New worship resources for Advent

At Advent, Christians find themselves looking in two directions. Even as they remember Christ’s nativity, they also anticipate his coming again. Like the season of Lent, Advent is an opportunity for Christians to examine where they are now in light of where they have come from and where they are going.

For those seeking ways to engage Advent thoughtfully and intentionally this year, the Anglican Church of Canada and some of its partners will provide a number of resources to spark personal reflection.

Last year, the Anglican Church of Canada released a six-episode podcast produced by saint benedict’s table, an Anglican liturgical ministry in the diocese of Rupert’s Land. That tradition will continue this year with a seven-episode podcast starting in the week before the first Sunday of Advent (Nov. 30) and going through to Christmas. The podcast features a delegation from the Episcopal diocese of Cuba who participated in the justice camp hosted by the diocese of Edmonton in August.

All seven members of the delegation provided reflections that were recorded in Spanish, and both Spanish- and English-language versions will be available. The podcast will be broadcast weekly, with the last two episodes being released on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Leadership in the Anglican and Episcopal churches have also teamed up with leaders from the Evangelical Lutheran Church partners, with whom they are in full communion, to create a series of advent reflections. Both podcasts and reflections can be found at anglican.ca/resources/advent/.

The Society of Saint John the Evangelist is once again offering their modern take on the Advent calendar using Pinterest, a social media platform. Each day during Advent a new window will become available to open on their Pinterest page (www.pinterest.com/iamepiscopalian/advent-calendar/) to reveal an Advent word, meditation or image to spark personal devotions.

The ecumenical justice organization KAIROS Canada has also produced a resource (available for free download from their website at www.kairoscanada.org) on the theme of reconciliation called “Building Reconciled Relationships.” The resource, which includes prayers, sermon notes and information on KAIROS’s work, encourages Christians to reflect on the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and to imagine what living reconciliation might look like.