Advent is the from the Latin word, adventus, which means “the coming.”

In this season of anticipation of the Incarnation, we want to give you and your community the gift of 4 beautifully designed Advent Responsive Readings, with corresponding scripture readings from the Book Of Common Prayer. All are written by yours truly, and seek to be contemporary in nature, poetic in spirit, theologically rich, biblically strong, and devotionally inspiring.

Click here to download them or on the image below:

The First Week Of Advent
Come Lord Jesus

The Second Week Of Advent
A Savior Will Come

The Third Week Of Advent
A Peacemaker Will Come

The Fourth Week Of Advent
A King Will Come

FREE LIVE WEBINAR with DAVID RUIS (Indigika, “You Are Worthy Of My Praise”) and Host Dan Wilt, M.Min.

Topic: “What Is God Saying To Creative Leaders In An Emerging World?”

Wed., Dec. 3rd, 2:00-3:30 PM EST / 11:00-12:30 PM PST.

REGISTER FREE, to join in LIVE via phone or web (or hear the mp3).

The Webinar is limited to 1,000 attendees.

Reserve your spot for this special Webinar.

Sponsored by EssentialsCourse.com, WorshipMusic.com and DanWilt.com

Linked to the image to the left is a PDF of a Thanksgiving reading that I penned, called “Hands Wide Open: A Thanksgiving Prayer Reading”, in honor of a holiday designated for us to voice our thanks.

Hope my friends don’t mind if I ask for the price of a bagel and coffee for it. It’s an artist’s time and energy thing, and I have teenagers to raise. If you really can’t afford the $5, just let me know and I’ll email you one.

A sample of it is below. If you want to use it for your community or family, click here to download a full version of the reading (small fee, designed PDF version).

WITH HANDS HELD OPEN: A Thanksgiving Prayer Reading
By Dan Wilt

Celebrant: We give thanks, and lift the cup of joy to God.
Community: We are grateful, O God, for the wine of everlasting joy we drink at Your table.

Celebrant: We give thanks, and break the bread of hope in the presence of God.
Community: We are grateful, O God, for the bread of living hope we eat at Your table.

Celebrant: We give thanks, and pass the plate of friendship to our neighbor.
Community: We are grateful, O God, for the plate of love and friendship we share at Your table.

Full version.

(Note: On How This Reading Can Be Done At A Meal: If this reading is shared as a grace to a Thanksgiving meal, the actions mentioned may be symbolically done to enhance the experience, or as an act of Eucharist (communion).

Consider lifting a cup, breaking a loaf of bread, passing a small plate of that bread, and sharing communion before you read the “reconciliation” lines. This would mean that the whole reading is done very slowly, allowing time for the elements to be distributed.

Then, once the bread and cup have been taken, and the reconciliation lines are read, a toast to the resurrection can occur and the final prayers of gratefulness.)

Jeremy Begbie on Music In God’s World - Thanksgiving

“Music making and music hearing are ways we engage the physical world. Even in the case of electronically generated music, the body is often involved through, say, a keyboard, and patterns of vibrating air are mediated through physical speakers.

The physical things we involve ourselves with in music have ultimately arisen through the free initiative of God’s love—they are part of the ordo amoris. To treat them as given in this full sense has a series of radical implications for understanding music. The most basic response of the Christian toward music will be gratitude. This does not mean giving unqualified thanks for every bit of music we hear, but it will mean being thankful for the very possibility of music.

It will mean regularly allowing a piece of music to stop us in our tracks and make us grateful that there is a world where music can occur, that there is a reality we call ‘matter’ that oscillates and resonates, that there is sound, that there is rhythm built into the fabric of reality, that there is the miracle of the human body, which can receive and process sequences of tones.

For from all this and through all this, the marvel of music is born. None of it had to come into being. But it has, for the glory of God and for our flourishing. Gaining a Christian mind on music means learning the glad habit of thanksgiving.”

special thanks to Dave Congdon at the Fire and the Rose blog for lifting out this quote.

Here are the Simple Carols: Chords That Work; All The Words Christmas carol chord charts.

