-
Worship TOGETHER is important
After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:“Salvation belongs to our God,who sits on the…
-
Advent is war
Finishing the calendar year in Advent also brings my reading into Revelation. (NOTE: While it is the end of the “calendar year”, it is the beginning of the Church Year.) Over my lifetime I have gone through a lot of changed thinking when it comes to the Book of Revelation. It has become to me a book of HOPE. But that hope…
-
Advent is Rude
Stepping into the Anglican tradition this year brings deeper reflection on this season of Advent. Our worship each Sunday is far more reflective and “somber” than the rest of the season indicates all around us.
-
Advent calls us to deep examination
“Today I have one concern and one concern only — to bring before you the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. How can we not love him with every fiber of our being? We were unworthy, but he counted us worthy. We deserved judgment, but he gave us mercy. We were slaves to sin and death, but he gave himself…
-
The season of darkness and longing
Advent begins in darkness. Advent calls us to examination and to remember the coming judgments of Christ. We don’t like darkness. We don’t like waiting. We’ve misinterpreted “judgment” so we don’t like that, either. So, in the process, we’ve diminished a season that is very much needed in the Church.
-
We need our peace disturbed
Some thoughts from Fleming Rutledge’s great work, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ: “Advent begins in the dark.”
-
What have I offered today?
Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions. — Henri Nouwen
-
The darkness of Advent and communal lament
“Unlike American Christianity, the Bible is not individualistic, but thoroughly social in its orientation. When the Church groans with Isaiah, ‘Thou hast hid they face far from us,’ it speaks as a corporate body with a common lot. If one suffers, all suffer.” — Fleming Rutledge, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Christ
-
Why Pentecostals Should Observe Advent
I am a slow learner. Over the past decade I have worked to understand the liturgical year more and incorporate key elements into my Pentecostal ministry. I am still learning. (The upside of that is I will probably die while I’m still learning something.)
-
Advent and the anticipation
“Our lives are eschatologically stretched between the sneak preview of the new world being born among us in the church, and the old world where the principalities and powers are reluctant to give way. In the meantime, which is the only time the church has ever known, we live as those who know something about the fate of the world…
Tag: Advent
