Welcome to Advent!

Our Sunday worship is the work of God’s people in the presence of God. The form of worship is often called liturgy (from two Greek words lēitos ‘public’ + -ergos ‘working’).  God is the “audience” for our work of prayer and praise. The different “seasons” of the church year help us pay attention to particular aspects of our work together, which in turn helps us be attentive to the different ways God is present among us.

This Sunday begins the new church year which opens with the season of Advent. Advent is a time of preparation for celebrating Christmas, the festival of Jesus’ first coming, AND continues the journey of faith preparing us for the return of our Savior (for which we pray fervently).

In this time, we reach back to how God prepared His people for Himself to be physically present in Jesus. We then can become more attentive to how and where God is present with us now.  We focus on simplicity in order to see more clearly what has sustained us so that we can move forward in hope as we await Jesus’ return. 

At the 9 AM worship service, we will have an Advent wreath marking the weeks. In our 11:10 AM worship, in addition to the Advent wreath, we will simplify our worship bulletin by referring only to the hymn numbers, inviting all of us to use the blue hymnals. There will still be a “full” bulletin available online (check the QR code in the pew) as well as a few hard copies for those needing larger print. 

Look for special materials in the Welcome Center to support your Advent journey.

Blessings,

Nancy+