Advent Candles Year 4 Narrative Lectionary

Advent Candle Suggestion: In our Church we do Candles as our Children’s Time, We have our small collection of children light the candles youngest to eldest (whoever is there), those who haven’t gone go first. It is impromptu, not planned. It saves on having to schedule and ensures that the candles are lit and we spend children’s time explaining the meaning of the candle and how it relates the story of the week. If you don’t have children, I bet you could do this with your deacons as well.

Week 1: Hope/Prophesy

God you whisper to us, when we dare not hope suggesting to us the impossible

Mortal do you think these bones can live?

God it is in your multitude of knowledge, that we say the answer back to you, you know

Speak hope to the bones

We will speak hope together

Come let us speak the hope of the Holy Spirit today, and Live!

Lighting Hymns: Live Into Hope, Taize: Bless the Lord my Soul, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence (v. 1)

Week 2: Peace/Purpose

God promises that all those who thirsts will drink, all those who hunger will be fed

Come, the banquet is set, all are invited

Truly peace shall reign, for everyone shall have enough

Come, and listen, so that you may live. I will make you an everlasting covenant

Who wants to taste and See the Lord?

Come, let us practice this peace today and everyday

Lighting Hymns: Comfort Comfort You My People, Taize Nada the Turbe, O Come O Come Emmanuel v. 3, God of Peace (to the tune of Silent Night)

Week 3: Joy/God’s Word

God we are ready for your Word

The Word was with God, and the Word was God

Your joy shines through troubles, more than just happiness, God’s Word is life sustaining Joy!

All things come to being through God, and without God not one thing came into being.

Each of us have a spark of that joy within us!

Come let us renew our joy with God!

Hymns: O Come O Come Emmanuel v. 2, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence v. 2 & 3, Joy to the World Taize: The Kingdom of God, O Come All Ye Faithful

Week 4: Love/Good News

Hymns: The First Nowell, What Child is This

God we are thankful you unleashed your love into the world

Good News has come

There is nothing like the love of God

Filling the world with good news

Reminding us that hope, joy and peace are possible, fulfilling the promises of the covenant

Come let us whisper that God is coming soon!

Hymn Suggestions: It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence v. 1 & 4, Come Thou Long Expected Jesus v 3 & 4, O Love that Wilt Not Let Me Go, Of the Father’s Love Begotten, Taize: Magnificat

Christmas

All is well, Christ is here

Hear the Good News of Great Joy.

Christ has come, the baby is here!

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Guardian, the Heir of Peace!

Come let us worship the Lord

Glory to God, One Earth Peace, and Goodwill towards humankind!

More Advent Resources: Year 4

If you find these resources useful please consider contributing to my Doctorate in Ministry in Creative Writing!

Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ. She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible. "Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times.

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