News & Messages

Advent Resources

main image

Are you looking for moments of rest and reflection during the busy season of Advent? Here are a number of resources available from around the Church for the season. They are all suitable individual and congregational use. 


Journeying the Way of Love Advent Curriculum

For the season of Advent, Journeying the Way of Love offers four sessions to be explored as we await the coming of Christ by moving through the first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke. Luke’s gospel provides a pattern for understanding how we can live the Way of Love as individuals, as families and friends, as a community, and out in the world. The sessions are specially designed for use during the Christian formation hour before or after worship. Facilitation instructions accommodate small or large groups.

Advent Word: A Global Advent Calendar
For the sixth year in a row, #AdventWord will gather prayers via a global, online Advent calendar. Virginia Theological Seminary is offering meditations and images during this holy season beginning Sunday,  December 1. Images and meditations can be experienced via the #AdventWord website, direct daily emails, as well as on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and ASL videos via YouTube.  

Living Well Through Advent
From Living Compass: Designed for use as an individual reflection or for group study, this guide provides a foundation for seeking a deeper experience of Advent, an experience that will help prepare us for the true meaning of Christmas. Available in both print and electronic editions.

A Way to the Manger 
A Way to the Manger is a daily devotional from Forward Movement that explores Christ’s birth as recounted in the Gospel of Luke through the lens of the Way of Love and the seven practices of turn, learn, pray, worship, bless, go, and rest. 

Reflections on Social Justice for the Season of Advent (Year A) from the Episcopal Networks Collaborative
From the introduction: The Advent readings provide rich material for reflecting on social justice topics. Advent is a time of preparation for celebrating the coming of the Messiah, the coming of God’s kingdom. The readings bring together the prophetic and Gospel traditions calling for a new social order based on peace and justice. Advent is a time to remember John the Baptist, the new Elijah who has come to challenge the rule of the men in soft robes who oppressed the poor. John the Baptist was preparing the way for the coming of the messiah – the one that would bring justice to the world, to all creation. It is a time for us to reflect on what “living in the light of the Lord” (Is. 2:5) obliges us to do in caring for each other and our planet.

posadas

Room in the Inn: Ideas for Celebrating Posadas

Looking for a resource for Las Posadas? Forward Movement offers a free guide to help you.

The Posadas (Spanish for "inns," "lodging," or "shelter") are an Advent candlelight procession and celebration. In Mexico and other countries, it is traditional to hold Posadas in many neighborhoods on the days preceding Christmas. The Posadas are a reenactment of Mary and Joseph's search for a place where Jesus could be born. We learn from the Posadas that by welcoming the poor and the needy, we are welcoming Jesus in our midst. (See Matthew 25:40.)

Share the Way of Love at Easter

Share the Way of Love at Easter

Continuing the invitation to connect The Way of Love, Practices for a Jesus-Centered Life more deeply to the Liturgical Year, The Episcopal Church offers free, downloadable resources for congregations, dioceses, and communities of faith this Easter.

Resources include: A poster with space on the bottom portion for congregations to add their own logo, service information, and web address; a postcard to send to recent visitors or local neighbors; a social media ready graphic; a Facebook Cover image; and the Presiding Bishop’s Easter Message video (available April 15). All evangelism resources are available here.

“We hope that these digital resources will help congregations easily share information about their Easter services,” said Jerusalem Greer, staff officer for evangelism for The Episcopal Church, “Services that celebrate the greatest love of all – the love of Jesus. A love we are called to share and celebrate that love with friends and neighbors.”

More than a program or curriculum, The Way of Love is an intentional commitment to a set of practices –Turn, Learn, Pray, Worship, Bless, Go, Rest – that form us into the likeness of Jesus. Congregations have engaged with Way of Love practices by organizing ministry fairs around the seven practices, setting up semi-public prayer stations with one station per practice, and organizing inquirer’s classes around each topic.

“As Episcopalians we value life-long learning – something that the Liturgical Calendar helps us to do – guiding us through lessons of our faith, connecting our story to God’s story, year after year. The Way of Love is made up of practices that help us move through those lessons with greater intention and understanding, which in turn helps us grow in love and service.”  says Greer. “As an example, during the season of Easter, people are invited to dig deeper into the practice of Go through the Life Transformed: 50-day Eastertide Test Kitchen group on Facebook .”

Digital Invitation Kits similar to the Easter resources are planned for the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany and Back-to-School.  They will be offered Spanish, French, and English. 

If your ministry has developed a seasonal Way of Love offering, please share at  . We’d love to feature it on the website and pray for our shared journey into new life. 

Lisa Webb  ASSOCIATE OFFICER, PUBLIC AFFAIRS  Office of Communication | The Episcopal Church | 212-716-6138

Lenten Resources 2019

main image

Life Transformed: The Way of Love in Lent and Easter

Visit Lenten Resources 2019 for this and other seasonal resources

The journey through Lent into Easter is a journey with Jesus. We are baptized into his life, self-giving and death; then we rise in hope to life transformed. This Lent, faith communities are invited to walk with Jesus in his Way of Love and into the experience of transformed life.

New Way of Love resources for Lent and Easter include three components; additional resources from partnering organizations and churches are also featured:

Adult Forum: This set of seven Adult Forums, suitable to diverse settings, ties the Easter Vigil readings to the seven practices of the Way of Love. Drawing on the ancient practice of setting aside Lent as a period of study and preparation for living as a Christian disciple (known as the catechumenate), the forums draw participants to reflect on salvation history, walk toward the empty tomb, and embrace the transforming reality of love, life, and liberation. As we stand with the three women at the empty tomb, we hear his call to go and live that transformed reality. Curriculum will be available in Spanish before the end of this month.  

Quiet Day: The Quiet Day curriculum condenses the forums into a single-day journey. Offered as an option for churches and dioceses seeking an alternative to the weekly class.  

Test Kitchen: “Living the Way of Love, Transformed.” After the forty days of Lent, this Facebook-based platform will invite participants into a fifty-day Eastertide “Test Kitchen.” People everywhere will actively “GO” with Jesus from the tomb to bless the world - and then share and inspire each other with accounts of how they are living the Way of Love. Consider joining this closed Facebook group now to receive regular messages of support as you live the way of love through Lent. 

Resources shared by partnering organizations and churches

Way of Love resources from Church Publishing, Inc. (CPI) include Living the Way of Love, a 40-day devotional by Mary Bea Sullivan, along with their recently published Little Books of Guidance – one for each of the seven Way of Love practices.

Coming in early February are a series of sermons based on the Year C lectionary readings offered by St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania as well as video classes that track with the Life Transformed curriculum offered by The Hive.

 Additional seasonal resources include

If your ministry has developed a seasonal Way of Love offering, please share at  . We’d love to feature it on the website and pray for our shared journey into new life. 

Explore the Way. Start a small group. Follow Jesus. Let God’s love transform you and your ministry. Find resources for every liturgical season here:www.episcopalchurch.org/wayoflove.