it and lift it up before God in prayer. Ask God to act as the master craftsman mending and making whole your brokenness. Now sit in silence allowing God to speak to you. Is there a pathway to healing that God is revealing to you? What action steps might be necessary to find the wholeness and the beauty God intends for you?
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I wrote this prayer last year when starting to prepare for Advent and the Christmas season. Christmas is a season when all of us spend too much, eat too much and hurry too much. All of us need help in focusing on what really matters at this season. The strident messages of the consumer culture bombard us at every turn and it is hard to say no.
Now is the time to think about ways to simplify the season. In my post, What if the Goal of Our Economy Wasn’t More But Better, I suggested watching The Story of Solutions video from thestoryofstuff.com and gave suggestions on how to help kids give back at Christmas. (Sorry I doubled up with many of these in a more recent post). Now prayerfully consider ways that you could simplify Christmas this year and cut back on consumption.
Read the prayer above through several times and then reflect on this quote:
Simplicity is no great virtue unless wedded to right priorities. A desirable simplicity entails the recognition of what is important in life, coupled with the strength of will to structure one’s daily existence around that recognition. It requires minimizing the impact of one’s life of unimportant things, an extremely difficult task in an acquisitive and schedule-filled culture. Daniel Taylor In Search of Sacred Places(148)
What comes to mind. Write down what you feel God is saying about your need to simplify?
Now read through this passage from Mathew 6:25-33 here quoted from The Message.
If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.
“Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.
“If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
What comes to mind as you read this passage? What else do you need to do to simplify this Christmas?
Now listen to this song and allow God to speak to you
Here are a couple of resources to explore to help:
Simple Living Works is a great resource for simplifying our lives not just at Christmas but all the year. I particularly recommend listening to some of their Whose Birthday Is It Anyway? podcasts.
Christmas Gifts that Won’t Break provides weekly Advent reading, looks at spiritual gifts that bring hope, peace, joy, and love to family, community, and world and challenges people to rethink the gifts they ask for and give during the Advent and Christmas seasons.
Truceteachers.org has an excellent guide with ideas for toy buying during the Christmas season. Some of their suggestions are be thoughtful, plan a family experience together like going for a hike, a bike ride, or helping out a neighbor and be creative.
And some ideas for families and kids from The Overflow Project on how to simplify their toys. Believe it or not kids enjoy gifts their family or friends have made far more than expensive store bought ones.
Only give gifts of home made toys and or crafts
Give toys away at Christmas rather than accumulating more.
○ Host a toy exchange with friends.
Think About Going Green
How about a living Christmas tree this year? . We have used a living tree for many years and most nurseries have them available in many different sizes. You may want to plant the tree out when you are finished with or, like us put it outside still in the pot to keep growing until next year. Trees like this often survive for many years as long as you do not bring them inside.
Also some ideas for thinking about sustainability at Christmas time: How To Have A Green Christmas, I love some of their suggestions like a battery free Christmas, connecting to nature and alternatives to gift wrapping. They also have some excellent suggestions on sustainable giving that will probably be added to my master list next year.
And let me know – how are you simplifying this Christmas?
For many, the Advent and Christmas seasons are anything but cheerful, even when we have not had to put up with nonstop Christmas music for days beforehand. For those who have lost loved ones, lost a job, or home or are struggling financially or with illness this season is anything but cheerful. And in 2020, we are grieving during this pandemic season from unmet expectations, missing family and friends, and just mourning how taxing and different this year has been. So why do we try to cover our pain and grief with Yuletide cheer?
Many churches have begun to recognize that Festivals of Carols, celebrations of Christmas, and children’s pageants do not meet everyone’s needs. To fill this gap, churches offer a Blue Christmas service, a Service of Solace or Longest Night. People who are not having a very merry Christmas, along with friends who support them, are invited to come and sit with one another in a liturgy that speaks of the love of God for the grieving.
Resources for Blue Christmas
Services
- Fidelia Magazine has an excellent liturgy for a Blue Christmas service – When Christmas Hurts.
- re:Worship always has great resources and I think has the best list for Blue Christmas ideas of any site I have visited.
