This page contains some of our newest and/or most promising resources. These items are available physically and/or online. They are organized alphabetically by title.
Many of the online resources are available through the Internet Archive or Ministry Matters. To learn how to use these online resources, check out the links below for guides about each.
Advent for Everyone: Matthew
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All the Good: A Wesleyan Way of Christmas
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Awaiting the Child
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Isabel Anders contrasts “summery spirituality” with “wintry spirituality,” and, like her, I tend to identify with the wintry view. She writes: “No summer day is ever without a reminder that this is not the condition one can expect of the whole year….When all of life is too light, too full, we may be deceived into thinking we deserve its benefits and comforts. Winter does not allow us that option….Wintry spirituality is a kind of awareness, an acceptance of paradox, the coexistence of the irreconcilable….To emerge from the winter of the soul as still oneself, is to affirm the permanent goodness of creation, to validate life as it has been given. Though life is never again the same, yet it is wholly renewed.”… In Advent we prepare for the coming of all Love, that love which will redeem all the brokenness, wrongness, hardness of heart which have afflicted us. Awaiting the Child is lovingly written, and my response as I read it was an inner warmth as my own love was rekindled.—Madeleine L’Engle, from the Introduction
Between Two Worlds
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I would press on to say that everything of value in our human existence takes time. From the birth of a child to the fostering of relationships, from the acquisition of knowledge to the development of skills, most truly valued things take time to develop. That is why the highest educational degrees take the most time to earn. It is the investment of time itself, just as much as the accumulated knowledge, that makes the degree valued and respected. And why should we not be expected to wait for the coming of Christ? Is not the Incarnation the most cherished, most anticipated of events for all Christians? Of course we are asked to wait.—from the Introduction
Cheer Our Spirits, Make Safe the Way
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Christmas
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Donald Heinz’s sociological and historical study of Christmas is an accessibly written celebration of “incarnational excess” and certain kinds of exuberance surrounding the observance of the Feast of the Nativity through the centuries. It is also a lament about the ways that western consumer culture has depleted the festival of much of its meaning in recent decades. However, this critique is quite different from the strident sloganeers who ask “Whose birthday is it anyway?” or declare “Jesus is the reason for the season” and “Keep Christ in Christmas.”... Heinz’s thesis is that Christ’s incarnation was itself a fleshy, risky endeavor; thus a celebration of the Nativity rightly should offer rich, sensory experiences, even if the celebrative exuberance entails the risk of becoming over excessive…. He believes that Christmas should be a feast for the senses, especially the eyes, the ears, and (to a certain extent) the stomach. At the same time, he condemns the endless appetite of consumerism, which, he believes, has depleted the festival of its meaning.—Joy A. Schroeder, Dialog: A Journal of Theology 52(3): 275 (Fall 2013: September)
Christmas: Theological Anticipations
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Christmas in the Four Gospel Homes
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Christmas Is Not Your Birthday
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Cloth for the Cradle
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This book is rather like a jigsaw puzzle—full of small pieces from which the reader/liturgy planner has to select in order to finish their own Christmas picture. There are no complete services here, only an assortment of texts from the Iona Community, tried and tested by them over the past twelve years….Once more the Iona Community challenge us to think twice about our assumptions and traditions. The contents of this ‘book of bits’ should be compulsory reading for anyone charged with planning a service of reading and carols; they will not see those familiar stories in the same way again. —Teresa Brown, Music & Liturgy 24(3): 54 (Autumn 1998)
Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus
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God Is with Us
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In these twenty-five brief reflections, Trotter invites us to meditate on the heart of the Christmas message: God’s gift to us at Christmas is God’s self in a baby, the most vulnerable being imaginable. The gift that God calls us to give to others is ourselves, in care, love, and vulnerability—the risking of one’s self for the sake of God, others, and self….As Tom Trotter leads us to focus upon the gift of ourselves to others at Christmas, he asks us to ponder the truth of Christmas which is “the theme of all the great religions that those without food or shelter or rights or privilege have a claim on those who do have those things.” As a response to the ‘”politics of indifference,” in Jesus’ day and ours, the theme of Christmas is God’s care for those who have been without care.—Rosemary Keller, from the Foreward (sic), p.12-13.
Goodness and Light
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Home for Christmas
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In the Spirit of Wonder: A Christmas Anthology for Our Age
This volume, published in 1961, includes poetry and prose by such writers as Boris Pasternak, Rainer Maria Rilke, W.H. Auden, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Sigrid Undset, and Thomas Mann.“…the editor has gathered the thoughts of men about the mystery of the Nativity. Exquisite care has gone into the selection. And the gathering has been guided always by the spirit of wonder resident in the editor herself. I do not doubt that wonder will rise in the spirit of the reader, as he reads, reflects, meditates.” (John Courtney Murray, S.J., from the Introduction)
Journey to the Manger
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Just in Time!: Advent Services
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Light to the Darkness
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In this fresh new interpretation of lessons and carols, Katerina Whitley retells the stories in the form of dramatic monologue and dialogue, helping listeners to hear them as if for the very first time. With music suggestions that range from the traditional to the unexpected, Light to the Darkness is a resource for churches planning meaningful Advent services—and for individuals seeking a new way to mark the days of this holy season.—from the back cover
The Living Nativity: Preparing for Christmas with Saint Francis
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The Living Nativity explores how nativity sets, Advent wreaths, candles, carols, Christmas cards, and other traditions help prepare our hearts for the God "who bends low to enter our world and our lives." Prayer poems for each day of the season lead readers to deepen their spiritual journey, and the book provides a guided pattern for individuals and small groups to share reflections and experience activities that open their hearts to the Christ child.
The Mood of Christmas
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In the pages that follow there are many gentle sharings of the religious spirit apotheosized in the Christian interpretation of the Christmas season. For this we affirm our solidarity with the whole human race in its long struggle to become humane and to reveal the divinity in which all mankind shares….To the strong and the weak, to the happy and the sorrowful, to the barren and the fruitful womb, to the devout believer and the arrogant unbeliever, to the Christian and the non-Christian, there is the ever-present hope that tidings of great joy will find their way into the heart and life.—Howard Thurman, from the Preface
One Hundred Meditations for Advent and Christmas
We remind one another of this good news during Advent and Christmas. We remember that the full reign of God will overthrow and replace the false reality of hatred, greed, corruption, and war. Our remembrance is the transforming Christmas story we love to hear and desire to tell to all the world…. We encourage on another to walk the earth singing because we know that the illusions of this world are giving way to the reality of God’s reign of love, justice, mercy, peace, and goodness. These scripture readings, meditations, and prayers can help us leave the world of illusion behind and live in the real world of God’s reign and presence, even today.—Rueben P. Job, from the introduction
A Surprising God
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The Internet Archive also has many Advent and Christmas devotional works available freely online. These can be checked out for limited periods. Click on the links below to discover what is available.
