Prepare for the Advent Season with Invite!
Consider these resources when planning your Advent season sermons or small groups. Items from this collection also make great gifts for the holiday season.
How (Not) to Ruin Your Christmas:
by Dan Metzger
You want to have a good Christmas. Really, you do. But every year, something steals your joy. Could that something be you?
At Christmas, there’s lots of talk about comfort and joy…but the reality of the season is often less-than-jolly.
The holidays have a way of underscoring grief, magnifying divisions, and creating chaos in the fragile balance of our busy lives.
Forget peace on earth — you just want some peace at your dinner table.
Is there anything you can do to make Christmas all you wish it could be?
How (Not) to Ruin Christmas is a funny, hopeful, and heartwarming guide that will help you replace worry with hope, conflict with peace, misery with joy, and selfishness with love, even in the chaos of the holiday season.
Through humorous personal tales and the unedited, messy story of the first Christmas, you will discover that Christmas was never about the absence of pain and struggle but about God’s light piercing the darkness – a light that still shines in our lives, 365 days a year.
Without adding one more thing to your to-do list, How (Not) to Ruin Christmas will inspire you to shift your perspective, reclaim the wonder of the season, and experience Christmas like you never have before…from the inside out.
Comfort and Joy
by Julie Yarbrough
Comfort and Joy speaks to the heart of those who long for hope and to those who find joy in the sacred celebration of Christ at Christmas.
Advent is the period in the Christian calendar that culminates in the celebration of the birth of Christ. During this holy season of waiting, we reflect, meditate, and prepare our hearts for the coming into the world of the promised Messiah.
Advent reminds us of our longing for light, comfort, love, and joy, the eternal qualities of God.
Advent is a time to look within and listen for the voice of God. Advent responds to our deep
yearning for a closer, more intimate relationship with God through Christ.
In this book of devotions, you will find:
· a daily thought
· a prayer suggestion
· a study scripture
· a question for consideration about how God is alive in Christ in your life and in the world.
As you read the devotional for each day, may you feel the presence of God in Christ in the love that holds you close at Christmas and always.
Join the Comfort and Joy Daily Advent Encouragement campaign!
The Secret Power of Kindness
by Greg Atkinson
We live in a world that values kindness but struggles to actually be kind. Despite our “random acts of kindness” and “pay it forward” moments, we are more divided, isolated, and angry than ever.
What if kindness is more than something we do – what if it’s something we are? If we’re going to truly harness this answer to the problems in our world, we must look within to find its secret power.
Everything Is Bundle
by Robert Hasley
These short, uplifting devotional messages of comfort and encouragement are just the antidote for days of stress and worry. Pastor Robert Hasley tells homespun stories and anecdotes of a life lived in faith through good times and bad. His grandmother would always say, "everything's gonna be all right." A compilation of Rev. Hasley’s life experiences and devotional messages, Everything is Going to Be All Right is not tied to specific days of the week or year and may be read in any order for inspiration and support.
Come Alive Bundle
by Talbot Davis
The Come Alive: Conversations with Scripture series invites you deeper into the biblical story and connects the dots between how God works throughout Scripture and how He is working in your life today.
Each book includes a daily reading, a daily insight, and a daily reading prompt that will help you reflect on the text and build the skills to read the Bible for yourself with more confidence and understanding. Discover a new and personal way to engage with Scripture and experience the Bible not as a distant, confusing document, but as a living, breathing conversation between God and humanity that continues to speak into our ever-changing world.
The Journal
by Jimmy Decker & Nancy Kurkowski
What if a new manuscript was discovered about Jesus’s life on earth – this time, in the form of a journal written by a woman who unexpectedly found herself with a front-row seat to Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection? The Journal is an imaginative account of what it might have been like to witness the ministry of Jesus as an average person during that time in history. It will inspire you to put yourself in the shoes of those who witnessed the greatest miracle of all time and ask how your life might be different if you had walked with Jesus.