Music
- Lectionary Songs has some excellent suggestions on songs for such a service.
- And another good list of Songs of Lament to consider.
- Our church’s Longest Night service used the words of Mumford and Sons song “After the Storm” for the prayer after communion, which I thought was very powerful.
After the Storm
And after the storm,
I run and run as the rains come
And I look up, I look up,
on my knees and out of luck,
I look up.
Night has always pushed up day
You must know life to see decay
But I won’t rot, I won’t rot
Not this mind and not this heart,
I won’t rot.
for those who hate their thighs and for those who have been abused.
for the bones that break and the cancer that spreads.
for blisters and splinters and hairs that split.
for asthma that seizes and for those we love who never get better.
for those who can’t get warm enough to sleep.
for those who wake early to find the dreams of beauty are not real.
for those whose coffee pots break when they need it most.
for hangovers and regrets and nights spent tossing.
Come and lament with me.
Let us attend.
For today and most days
All we bring are broken things.
- Here is a beautiful adaptation of Psalm 88 that would also make a good addition to a Blue Christmas service
Prayers
A couple of years ago, when grieving the still raw death of my mother, I wrote my own Blue Christmas poem.
On this long dark night we await the coming of Christ.
We long for the light of his presence,
With us and in us.
When our souls are deeply troubled,
and our hearts break with the weight of sorrow,
may our grief be seasoned with love,
and our sorrow be buoyed by hope.
In our times of God-forsakenness and estrangement,
May we gaze on the innocent One,
made perfect through suffering.
and see in him our vulnerable God,
who saves in weakness and pain.
May our suffering empty us of pride,
and lead us to true joy
our only security,
in Christ the infinite depths of God’s grace.
Let me end with this meaningful prayer by Ted Loder which appears in Guerrillas of Grace,
O God of all seasons and senses,
grant us the sense of your timing
to submit gracefully and rejoice quietly in the turn of the seasons.
In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach us the lessons of endings;
children growing, friends leaving, loved ones dying,
grieving over,
grudges over,
blaming over,
excuses over.
O God, grant us a sense of your timing.
In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach us the lessons of beginnings;
that such waitings and endings may be the starting place,
a planting of seeds which bring to birth what is ready to be born—
something right and just and different,
a new song, a deeper relationship, a fuller love—
in the fullness of your time.
O God, grant us the sense of your timing.
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There are obviously endless resources out there to assist us in designing worship services and activities for this season. For some the observances revolve around the lighting of the Advent candles and the Eucharistic celebration. For others it is the preaching of the gospel story and the Christmas pageant that take centre stage. Whatever your faith orientation here are some of my favourite resource sites that I think you will find useful. I have tried to draw from any traditions and cultures.
Advent resources from Ignatian Spirituality:
Christmas & Advent ideas from David Keen at Ideas, Resources and Donkey Rides
Bosco Peters in New Zealand has wonderful Advent and Christmas resources at liturgy.co.nz
The Billabong is a great Australian site with resources for both kids and adults.
John Birch has the most wonderful Celtic Advent liturgies available.
Text This Week always has an awesome array of resources for all seasons, but especially for Advent and Christmas.
Lectionary Liturgies provides liturgies based on the RCL readings for each Sunday of the church year.
Lent and Beyond – An Anglican Prayer blog also posts good seasonal resources.
engageworship.org is a UK site which has some good seasonal resources.
Biblical Art provides art classes, clip art and more for worship services.
And the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese has some interesting icons and explanation of Christmas from an Orthodox perspective.
A rich array of Advent resources as well as Christmas and Epiphany from Churchyear.net
Blue Eyed Ennis has a great list of Advent resources on her blog that are worth looking at.
Some great ideas from Intreractive worship – for Advent: The Feeling of Waiting and Prayers of the People Station as well as this community-made icon really inspired me.
Plan an Advent or Christmas Outreach
Christmas is the season when all of us think of giving to our favourite charities, the homeless and the poor, but there are other ways to that we can give at this season.
United Methodist Church has some good ideas for an Advent outreach in this article – everything from scavenger hunt with random acts of kindness to Christmas eve cookie giveaway for people who must work.
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