Advent Guide
Advent brings meaning and depth to Christmas
Journey with us each week as we light the candles at our 10:30am Sunday gatherings. We also invite you to light the candles each day in your homes and engage the four themes of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love through scripture readings and questions to ponder found in the guide below. Join us Christmas Eve 6pm for the lighting of the final center candle called the Christ candle.
The CANDLES + DEVO
As Grace & Peace continues to live as a church without walls, it is important to have ways to feel connected to one another, to feel like we belong, that we are still a community together. The season of Advent invites us to immerse ourselves in the story of God’s people as they eagerly awaited their coming King. It also challenges us in the present to cast our imaginations forward to the day when Jesus finally brings His kingdom here to Earth in its fullness.
SCRIPTURE READING
These selected scriptures and action steps can help us establish rhythms and habits that shape us inwardly as well as outwardly in our walk with God.
We recommend marking specific times in your day to light the candles, read and meditate on the scripture, and live out the action steps throughout your week.
Setting Up Your Advent Wreath
- Find five candles - ideally one candle should be larger than the other four, but any candles will do. - Arrange the candles in a circle with the larger candle in the center
- For each night of Advent, light one candle corresponding to each theme
- The final candle gets lit on Christmas eve as a community.
Devotional
Each week includes one theme verse for the entire week as well as suggested daily readings.
Begin with Prayer. Before reading the scriptures or doing the action steps -- acknowledge and invite God through prayer. If you’re unsure what to pray -- you can use the following prayer as a guide:
Our Father in Heaven, thank You for the gift of scripture. Use it to open the eyes of our hearts, so that we would not only hear these words, but allow them to transform our lives, inside and out. In reading Your word, help us to feel a deeper sense of the unfathomable love You have for us, and help us to share that love with everyone around us. We pray these things in the name of Your Son, Jesus, by the power of Your Holy Spirit, Amen
Guided Questions
After reading each verse, take time to reflect and discuss the following questions:
What has this scripture taught you about who God is?
What did this scripture teach you about yourself in the story of God? What would it look like to begin living this out in my daily life?
These questions are just a jumping off point.
Feel free to let the conversations around these scriptures and actions steps grow as you feel led.
Share
In order to inspire and encourage our broader community, be sure to follow Grace and Peace Church on Instagram and Facebook and post photos of your Advent Wreath, or you and your family spending time together participating in either the devotionals or the action steps!
Be sure to use the hashtag #graceandpeaceonearth and tag @graceandpeacechurch
Advent Week 1: Hope
The Prophets’ Candle
For the First Week of Advent, we focus on Hope, and the prophecies of the Old Testament through which God gave the people of Israel the promise of a savior.
Hope is more than merely “looking on the bright side.” Biblical Hope looks specifically at God’s faithfulness throughout the narratives of scripture and believes that God will continue to remain faithful into the future.
As we anticipate the birth of Jesus. We begin to reshape our lives, anticipating God’s kingdom not as some fantasy future that may come one day, but as a reality that impacts us in the present tense.
Daily Scripture Reading
1st SUNDAY — Isaiah 40:28-31
Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
MONDAY — Jeremiah 17:7-8
TUESDAY — Titus 2:11-14
WEDNESDAY — Isaiah 7:14 & Mt. 1:23
THURSDAY — Jeremiah 29:10-12
FRIDAY — Luke 1:46-56
SATURDAY — Romans 15:13
ACTION STEPS
// Practices and disciplines shape our faith //
Simplify - One way to identify Christ in the midst of the busyness of the season is to reduce some of the clutter that eats up so much of our precious space physically, mentally, spiritually.
Simplifying Meals - Use up leftovers. Plan and cook meals at the start of the week. Free up time, energy, and mental space by removing the worry of food. Begin to recognize and appreciate God’s provision and reflect on the idea of simply allowing food to provide nourishment for our bodies.
Simplifying Schedule - Be intentional about how you invest your time this week. Carve out time each day to read through the daily scriptures. Block off breathing room in the midst of a season that often leads to frantic busyness.
Questions
1. What areas of your life seem hopeless?
2. What would you like God to do in your life this season?
3. How have you seen God work in the past?
4. What does it mean for your hope to be anchored in Christ?