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    Worship at Home: Advent & Christmas 2020
    Worship at Home: Advent & Christmas 2020
    Worship at Home: Advent & Christmas 2020
    Ebook75 pages45 minutes

    Worship at Home: Advent & Christmas 2020

    By Mary Scifres and B.J. Beu

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    About this ebook

    Worship at Home: Advent and Christmas 2020 is packed with weekly worship services you can do on your own or with others and includes services for each week in Advent, Christmas Eve, the Sunday after Christmas, and Epiphany. This book is for congregations and individuals who want to stay spiritually connected and growing, even when they’re not worshiping together in the same space. It provides everything you need to conduct meaningful, spiritually fulfilling, traditionally rooted worship services at home or in other intimate environments.

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAbingdon Press
    Release dateNov 3, 2020
    ISBN9781791020286
    Worship at Home: Advent & Christmas 2020
    Author

    Mary Scifres

    Mary Scifres is a United Methodist pastor and church growth consultant. She is the author of The Gospel According to Beauty and the Beast, and co-author of both The Abingdon Worship Annual and Is It Communion Sunday Already?! Find out more at www.maryscifres.com.

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      Book preview

      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

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