Worship at Home: Advent & Christmas
By Mary Scifres and B.J. Beu
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About this ebook
Each service includes essential worship elements, from gathering to benediction, with words and actions you can say and do yourself. Included are links for online musical selections plus traditional hymn suggestions from a variety of hymnals. You’ll find helpful ideas for how to use this resource in a variety of settings, and how to create worshipful spaces, even in your own home.
The Worship at Home series is organized by the liturgical year, with a new book for each season: Advent and Christmas, Lent, Easter and Eastertide, Pentecost, and the weeks after Pentecost.
Ways the resource can be used by individuals and families include:
- Individuals can use the resource for personal devotion and worship at any time, wherever they like. Go through the entire service, or simply choose whatever portions are helpful. Read a prayer and meditate. Watch a video clip and reflect on it. Sing a song or hymn.
- Families can use Worship at Home in the same ways, any time and any place.
- Suggestions are included for creating worship spaces at home, and for involving children in the services.
Here are some ways the resource can be used by a congregation or group:
- Pastors or group leaders can use Worship at Home as the worship plans for weekly church services. The pastor might prepare a sermon or homily, but everything else is ready to go.
- People can use the resource for worship in any space—at a senior care center, in a park, on the lawn, at the church, and so forth. No bulletins or hymnals are needed.
- People gathered to worship via Zoom, FaceTime, Facebook or Instagram Live, or livestream will all be reading aloud the same prayers from these books, singing the same songs or singing along with a video. Worship at Home provides a participatory experience and a sense of community, even when people are worshiping remotely.
Mary Scifres
Mary Scifres is a United Methodist pastor, teacher, and consultant who inspires and equips twenty-first-century leaders in creative worship, church growth, visioning, and strategic planning. She is co-author of The United Methodist Music and Worship Planner and its ecumenical counterpart, Prepare!, and author of the worship evangelism book Searching for Seekers. A graduate of Boston University, she holds both the Master of Divinity and Master of Sacred Music degrees. Mary lives in Laguna Beach, California.
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Worship at Home - Mary Scifres
WORSHIP
at HOME
ADVENT and CHRISTMAS 2020
Other Resources for Worship and Preaching
The Abingdon Worship Annual
Mary Scifres and B. J. Beu
The Abingdon Preaching Annual
Prepare! An Ecumenical Music and Worship Planner
Mary Scifres and David Bone
The United Methodist Music and Worship Planner
Mary Scifres and David Bone
Find a rich collection of free and subscription resources for weekly worship and preaching at ministrymatters.com/worship.
ADVENT and CHRISTMAS 2020
WORSHIP
at HOME
MARY SCIFRES
AND B. J. BEU
WORSHIP AT HOME: ADVENT AND CHRISTMAS 2020
Copyright © 2020 by Mary Scifres and B. J. Beu
All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed in writing to Permissions, Abingdon Press, 2222 Rosa L. Parks Blvd., Nashville, TN 37228-1306, or permissions@abingdonpress.com.
ISBN: 9781791020279
Scripture quotations unless noted otherwise are from the Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 by the Common English Bible. All rights reserved. Used by permission. www.CommonEnglishBible.com.
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version ®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV
and New International Version
are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29—10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
Introduction
Introducing a New Series
The Gift of Holiday Worship at Home
How to Use This Book
Getting Ready
Ideas for Individuals and Families
Using This Resource in Congregational Worship
Worship Elements
Creating a Worship Space in Your Home
Things to Gather before Advent Begins
Recommended Hymns and Songs
1. First Sunday of Advent: Peace
2. Second Sunday of Advent: Hope
3. Third Sunday of Advent: Joy
4. Fourth Sunday of Advent: Love
5. Christmas Eve
6. First Sunday after Christmas
7. Epiphany of the Lord
INTRODUCTION
Introducing a New Series
Whether you are worshiping from home or leading others in worship this holiday season, we’ve written this book to support and nourish your worship life and spiritual formation. The first in a series of home-based worship books that follow the church year, the Worship at Home series will enhance your worship life, whether you are worshiping live, virtually, or in a hybrid form of both. To explore how you might use this resource as an individual, a family, a pastor, or a congregation, read the following section entitled How to Use This Resource. As this is the first volume of this resource, we welcome your feedback and hope that you will email your ideas to us. To help the series support you, your ministry, and your worship life, you’ll find our contact information, along with a free offer, at the end of this introduction.
The Gift of Holiday Worship at Home
Growing up, I loved the idyllic world of the television series Little House on the Prairie. Each episode’s problems were resolved in an hour, and the family seemed holistic, healthy, and happy. I particularly loved scenes when Laura and Mary would sit at their Pa’s knee to listen to him read scripture or play the fiddle as Ma peacefully knitted or cuddled with their baby sister Carrie. I later discovered that the books captured a very different picture of pioneer settlers in the Midwest and