(Lutherans) Advent - what is your church doing?

[tampasteve]

My church is having a "Lessons and Carols" this coming Sunday and then has Christmas services on the 22nd (small quiet service in the chapel) and three on the 24th (5pm, 8PM, and 11pm). They are also publishing Advent devotionals on their Facebook page daily and have put them in a book available in the church to buy at a small cost.

 

[Mathetes66]

'Advent' means coming & refers to anticipation of both His incarnation and His 2nd Coming. I had the privilege of doing the readings this past Sunday & they focused on Christ's 2nd coming. I was able to show how the very passages talking about Christ's first coming & the new covenant also included verses about His 2nd coming!

Rev 22:7,16,17 “And behold, I am COMING soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book. I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root & the descendant of David, the bright morning star.” The Spirit & the bride say, "COME!" And let the one who hears say, “COME!” And let the one who is thirsty COME; let the one who desires, take the water of life without price.

At our local assembly of saints who identify as Lutheran, I just helped put up the lighted nativity scene. We adopt one local family in need & provide for their needs & presents for the kids this month.

We also have the ladies sewing circle that makes up to 30 flannel throw blankets for military personnel that have just been sent out. We have been having a 'noisy' offering the past month (all change offering) to help pay for Toys For Tots sponsored by the Marines.

Then we have the Women's Annual Christmas tea & the local high school choir comes & sings Christmas songs.

Then we continue monthly to help the local food bank, especially last month & this month.

On Christmas Eve we have a candle light service, going through the many Scriptures concerning Christ's 'advent' to this earth as a Jewish baby boy, fulfilling many prophecies. Christ is the light of men. We are His lights to a lost & dying world.

Philippians 2:14,15 Do everything without complaining or arguing, that you may be blameless & innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked & twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.

We then have a Christmas day service, recalling the wondrous things of God the Son taking on human flesh, to bring about salvation, propitiation & redemption & reconciliation through his precious shed blood & death on the cross.

We live in momentous times, anticipating His soon return in the midst of a crooked & perverse generation. Let us we awake, persevere & be His faithful witnesses, knowing He will come like a thief in the night. People will be like the days of Noah, going about normal activities & SUDDENLY He will come to judge the world in righteousness & establish His millenial kingdom on earth.

 

[Tigger45]

We started with lighting the first of the four advent candles.

 

[Halbhh]

My church is having a "Lessons and Carols" this coming Sunday and then has Christmas services on the 22nd (small quiet service in the chapel) and three on the 24th (5pm, 8PM, and 11pm). They are also publishing Advent devotionals on their Facebook page daily and have put them in a book available in the church to buy at a small cost.

We have Wednesday night services leading up to Christmas, and Christmas Eve and Christmas day services. There is an advent calendar handout (I think oriented for kids). We lit our first of 4 advent candles.

 

[actionsub]

We're a very small congregation, so we are doing the usual Advent liturgy, a Wednesday night series of Advent meetings, and Christmas Eve service.

 

[tampasteve]

AH! I should have mentioned that we had the advent candle lighting as well. We also have an advent candle and wreath at home that we are teaching our son to say a simple prayer and light. This was actually part of the ELCA Advent ideas for kids from a deck of "Advent Cards" that the church handed out to families with kids.

 

[Kalevalatar]

We have several "big" national traditions, in addition to the traditions unique to each individual parish.

We start Advent with Hoosianna. The first Advent Mass is usually called the Hoosianna Church after hymn #1 in the Finnish hymnal, G. J. Vogler's Hosianna, David's Son (1795), which premiered in a charity concert in Stockholm in 1795 and has ever since been the Advent hymn both in Sweden and in Finland. In addition to the Christmas trees, which are abundant in these Arctic latitudes, Hoosianna Church usually feautures the more exotic palm leaves to go with the song.

"The Nation's official #1 Christmas Tree of Turku Cathedral," a national tradition since 1900, arrives and it's a big event and a rather complicated operation since it is a big tree!

Christmasradio goes online nationwide and worldwide. It's started as a small local project in 2003 with 11,000 listerners and now has 10 channels, from classic Christmas songs to movie soundtrack Christmas songs and rocking Christmas, and up to 787,000 listeners per week (in a country of 5.5 million!). Nationally, it's the 5th most popular radio channel in Finland.

The Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission's Greatest Christmas Carols is another hugely popular tradition going back to 1973 and actually the largest musical event in Finland with over thousand events annually and million singers -- started as a one-time parish event. These are sing-along events held in churches around Finland to support the missionary work of FELM in over 30 countries worldwide in the spirit of the Great Commission. Even the 900-seat Turku Cathedral, which holds several sing-alongs, is packed for these events and sometimes has to close its doors and leave singers outside. FELM publishes an accompanying Christmas Carols booklet, which is used in parish Christmas parties. Every year, the booklet has a couple of wholly new songs as well as golden oldies and it has several language versions, including Čábbámus Juovlalávlagat in the three sámi languages.