ABOUT THIS WORSHIP SERIES:
Advent is a season of endings and beginnings. As the calendar year comes to a close, a new church year begins. Christ’s birth ushers us into new ways of living and loving; and yet, the world as we know it spins madly on. In many ways, pregnant Mary was surrounded by endings—large and small, personal and political. But Mary proclaimed hope in a God who was and is making all things new. Christ’s birth offered a beautiful new beginning for shepherds and Magi alike—all the while, King Herod tried to bring Christ’s story to an end. When we ourselves navigate seasons filled with endings and beginnings, we need reminders. We need words that can feel like steady ground, like a path for our feet to find as we step forward into the unknown.
We have crafted an Advent series filled with blessings, with the scriptures and reminders we need to hear again and again as we begin a new season. These reminders root us in the fundamental truths of our faith. Many of them are life lessons we teach to children—lessons that adults continue to learn and relearn. They may resemble the blessings we impart to loved ones during special ceremonies like weddings, graduations, or baptisms. And so, we invite you to move through this Advent season as if you are entering a sacred new chapter, holding fast to the reminders that will bolster you for the journey ahead.
As you journey through this season, may you find words for belovedness and hope. May you find words for beginning again. For no matter what you are facing, no matter what this new day brings, love is your beginning.
ABOUT THE BUNDLE:
This is a bundle of 13 multimedia ministry resources (plus free supplements) for the first week of Advent–Epiphany (7 weeks). Download our free infographic to preview the series and scriptures included. The scriptures follow our theme and are not aligned with any lectionary.
We bundle our resources because they often overlap in use, and because we want to equip you with comprehensive materials for a whole season. However, each resource is also available separately. Scroll down this page & click the “Resource Details” buttons to learn more about each individual resource.
Release date: 2024.
HOW TO PURCHASE THE BUNDLE:
Note: All resources are digital files. Please purchase the tiered bundle price that best fits your community’s size and budget. For additional purchasing options, read this page.
WHAT’S INCLUDED IN THE BUNDLE
(All of the following are included in the bundle, but each resource is also available separately for individual purchase)
1. ADVENT DEVOTIONAL BOOKLET
(Individual Price: $18-$85)
Read, look, and sing your way through the pages of this devotional at your own pace throughout the Advent season. Each week offers art, reflections, poetry, and hymns. The devotional features biblical commentary by our guest writer, Kayla Craig, and art and reflections by our guest artist, Rev. Nicolette Peñaranda. It can be printed or shared digitally with your community.
2. WORDS FOR WORSHIP for Advent–Epiphany
(Individual Price: $25)
A collection of over 50 liturgies, this resource provides fresh language for worship inspired by the weekly texts and themes in our series, Words for the Beginning. For each Sunday in Advent, plus Christmas Eve and Epiphany Sunday, we provide: a Call to Worship, Call to Confession, Prayer of Confession, Words of Forgiveness, Prayer for Illumination, Affirmation of Faith, and Prayer of the People. We’ve also included candle lighting liturgy as well as liturgy for Holy Communion and a benediction for the series.
3. CURRICULUM for Children & Families
(Individual Price: $20)
This storytelling curriculum is designed to facilitate meaningful spiritual formation for ages 5 and up in multigenerational settings. The language is simple enough for children to understand and the prompts and activities are engaging enough for adults to participate alongside them. Each of the 6 lessons (for Advent–Epiphany) includes a main idea, opening song suggestions, an original short story inspired by scripture, time for questions and discussion, suggestions for activities to further engage the theme, and a closing prayer. In addition, we’ve provided weekly quilt square designs and instructions for creating your own fabric or paper quilt squares as an intergenerational art project throughout the season.
4. SERMON PLANNING GUIDE
(Individual Price: $15)
Our sermon guide is designed for preachers, worship planners, and adult education leaders. For each Sunday in our series, this guide offers:
Biblical commentary (written by our guest contributor, Kayla Craig)
Theme connections
Considerations for the week
Guiding questions
Inspiration for further reading & research
5. ADVENT CALENDARS FOR CHILDREN & ADULTS
(Individual Price: $5-$55)
This Advent season, let words be your beginning each day. This year, we have two Advent calendars—one for children and young families, and one for older teens and adults. Our children’s Advent calendar is designed for coloring and can be printed on 11x17 paper. Starting on December 1st, count down the days of Advent by coloring in a shape within our Advent quilt containing a daily word. Then, talk about what the word means as a family and try to use it throughout your day. Our adult (and teen-friendly) calendar is a photo-a-day challenge you can share online. The daily words are the same for both calendars so all ages can engage in this daily practice.
