As of this past Sunday, the Christian Church finds themselves in the season of Advent. I don’t know about you, but this season has snuck up on me (admittedly, I was a little occupied). I’ve been working on a new Advent Mixtape, but it’s not done (you can find last year’s here). I have an idea for an Advent series, but I haven’t fully thought through the concept (see past series here). I’ve had devotionals and reading plans set up on my phone to do, but I haven’t done even one day of them all this week.
But one of the beauties of the Church Calendar is that it doesn’t depend on us. The realities pointed to in these weeks are objective realities that happened (and are happening) in spite of us, and not because of us. Another beauty of the Calendar is that it happens every year, so even if we don’t engage one year like we’d like or hope, there’s always next year.
And so this means that we can relax. We can jump in whenever we can and drink deeply from the stream that flows whether we regard it or not.
To that end, I’d like to invite you all to download my church‘s free Advent 2013 Prayerbook. You can get it as a Kindle/PDF or as an Apple iBook (it looks amazing on an iPad).
This one is a little different than the Prayerbooks my church has done for the other major church seasons. Not only is the design completely different, but it also includes daily devotions and meditations written by many different writers (including weekly reflections by yours truly). It’s a joint effort with Restoration Living–a site definitely worth your time and attention.
I’ve been neglecting my other lofty Advent pursuits, but this Prayerbook I have been keeping up with. I invite you to join me. It’s been amazing, encouraging, refreshing, and challenging me to begin pressing into this season in a meaningful way. We’ll see if I can pick up some of the other things soon, but I’m not worried either way.
Advent, 2013. Welcome.
[image credit: section of Giotto di Bondone’s Adoration of the Magi]
the long way home 
Reblogged this on prayertherapyblog.
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