Prayers to be said on the four Sundays of Advent while lighting the Advent candle wreath.

Fear not, the angels would text me. Hallelujah, I’d write back.

The circle of evergreens reminds us that life and love will never end.

The stories remind us there is still and always joy in this world, but it usually comes right alongside the struggle.

This year, the Advent season seems particularly seized by a spirit of the expected, the longing.

Advent is about the new story being written in our lives.

Everything is about to change. And it already has. It will be. It was. It is. The dawn you eagerly await to end the long, cold darkness is already full sun far off in the east. Yet even after light’s return spring is months away. Thirty long years pass after His birth before the Messiah comes.

In this time of waiting, may we hold the world in our hearts. In this time of waiting, may we hold each other's hands. In this time of waiting, may we be thoughtful and introspective. In this time of waiting, may we delight in the darkness and all it teaches us. In this time of waiting, may we...

Each week until Christmas, we light a new candle on the Advent wreath, a circle of evergreens.

During Advent, we listen and keep vigil for the promise of things to come.

I was talking to someone recently about the story of her church-going life, and she told me about a time in her life that she stopped coming to church. Many people who have a story about their church-going life also have a story about taking a break from church—when they stopped going, sometimes...

Week by week, the candles remind us that fear and hopelessness recede as more warmth enters the world.

We bow our heads in order to imagine not one path, but many. We imagine a path forward for those who cannot imagine any path forward, because of poor health, financial hardship, family crises, and other roadblocks we cannot begin to understand or imagine. We struggle to imagine a path forward for...

As December opens up before us, we welcome in the gift of reflection.

December 7, 2016 “Use loneliness. Its ache creates urgency to reconnect with the world.” — Natalie Goldberg I know a little about "merry" meeting "mess" at the holidays — and by a little I mean How much time have you got? Four Christmases ago, a painful break-up sent me spinning into a long...

When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to...

Christmas doesn’t wimp out when times are hard – it comes anyway, even if there are hardly any presents.

I am always in a bit of a shock when December 1st arrives on the calendar. I always feel like there should be at least another week beyond Thanksgiving before I can even contemplate the next holiday....

Sheet Music (PDF) - In the darkness of the winter, quiet hearts beneath the sky, we are waiting for the daystar and a holy newborn’s cry. Friends and family here have gathered, gathered here from near and far, sharing hearts and...

A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more. ~ Matthew 2:18 I read those words aloud from the pulpit once a year, on Christmas Eve: a night when we celebrate the birth of hope and possibility and...