Everlasting Light: A Resource for Advent Worship

by Sandy Dixon BOOK PREVIEW Advent is the beginning of the church year. It is a time of reflection, preparation, and penitence as we wait for the birth of our Savior. Advent is celebrated in many congregations by the lighting of a candle in the Advent wreath each Sunday. The liturgical colors for Advent are purple or blue and can be used in paraments, stoles, and altar cloths. The candles in the Advent wreath can be all blue, all purple, or three purple and one pink. There are differing traditions of lighting the pink candle on the third or fourth Sunday to represent Christ as the perfect rose, or on the third Sunday for joy.  Everlasting Light: a Resource for Advent Worship contains services encompassing Advent worship. The Hanging of the Greens traditionally occurs in many churches on the first Sunday of Advent. The service in this book may be used during the Sunday morning worship. More detailed instructions are in that section. For each Sunday in all three cycles of the Revised Common Lectionary, including the Sunday after Christmas, the book provides materials for the lighting of the Advent candles. The service begins with a Litany of Light, a brief meditation, and a unison prayer. In addition, this book includes a prayer for communion, offering, ideas for a children’s sermon, and a benediction. These resources use as their basis the scriptures from the Revised Common Lectionary. The user will find these scriptures used in the Litany of Light, prayers, and benedictions. For the congregations who want to do an Advent candlelighting during the children’s sermon, the book includes three years’ selections. These are not based on the lectionary. When the Advent candlelighting is done during the children’s moment, use other parts of each Sunday’s worship resources in Everlasting Light, leaving out the meditation. The source of scripture listings in this volume is The Revised Common Lectionary, developed by the Consultation on Common Texts and published in 1992.