6. CHILDREN’S WORSHIP BULLETINS
(Individual Price: $12)
These weekly worship bulletins invite children (elementary age) to engage in worship through coloring, storytelling, reading, and drawing. Each week’s bulletin includes a quilt square design to color, colorable images of each week’s focal text, as well as prompts and prayers.
Offer these to children in worship, and/or send them home with families.
7. STAR WORDS (W/ LITURGY)
(Individual Price: $20)
We created our Words for the Beginning star words to build on the contemporary ritual of passing out intention words on Epiphany—a tradition growing in popularity amongst many Protestant churches. Inspired by the Magi following the star to Jesus, the tradition of selecting a star word to meditate on throughout the new year can deepen your self-reflection and prayer practices. We’ve provided beautifully designed star words to print and distribute to your congregation, along with an accompanying liturgy for incorporating this ritual into your Epiphany worship. We’ve included 170 star words—a number of which are non-English words.
8. ADVENT POEMS
(Individual Price: $12)
This collection of eight poetic prayers explores the Words for the Beginning theme and scriptures for our series. Honest and intimate, these poems offer meditations that might become prayers of your own.
I knew it the first moment I met you / heard your name / learned there are 7 billion of us
on this planet.
I knew it in my bones,
the way my feet know the way home.
You are a blessing.
For our creating God
breathed life into your being.
And there is simply no way that,
along with that life,
some of God’s goodness
didn’t slip right in…
—Rev. Sarah (Are) Speed, excerpt from “Joy and Celebration”
9. VISUAL ART COLLECTION
(Individual Price: $60)
This is a collection of 11 visuals inspired by the focal texts in our series. These art pieces, created in a variety of mediums—acrylic painting, collage, block prints, silk painting, and digital media—are visual meditations on these scriptures. With each visual, we include written statements from the artists. We also provide a visio divina bible study guide for you to use these images in a group session incorporating the ancient Benedictine spiritual practice of "divine seeing." This collection includes artwork created by our guest artist, Rev. Nicolette (Faison) Peñaranda.
10. Lessons & Laughter Liturgy for Christmas
(Individual Price: $12)
Inspired by our theme and the tradition of Lessons & Carols, we have crafted a “Lessons & Laughter” creative liturgy for the first Sunday after Christmas. This service is meant to be low-prep (for worship leaders who might be subbing for ministers on vacation). It interweaves joy and playfulness with scripture readings that emphasize all of creation rejoicing. The order of worship includes three lessons; in each lesson, there is a scripture reading, a hymn/song, and a creative response rooted in joy.
11. BRANDING BUNDLE
(Individual Price: $45)
We’ve put together a full branding package with logo files, graphics, design elements, background images, and a branding story PDF to inform you on the best practices for how to utilize these files and effectively share the Words for the Beginning theme with your community through digital and print communications.
12. BANNER DESIGN
(Individual Price: $20)
This Advent, project & trace this design to create a painted or paper lace banner for your sanctuary or sacred space. We hope this design (and our instructional materials) can simply be a starting point for you to create art and beauty that is uniquely your own. The download also includes a large file for printing the design as a large vinyl banner if you don’t have the capacity to create one.
13. BONUS RESOURCE: THEME SONG + music video
(Individual Price: $25)
This Advent, we're delighted to premiere our theme song, "Echolocation" created by The Bengsons.
The song is about reaching for—or “echolocating”—hope. The primordial tone of the song makes it feel connected to the beginning of time, but also the time of Jesus’ birth, and today. As you listen and sing along, perhaps you will imagine a people yearning for a messiah, wanting to see the sun metaphorically rise again. Maybe you will think of the wisemen, those hearing the news of hope entering the world as they journey through the dark. May the song help you embody hope this season and point you toward the light of that bright star that continues to shine in our eyes.
You are welcome to show this video in worship or other ministry events. We also have sheet music for a SATB choir and Alto soloist with piano accompaniment. The song features a stomp/clap score you can teach to your choir.
(Note: All patrons of the full Advent bundle automatically receive access to the theme song as soon as it’s released.)
Free Supplemental Materials
To help you implement all of the materials in the bundle, we’ve progressively released the following materials:
BONUS ADD-ONS:
ORIGINAL HYMNS
This is a collection of seven original hymns inspired by our weekly sub-themes, written by Rev. Anna Strickland. Each hymn offers new words to sing with familiar tunes. Download the sheet music to include these hymns in your worship. Note: These hymns are also included in our Advent devotional booklet for individuals and families to sing at home.
