Congregations Use Special Liturgies to Mark Advent

In recent decades there has been a huge increase in the number of Christian Reformed churches that make special preparations to celebrate seasons of the church year, especially Advent and Lent, says Judy Hardy, associate editor of Faith Alive Christian Resources.

Hardy says the four-week period of Advent tends to be the time when congregations work especially hard to present the gospel story on Sunday mornings in creative, colorful and compelling ways.

“One indication of the popularity of the Advent resources is evident by monitoring web traffic to the journal’s site, which includes the text of all back issues,” says Joyce Borger, the editor of Reformed Worship, a quarterly journal for worship planners.

“The number of visitors to the site almost doubles in October, when most people are beginning to plan their Advent services.”

Some churches wait for the Advent issue of Reformed Worship to hit their mailboxes every year and use the resources as a starting point for a series of services; others use them for inspiration and adapt an Advent candle litany, prayer, or visual idea to use in their own context. Either way, says Borger, churches find it’s a great way to jump start their Advent worship planning.

Meanwhile, says Borger, she encourages churches to strike a healthy balance during Advent between focusing on the joy of Christmas and the harsh realities of poverty, disease and war that face the world today.

Taking inspiration from Reformed Worship, many CRC congregations in North America have again this Advent used special music, skits, prayers, sermons and periods of contemplation to celebrate and mark Christ’s birth.
 
Pastor Edward Jager of Emmanuel CRC in Calgary, Alberta, says he has worked closely with his worship leaders to develop Advent services that fit the needs of his congregation. Every Sunday in Advent, his church holds an Advent café before morning worship, allowing members to sit and chat and sip coffee prior to the service.

His sermon series has been titled “Advent Transformations” and has focused on the notion of the amazing gift of new life that Christ brought with his birth, says Jager.
 
Each service begins with a children’s sermon in which he asks a child to take a special item out of a box. “I’ll talk to the kids about the gift that a child brings to a family’s life,” says Jager.

At Covenant CRC in Cutlerville, Mich., young people learned of the meaning of Christmas by watching a video clip from “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

After gathering the young people at the front of the church, Rev. Curtis Walters asked, “How are people changed by the birth of Jesus? A lot of stories are told this time of year about that – and one of them is ‘Charlie Brown’s Christmas.”

Charlie Brown then appeared on the video screen with his bedraggled-looking Christmas tree. When he set it down, the spare, nearly bare tree drew laughter, which caused Charlie Brown to hang his head in shame and to wonder about the true meaning of Christmas.

The answer came from Linus, another Peanuts cartoon character, who recited the Christmas story from the gospel of Luke. Walters then gave a sermon that expanded on what Linus said and focused on the ways in which God’s grace transforms people.

On the  first Sunday of Advent, Sherman Street CRC in Grand Rapids was hung with purple banners, symbolizing “Christ’s royalty and our penitence as we prepare for his second coming,” and wreath representing Emmanuel, “God with us.”

Pastor David Kromminga spoke of Mary, the young virgin, and of how she willingly set aside her doubts and embraced the new life that the Holy Spirit had given her. There was nothing she had done to deserve God’s blessing on and choice of her. “Mary shows us that God’s favor rests not on doers and achievers, but on those who simply receive what God is doing in and for them,” said the pastor.

Pastor Jul Medenblik of New Life Church outside of Chicago says his Advent sermon series focused on Psalm 46:10: “Be Still and Know That I Am God.” In this busy Christmas season, he says, he wanted to ask people to “notice those who listened – Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, among others.”

Anthony Bolkema, worship director at New Life, says Advent services began this year with a few moments of silence and meditation. “The church can do so much to grab people’s attention that it can be overwhelming,” he says. “We have had calls to worship that are contemplative, that have allowed people time to consider what the season means to them.”