A gift to all my blog friends:
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
2 Comments
I would really like to combat the whole commercialization and misrepresentation of the “Christmas shopping season” and hold off on the “Christmas” celebration songs until Christmas and celebrate with those songs until Epiphany. It would be really neat to have everyone feeling that longing that I think we are supposed to feel during Advent.
Two problems however:
1) I am likely to get lynched if I wait until Christmas to do Christmas songs. It will most certainly NOT be a popular decision amongst the congregation.
2) I don’t know many “Advent” songs. “O come, O come Emmanuel” and “Come thou long expected Jesus” are the main ones that come to mind. I can’t exactly fill 4 weeks with that!
Any suggestions on dealing with either issue?
Regardless, thanks for your efforts in coming up with this reading and for sharing it with all of us.
I am really enjoying our class.
Thanks Dan.
Dan, I am looking forward to these responsive readings. I look forward to finding new and more creative ways of anticipating the coming of Christ.
Jason, I feel your pain, but I don’t fully agree that you have a problem. We can sing songs or lyrics at anytime because at anytime they can be true and we are not slave to our modern day calendar. I am sure there is some smart person that could tell us the day Christ was born was February 21st or something like that and then we can’t sing Joy to the World until spring! Getting caught up in the technicality will trap us just quick as the commercialization.
As much as I don’t like the commercialization of Christmas I dislike more the rebellion of those who are so adamant about avoiding it for the sake of getting things “right”. I would be interested to see in what other areas that demand this same standard to be applied. Sometimes I celebrate my anniversary when Delta has a sale. Sometimes I have a birthday cake when I get back to see my mom 6 months later. The point is that I rememebred and set aside a moment to say something about it. I take the month of December to celebrate the birth of Christ because it’s in the air and it’s a great time to reclaim the “holiday” for the one true God. I actually think it’s pretty cool that pagans are humming “o come let us adore him” under their breath as they shop. I think it’s pretty cool that just about the whole country stops working for one day and largely spends time with their family. Sorry about the rant, this very topic has been on my mind and some of it doesn’t directly respond to your post.
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