A CONTENT CALENDAR FOR SOCIAL MEDIA
To support you in sharing this Advent series with your community online, we’ve mapped out a content calendar with social media posts for you to share with your online community throughout the season. We’ve carefully selected images, graphics, and excerpts that feature the art, poems, commentary, and themes in the series. The calendar is a free gift only to patrons who purchase the full Advent bundle.
ON OUR BLOG:
MUSIC IDEAS FOR WORSHIP
In this blog post, we’ve curated a long list of music ideas—both traditional and contemporary—for worship, fellowship, and listening. Use this for your worship planning.
A Liturgy for Endings & Beginnings
We offer this simple worship outline as a way to make space for difficult emotions during the holiday season, particularly grief around endings and anxiety for new beginnings. You might use this liturgy for a Longest Night or Blue Christmas service.
Banners for Adornment
Printed-to-order banners to adorn your sacred space! (Not included in the bundle)
Order these custom banners to adorn your sacred space, perfect for bringing the Words for the Beginning theme to life in your sanctuary.
Small banner: 34.5"x56" flag material with grommets ($35)
Table tapestry: 60"x80" soft blanket material with a hem ($45)
Meet our guest contributors
The talented writer, artist, and musicians we’ve partnered with to bring these resources to life!
Guest writer
Kayla Craig
Commentary writer
Kayla Craig (she/her) is a former journalist who brings deep curiosity and care to her writing. She’s the author of two books: Every Season Sacred: Reflections, Prayers, and Invitations to Nourish Your Soul and Nurture Your Family throughout the Year and To Light Their Way: A Collection of Prayers & Liturgies for Parents. Kayla graduated from Drake University with a B.A. in Magazine Journalism from Drake's well-known School of Journalism & Mass Communication. She minored in Sociology and English, and has been writing professionally for more than 15 years. With a poetic, prophetic voice, she created the popular “Liturgies for Parents” Instagram account, which Christianity Today named an “essential parenting resource.” She also hosts the Liturgies for Parents podcast. Kayla’s nuanced and accessible reflections, essays, and prayers are featured in various books, devotionals, and Bible studies. Kayla lives in a 115-year-old former convent in her Iowa hometown, where she hopes to create spaces of welcome alongside her four children, two dogs, and husband, Jonny.
GUEST ARTIST
Rev. Nicolette FAISON
Guest artist
Rev. Nicolette “Nic” (she/her) is a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America serving as the Program Director for African Descent Ministries. Nic is the creator of MONadvocacy, a racial justice resource grounded in play, as well as the “Talks at the Desk” series which celebrates the voices of leaders in the ELCA African descent community: livinglutheran.org/2022/02/a-love-letter-to-african-descent-communities.
She is passionate about queer Black liberation, cultivating diverse leadership in faith spaces, and the art of creation. She is also the illustrator of God's Holy Darkness, written by Sharei Green and Beckah Selnick (Beaming Books, 2022). The book deconstructs anti-Blackness in Christian theology by celebrating instances in the story of God's people when darkness, blackness, and night are beautiful, good, and holy. She resides in the Chicagoland area with her spouse, two daughters, and two cats, Penne Pablo and Rigatoni Braxton.
Guest musicians
The Bengsons
Guest musicians
Abigail (she/her) and Shaun (he/him) Bengson are a married composing and performing duo raising two children in Queens. They believe grief and joy are the same thing. They are interested in anything that gets us all free. In 2020, they released The Keep Going Song on Youtube, which quickly went viral and became an anthem and source of comfort for many.
Three of their singles have been featured on “So You Think You Can Dance” (FOX). Their theater work includes The Keep Going Songs (Lincoln Center Theater of NYC), Sovereignty Hymns (La Jolla Playhouse), The Keep Going Song (Actors Theatre of Louisville), My Joy is Heavy (Arena Stage), Hundred Days (La Jolla Playhouse, New York Theatre Workshop, US Tour), The Lucky Ones (Ars Nova), Where the Mountain Meets the Sea (ATL’s Humana Festival; Manhattan Theatre Club), Anything That Gives Off Light (Edinburgh Theatre Festival), You’ll Still Call Me By Name (New York Live Arts, Jacob's Pillow), and Iphigenia in Aulis (Classic Stage Company). They have received the Jonathan Larson and Richard Rodgers Awards and nominations for the Drama Desk, Drama League, and Lucille Lortel Awards.