So now that we are moving into Advent, what Advent devotional is guiding you? It is really an easy question. How are you spiritually nurturing yourself in advent anticipation for the coming of Christ? Think and pray carefully because griping about secularity doesn’t count and doesn’t help.
Sunday night I got laughing as Jolynn pulled out four different Advent Devotionals to read. I picked one which looked different, and I thought would spiritually challenge us. For years it has been our habit to use a nightly devotional (mostly The Upper Room), but four seemed like a little much.
The next morning I woke up thinking about it. She had spent far more time in preparation for deep spiritual life in Advent than I had. She at taken extra time at her church to gather some of the various resources they had offered people. The more I thought about it the more humbled I was.
Advent offers us a profound opportunity. Taken with an open, inviting and attentive spiritual depth instead of grim grousing, Advent ushers us into joy. In recent reading from Bishop Ruben Job’s A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God, Bishop Job calls “Joy to the World” an advent hymn instead of a Christmas hymn. It calls, he asserted, to an anticipatory joy. This may sound obvious but to me it was revelatory.
Later that day for other reasons, I got thinking about the great non-negotiable doctrines of the Church. Luther at one point in his prolific career insisted that you could do away with the miracles and if you hung on to the doctrine of incarnation (God in the flesh in the birth of Jesus entering human life), it alone was enough (see The Martin Luther Christmas Book translated and arranged by Roland Bainton).
It is here my world and attitude towards Advent shifts. The joy of the Savior’s coming calls us to prepare in glad tidings of great love and to reflect such preparation in our attitudes and actions. A couple of resources might be helpful. One is a recent sermon calling for serious adult discipleship. It is offered by Rev. Joy Moore, pastor of Mosaic United Methodist Church in Evans, Georgia, and ties into a recent blog (and sermon) I have shared entitled “Deep Calls to Deep.” Advent offers a deeper more meaningful relationship with the Lord. You may find it here.
The second is an article I came across while reading Leading Ideas: Lewis Center for Church Leadership (November 2, 2016 edition). I have long maintained that Advent is “prime time evangelism. People are open to the Christian in an unusually receptive way. This especially true at Christmas Eve.
“Pastor Carey Nieuwhof says unchurched people want to celebrate Christmas, so there is no better time to connect with friends and neighbors who rarely, if ever, go to church. He offers ten ways your church can be involved in the unique opportunity to reach people at Christmas.” He goes on to list ten ways:
1. Hold multiple services.
2. Theme the event around your community, not around your church.
3. Hand out invitation cards.
4. Make posters.
5. Build a special Christmas Website.
6. Use social media.
7. Sell (free) tickets.
8. Love your community.
9. Invite them back.
10. Plan a Call to Action.
(“Ten Ways to Reach Unchurched People at Christmas", Carey Nieuwhof).
There is more, much more, to be said and offered but for now I close with brother Martin. “The Gospel,” [said Martin Luther], “is not so much a miracle as a marvel” (Martin Luther, The Martin Luther Christmas Book translated and arranged by Roland Bainton). We are moving into the joy of Advent!