Music touches our souls in a unique way, especially around the holidays. And in this strange, isolating season, we’ll be turning to music more than usual, even if we can’t go caroling together or stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the pews on Christmas Eve as we sing “Silent Night.” Here we’ve collected hymns and songs that work well with our Those Who Dream Advent—Epiphany resources based on the Year B texts of the Revised Common Lectionary. We hope these lists inspire you to dream as you’re planning meaningful worship services in this season.
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Many of you are weary and wary of talking about money. Often, stewardship is treated as a “necessary evil.” You do the same thing year after year and need some new energy. Well, we are excited to share our very first stewardship bundle with you! A Sanctified Art has teamed up with the Vandersall Collective to bring you fresh, engaging, and relevant stewardship resources with theological depth.
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There are plenty of hymns for Lent and Advent, but what about for stewardship season? We have you covered! Here are some suggestions for hymns, praise songs, and special music that fit with the scriptures in our new stewardship series, Our Money Story. We hope you’ll use these as a starting point to plan meaningful worship services during your stewardship series.
Want to learn more about the scriptures we’ve included in our stewardship series? Download our free theme infographic!
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Last spring, we created a customizable worship series called, "Unraveled: Seeking God When Our Plans Fall Apart" about the ways God meets us in the unraveling of our lives to weave us into something new. We knew at the time that it was important, because sometimes our plans unravel into loose threads, and when that happens, we need to know God is near. We never expected a global pandemic.
Now as our churches, our cities, and our world are grappling with a new reality, the Unraveled series is even more relevant than we could have imagined.
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One of the most difficult things for me about moving to online worship platforms right now is losing the experience of singing together. Nothing can replicate the experience of singing together in one room. However, this is the kind of time where we need to sing—we need to sing our sorrows, we need to sing our hopes, and we need to sing the songs that comfort us and keep us grounded when everything is shifting around us.
Here are some of my observations about ways to lead and engage with congregational song.
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A week ago a lot of us thought we would only need to hunker down for a few weeks with the promise of singing our loud, collective “Hosanna!” in our sanctuaries come Palm Sunday. But that reality is gone now. Just this week, our mayor announced a shelter-in-place order through April 13, the day after Easter. How do we imagine the largest church services of the year in a time of social distancing? It’s not easy. It’s certainly disappointing. But we’re here to help. Here are some more ideas about being the church during the COVID-19 pandemic, with particular attention to Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and Easter. We will continue to add to this list as we learn and adapt.
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The people we encounter during Holy Week are familiar to me. I’ve spoken their lines and embodied their shame, I’ve shouted their “Crucify him!” and heard it echo through the balcony. But Sarah brought new life and new perspectives into this story I know and love so well. When I read through the Wilderness Journey Palms to Passion worship service for the first time, it felt as though I was reading another book in the same series as an old favorite. Some of the characters I knew well. Some I had never heard until Sarah gave them voice. When Lisle suggested I work on a Holy Week art piece, I began with the people…
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The wilderness of Lent has proven to be more treacherous than we’d like. With the pandemic global outbreak of COVID-19, we are faced with the unique challenge of being church to one another beyond the church walls. In a time of fear and panic, we have to show up for one another. We cannot survive this wilderness alone.
We’ve brainstormed some ideas that we hope are helpful to you as you find your way through this season of uncertainty.
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From January 27 to February 1, 2020, the whole Sanctified Art team traveled from their homes across the country to serve as artists-in-residence for the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators Annual Gathering in Little Rock, Arkansas. The theme for the week was “Getting Outside the Box,” and this experience was outside of Sanctified Art’s box. While we have all led retreats, presented workshops, or served as artists-in-residence individually, this unique opportunity blended the talents and passions of our team in a new way.
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Feel like you’re wandering through an endless landscape of music while planning Lent worship? Here we’ve collected hymns and songs that work well with our “Wilderness” Lent theme based on the Year A texts of the Revised Common Lectionary. We hope these lists help you as you’re planning meaningful worship services for the journey.
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This Lent marks our fourth year crafting art and resources inspired by the Revised Common lectionary, which means we have a large inventory of materials to support you through the seasons of Lent and Easter. To save you time (and the hassle of searching your way through older resources in our shop), we thought we’d organize all we have to offer. Get your scrolling & clicking finger ready, because there’s a lot in here!
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The Advent season is a musically rich time. Between Lessons & Carols services and the Christmas songs pumping through every car and store, music fills December. But if you’re trying hard to save the Christmas carols for Christmas as you lean into Advent, this post is for you. Here we’ve collected hymns and songs that work well with our “What Can’t Wait?” Advent theme based on the Year A texts of the Revised Common Lectionary. We hope these lists help you as you’re planning meaningful worship services that encourage action as we await the coming of Christ.
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This Advent, I’ve been practicing viewing art in community with the college ministry I work for. Each week, we’ve spent some time before worship with one of the visuals from the What Can’t Wait? Advent collection and engaged in the practice of visio divina. The experience of seeing together provided a richer, deeper view of each image than I could imagine for myself. Unencumbered by the “correct” interpretation, the students found meaning in places I had glanced over. And this beautiful collage of different ideas and interpretations has only opened up my interactions with the images, inviting me to fall into them again and again.
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The Advent season is a musically rich time. Between Lessons & Carols services and the Christmas songs pumping through every car and store, music fills December. But if you’re trying hard to save the Christmas carols for Christmas as you lean into Advent, this post is for you. Here we’ve collected hymns and songs that work well with our “What Can’t Wait?” Advent theme based on the Year A texts of the Revised Common Lectionary. We hope these lists help you as you’re planning meaningful worship services that encourage action as we await the coming of Christ.
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This Advent marks our fourth year working from the Revised Common lectionary, which means we have a large inventory of creative resources for Advent & Christmas. To save you time (and the hassle of searching your way through older resources in our shop), we thought we’d organize all we have to offer. Get your scrolling & clicking finger ready, because there’s a lot in here!
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