Advent and Christmas Resources

This is a collection of Advent Resources I have written over the past few years. These are yours to use for free.

For the season of Advent, I like to create a theme that we build together in all aspects of church life–in worship, in service, in community and in teaching and preaching, with the message leading to the fourth Sunday in Advent, the Sunday before Christmas, and echoed again on Epiphany Sunday, with the message as the wise men left and went back out into the world, so we, too, carry the message back out into the world. For Christmas Eve and the first Sunday of Christmas, I keep to a basic Christmas message since you have family members from out of town and many people who do not attend church any other time of year and from what I have found, generally speaking, people enjoy hearing the traditional Christmas stories of Jesus’ birth and the singing of their favorite carols. But for Advent, I like to build up a theme for the year, as it marks the beginning of the new Church year as well.

Advent truly is my favorite time of year. I love preparing for Christ’s birth for we are truly preparing for Christ to enter our lives in a new way. I love the lights, the preparation, the sounds and smells of Advent, even more so than Christmas day. Advent time is a blessing to me, and it always seems so short. Especially in the ministry, I feel like it just slips by because we spend so much time preparing for the busy worship season that we don’t often get to enjoy it ourselves.

Here are some Advent Candle-lighting liturgies that I have written in the past, first in Word and then in PDF format::

Advent Candle Lighting Year A (Word)
Advent Candle Lighting Year A (PDF)

Advent Candle Lighting Year B (Word)
Advent Candle Lighting Year B (PDF)

Advent Candle Lighting Year C (Word)
Advent Candle Lighting Year C (PDF)

Note! IF you have trouble downloading any of these Word documents, you might have an earlier version of Word. To read .docx files, download the converter for free here

New: I have now added those files in PDF format as well if you still cannot download them in Word.

Some other suggestions for Advent are to change some of the usual aspects of the worship service. For instance, I like to sing “Gloria in excelsis Deo” from “Angels We Have Heard On High” instead of the Gloria Patri. I like to use a verse of a carol after the Candle Lightings as a transition into another part of the worship service. I also have done a theme for the Children’s message, including inviting “characters” from the story to come and tell the children about who they are and why Christmas is important, such as the angel Gabriel, Mary, Elizabeth, and Joseph.

For Christmas Eve I prefer not to preach a sermon; I like to let the story be the message, as I shared in my previous post. This service is designed to be one hour in length. No need to use my name for permission, as this service developed from borrowing other’s resources here and there and adapting and adding my own. Some of it is based on the Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols services that I grew up with.

The Call to Worship is designed to be read by four different readers, sitting in different places in the congregation, rising just before they are to speak. I also places in this service for special choral music, but if your congregation doesn’t have a choir or a soloist, they can simply be instrumental interludes or replaced with additional carols. Lastly, I have included a Children’s Message: in my previous congregation, there was only one service for Christmas Eve and I liked having a special way to include them (and the parents and grandparents loved it as well!)

This service culminates the preparation of Advent, so I include the lighting of each candle in the service. If you did not use an Advent wreath, you can simply light a candle during each candle lighting.

Lessons and Carols Service (Word)
Lessons and Carols Service (PDF)

This service could also be used for Christmas Day. Some ideas for worship on Christmas Day, since it falls on a Sunday this year, include inviting children to come in their pajamas, doing an impromptu Nativity where children are invited to come up and pose in the roles of the manger scene animals, and invite an adult or two (or teens) to come up and be Mary and Joseph.

I also have written Three Gifts, a collection of three Christmas pageants, that for another year, I am offering FREE. More information follows, but to get the pageants, please email me by contacting me on the Contact page, and I will send you the pageants for free.

Three Gifts: Three Intergenerational Christmas Pageants for Small Churches

Are you looking for a new idea for your Christmas program this year? Do you have a small church or Sunday school? Are you concerned about not having enough children for a Pageant? Don’t want to do a big production but want a traditional Christmas Pageant for your congregation?

Three Gifts are three pageants designed for the smaller church in mind. These pageants are 10-15 minutes long. There are parts with many lines and parts with just one line, for those outgoing shining stars and those who sheepishly enter the stage. They are parts in which adults can partake or it can be an all-child cast. The pageants are written for the ease of the director, with simple sets, props and costumes in mind.

All three pageants have a simple set that involves an easy-to-make curtain depicting the night sky of Bethlehem hiding the Holy Family that can be reused should you choose to do another pageant from this collection in the future. All three pageants include musical interludes of familiar Christmas Carols between scenes for actors to get into place. All three pageants portray the familiar story of Christ’s birth in a new way, to share the Good News of God’s love to the world.

Whether you are looking for something new for Christmas Eve or for during worship in Advent, Three Gifts are easy, simple pageants with the deep message of God’s love for the world, each with their own story that resonates with today’s culture. Email me from the Contact page and I will gladly send you a PDF copy of the pageants. Please, in any printed format of the pageants, include my name as the author.

NEW! If you are looking for a short drama for Christmas Eve (could be adapted for Christmas Day as well) without as much preparation and memorization, I am offering for the first time the dramatic dialogue What Can I Give? Written in 2002, this dramatic dialogue includes the children in a special time that could be used in place of a Homily or a Children’s Message.

What Can I Give