The chasm between the Church and the rest of the world is ever-widening, and this makes it difficult for us in the Church to bridge that chasm. Thankfully, Christmas, by its very nature, makes bridging that gap easier. The only problem, then, is figuring out the best way to bridge it.
If I can be so bold, we at ChurchMag have a resource that might be helpful in that regard:
Carols by Candlelight
Every year, on the Sunday evening before Christmas, my church has a night of Christmas carols, by candlelight. Two years ago, we started to tie this night into our Christmas sermon series and brought in an over-arching theme. Last year, we used the themes of Advent to great success, and we immediately thought that we should share this resource with others.
What we’re offering you is a stripped down program comprised of a listing of the songs we used—sorry, we don’t have the rights to pass out the lyrics and music—the readings based upon the themes of Advent, and the sermon delivered by my pastor at the end of the night. What we’re offering here is nothing special or even what I would call “professional,” which is why it’s free. No, what we’re offering is something I’d like other churches to do. We’re humbly offering what worked for us.
We hope that you use it for God’s glory.
You can download it from ChurchMag Press.
Phil Schneider
I'm a teacher and discipleship pastor. More importantly, I'm husband to the greatest woman in the world and father to a ridiculously cute daughter. I also occasionally scratch out a few blog posts.
I think it’s cool all the different resources you’ve shared. Thanks for sharing this, too!
Thanks, Eric! Just trying to keep the Internet as free and functional as possible!