| Bringing you relevant inspiration, right for this moment |  | | November 2023 |  | As we enter into this busy season, we want to bless you by sharing a series of devotions on our blog. “Receiving the Gift: Daily Meditations for Reading and Reflecting,” written by Rebecca Tellinghuisen, can be used for your personal devotions or distributed to your congregation. Because of the short Advent season this year (the fourth Sunday falls on December 24, the day before Christmas), we recommend using the Week 1 readings during the final week of November to prepare for Advent. The first week’s readings and reflections will be posted Monday, November 20.
If you subscribe to the print or digital journal, you may notice that these devotions correspond with Tellinghuisen’s Christmas Eve service, “The Unexpected Gift” (p. 43, Reformed Worship 149), but the service and the devotions can be used independently of each other. Whether you use this devotional series or make use of some other RW resource, may you find time to rest and receive God’s gift to you.
~Rev. Joyce Borger, senior editor | | |  | Advent Is Hope | a service series for worship in December
Hope empowers. Hope sets in motion familiar sub-themes in the Advent season: prepare, anticipate, wait, and watch. None of these can be practiced apart from hope, and none of these is passive when it is linked to hope.
Following the texts from the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, this series includes an outline for the four Sundays of Advent with sermon notes, a service for Christmas Day, a service for the first Sunday after Christmas, directions for making a banner to go with the series, and suggestions for bulletin cover images that could be useful for projection slides and social media posts.
(Additional lectionary Year B resources from Reformed Worship) | | | | RELEVANT RESOURCES & ARTICLES | | | |  | An Angel Appeared to Them | | A Christmas drama for children and adults | | | | |  | Slowing Down | | Suggestions for the opening of Advent worship with candle lighting | | | | | | | | by Cornelius (Neal) Plantinga | | | A prayer from and for Ukraine, by Ihor Skrypnychenko | | | Liturgies on texts from Joshua 23 and Judges 4, by Katy Matejka Kroondyk | | | | Calvin Symposium on Worship, February 7-9, 2024 The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship (CICW) and the Center for Excellence in Preaching cohost this conference on the campus of Calvin University and Calvin Seminary. Attend in person in Grand Rapids, Michigan, or join a virtual cohort—one on peacemaking, one on worship planning—both hosted by Reformed Worship editor Joyce Borger. Learn more. | |  | | | Subscribe today
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