Kategoria BISAC: Religion >> Holidays - Christmas & Advent

Valuable not only for their sublime musical expression, the African American spirituals give us profound insights into the human condition and the Christian life. Many focus on an essential scene of the Christian drama: the coming of God as the child in Bethlehem and as the hope of the world and the liberator of God's oppressed people.

In these devotions for the season of Advent, Luke Powery leads the reader through the spirituals as they confront the mystery of incarnation and redemption. In Rise Up, Shepherd each devotion features the lyrics of the spiritual, a reflection on...

To "prepare for Christmas" in our society is to be sucked into a vortex of indulgence, from decor to gifts to calorie-rich foods. Layer upon layer of tinsel, lights, and wrapping paper create the illusion of abundance, disguising the feeling of emptiness in our souls. The arrival of the Messiah, by contrast, is true abundance disguised by the impression of scarcity. Training our eyes to see through the rough stable, the adolescent mother, and the anxious escape to Egypt, we can see in that poverty and powerlessness the wonder of God's abundant life and grace coming down to dwell among...

The Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church exists as a "hybrid church" by blending the Eastern liturgical elements of the Oriental Orthodox Church and the evangelical ideas of the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. This Church is a "bridging" church, connecting Protestantism and Oriental Orthodoxy. The reformation in the Malankara Church (1836) instigated a new impetus for this church in constructing an ecclesial identity and pattern of mission. A major missiological imperative employed by CMS missionaries in India was solely centered on the scripture. Against this popular...

Told from the point of a view of a child, the story weaves together familiar Advent traditions like the Jesse tree and the Advent wreath, biblical stories and characters, and reflections on what these stories call us to do and be.

This book reassures children of the presence of God in all times and places and invites them to become part of the holy work of making Christ present in the world.

With this new title, author...

In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, we read brief snippets of the early life of Jesus and the actions of His parents Joseph and Mary. These stories are proclaimed during the Advent/Christmas season each year from the Pulpit and have become very familiar to all, Christian and non-Christian alike. It may come as a surprise to the modern reader that much more detail is available to anyone who wishes to take the time to do some digging.

These details are the conclusions that were reached by holy men and women as they meditated on the Nativity narratives in the Bible and also on the oral...