Advent: A Wonderful Time To Be A Worship Leader

It’s my yearly time to speak into the contemporary worship community and experience regarding the Advent/Christmas season. Here is last year’s letter for reference.

This is a heads up to all worship leaders, and friends who join our community here. It is also a loving cry to our creative leaders for attention to the season into which we are about to enter.

Next Sunday, Advent begins, and worship leaders should attend to its themes, and its history.

We reclaim themes such incarnation, expectation, redemption, eschaton and new creation, in such vibrant ways, in this season of the Church year.

Nowhere moreso do we move the soul toward these remembrances, reclaimings and reimaginings as through the new, and old, songs of Christmas (see SimpleCarols post below).

I think I’ve decided that the beauty and power of Advent is accentuated by most of the carols, and that there is a reason I long for the season to come. It’s definitely my favorite time of year to engage the privilege of being a worship leader.

I wouldn’t trade the role for any artist wanderings or creative forays, this privilege of simply leading people in the traditional carols on a weekly basis through the Advent and Christmas season.

Some may suggest nostalgia is a part of the draw, and they may not be far off on one level, but so many of the carols exude the simple elucidation of an otherwise complex mystery.

We begin again the Christian year – the according of time around the epicentral themes of the Scriptures, and the Christ event.

Lead your community, along with other spiritual leaders in your community, in the Advent journey.

AVAILABLE NOW

Sheltering Mercy and Endless Grace help us rediscover the rich treasures of the Psalms—through free-verse prayer renderings of their poems and hymns—as a guide to personal devotion and meditation. Sheltering Mercy helps the reader pray Psalms 1-75; Endless Grace leads in prayer through Psalms 76-150.

The church has always used the Psalms as part of its prayer life, and they have inspired countless other prayers. Each book contains 75 prayers drawn from the Book of Psalms, providing lyrical sketches of what authors Ryan Smith and Dan Wilt have seen, heard, and felt while sojourning there. Each prayer is a response to the Psalms written in harmony with Scripture. These prayers help us quiet our hearts before God and welcome us into a safe place amid the storms of life.

These artful, poetic, and classic devotional books are a perfect gift, and feature compelling stunning illustrations and hardcover binding, offering a fresh way to reflect on and pray the Psalms. Co-written with Ryan Whitaker Smith, Brazos Publishing.

Pre-Order below, and join my email list, to get author notes and updates about the book and events around it. 

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