Simplified chord charts for individuals and bands, guitarists, keyboard, etc. with all (or most of) the words.

Hope my friends don’t mind if I ask for the price of two bagels and two coffees for it. It’s an artist’s time and energy thing, and I have teenagers to raise. If you really can’t afford the $10, just let me know and I’ll email you one.

A sample chart is below, and 9 others are part of the full pack, including:

Angels We Have Heard On High, Hark The Herald Angels Sing, It Came Upon The Midnight Clear, Joy To The World, O Come All Ye Faithful, O Come O Come Emmanuel, O Holy Night, Silent Night, The First Noel and What Child Is This?

You can get the whole set of 10 Christmas carols here for $10 (so Dan can buy a Christmas present for his children. Ha.)

Here’s a sample of “O Come O Come Emmanuel.”

The full version, and fully designed PDF can be purchased here for printing (small fee), but this is a sample below.

Hope my friends don’t mind if I ask for the price of a bagel and coffee for it. It’s an artist’s time and energy thing, and I have teenagers to raise. If you really can’t afford the $5, just let me know and I’ll email you one.

INCARNATION: A Christmas Reading
by Dan Wilt, M.Min.

Celebrant: The fire of heaven has taken on flesh.
Community: Living God, You are the Wonderful Counselor.

Celebrant: The voice of stars and suns is now audible to our ears.
Community: Living God, You are the Mighty God.

Celebrant: The love that binds all the cosmos has revealed Himself.
Community: Living God, You are the Everlasting Father.

It goes on from here to invite the whole community into engagement with the God who intervenes in a world He is righting. Hope it can serve your community this Advent and Christmas.

Click here if you’d like the full version.

I believe that leaders in the emerging world have much to learn from the basic idea contained in the fourth degree of love.

If the video doesn’t show up, just click on one of the buttons below.

I don’t know what makes me more proud - the catch or the release!

Thanks to my cousin Jeremy for the fine footage and music.

From the content of our interactions over the past weeks, these should be real keepers for today’s church.

We tried to engage the Indescribable. See how we did, and take the time to check them out below.

Half of my friends and family are in mourning; half of my friends and family are in celebration. Listening too closely to either makes my head hurt - though if you are one of them, my love remains just the same.

My vote was cast (a vote that shall remain anonymous) the other week by absentee ballot. I live in a beautiful country neighbouring my native United States, Canada. My wife cast her vote as well, and has kept me quite interested in her perspective by her years of living outside of the United States in countries that hunger for the kinds of freedom in which we bask across North America.

The radio says that the jury is in. The ballots have decided, and we have a new president.

I say, the jury is still out - not on the presidential question, but on the world civilization question.

How melodramatic. But, for me, the jury is still out.

In both ears, I hear the tears and cheers of those who stood on opposing sides of the ballot box.

But inside my head, I hear a question that transcends “We need change now,” or “That guy is an idiot,” or “War must never be an option,” or “our precious freedom, protected with many generation’s blood, is being lost in the spirit of the age.”

The question I hear in my head, “Where is human civilization going?”

That question dis-eases me, silences my ability to cheer for one candidate or another, and leaves me in the land of queries for which no one seems to have an adequate answer.

Voting according to the grand scheme of world history, was a hard path for me. Voting according to Eden was a challenge. Voting according to an Eden that has fallen, and that welcomed bullies into the world was hard. Voting according to my conscience was confusing. Voting according to the raw stats on the rise and fall of civilizations picked at me day and night. Voting according to “what we need right now and are ready to cheer for,” was just not an option for the kind of brain/soul I’ve been given.

I’m not primarily gifted as an academic, but rather as an artist, communicator and lover of the “over-stories” that guide human beings. I have too much naivety, and too many questions, that I seem to bring to every ballot box.

So, while banners wave, Facebooks posts with 5 exclamation points flicker, hope is rekindled or worst fears are realized,

I stand still…

Praying, listening to the nagging question, and asking God “What do you think?”

Out of Interest:

Jared Diamond On Why Societies Collapse at TED.com