Advent Sunday #1 / 2016 11-27-16

Thank you, Worship Team of Broad Street UMC/Statesville, NC for the beautiful Advent 2016 worship setting. Instead of candles, we have lamps this year. 

The Call to Worship each Sunday of Advent will be "Keep Your Lamps!" arr. A. Thomas. The first verse was sung by the choir as the Call to Worship for Advent #1 . Each week, a verse will be added.

(Call to Worship / Advent Sunday #1)

Keep your lamps trimmed and burning,

keep your lamps trimmed and burning,

keep your lamps trimmed and burning,

for the time is drawing nigh.

Refrain:

Children, don't grow weary,

children, don't grow weary,

children, don't grow weary,

for the time is drawing nigh.

Prayers for Pastors and Worship Leaders During Advent

God-of-Our-Advent-Waiting ...

What a blessed and tiring time this is for our pastors and worship leaders.  Be with each of them as they walk through these days of Advent with those whom you have placed into their care.  Give them both rest and strength to help others wait for, long for and anticipate the peace, hope, joy and love that only the arrival of Jesus into each heart and into our world can bring.  Place within them a sweet longing and anticipation in their own Advent waiting.
 
Open the hearts of all so that they might hear your promises spoken through the words of your prophets of old and your servants now.  Open the eyes of all souls so that they might see the Light in the darkness that grows ever stronger as the days draw nearer to your Promise-On-Earth.

Forgive us all if we find it easier to passively await the coming of your Son.  In the waiting, may your disciples lead others to place the longings of their hearts before you in prayer; may they help others prepare a place for Jesus to be born anew and may they also prepare a place within their own hearts for such an arrival.

My childhood memories beg me to pray for something else for your servants. During the coming days, place within each of them the excitement of a child; the excitement that causes eyes to sparkle and songs to be hummed in the middle of their busiest and most tiring of days; the excitement that fills each one of them with hope in your Gift to come; the excitement that brings with it a portion of sleepless anticipation.

These are your servants for sure.  You have placed a call within them to love others and to share your great Love in ways that are, at times, much different than our own ways and for that I am most thankful.  Love them as they love others, O God.  Lead them as they lead others.

Amen
 

May I Have Eyes to See

I was saddened when the city drastically cut back this neighborhood tree years ago. It once was a perfectly shaped tree with branches that reached over the sidewalk. In the fall, there wasn't a tree in Statesville that could compare with the colors of its leaves. But the wires were there and the branches were too close to them.

When I see that the colors are still there, just as lovely as they were last autumn and the autumn before (although my Kindle doesn't do it justice), I am once again reminded that no matter what life deals a person, how beat up and maimed one might feel, or how damaged a person's spirit might seem, there is glorious beauty waiting to be seen.

O God, may I have eyes to see.