The NC Conference Media Center offers planning resources, studies, devotionals, and more to help create a meaningful Advent season for 2024.
Planning Resources
Webinars
Letters from the Heart: An Advent Webinar
with Magrey deVega and Rob Fuquay
Watch a recording of this webinar with Magrey deVega, author of The Christmas Letters, and Rob Fuquay, author of On the Way to Bethlehem, that invites us into the heart of Advent.
Amplify’s Advent webinars based on small-group studies from previous years are also available to watch on their website. Visit the Webinars page and scroll down to the Seasonal section.
Worship Resources
Discipleship Ministries offers worship resources around the theme, “Come, Let Us Adore Him,” including preaching notes, liturgies, prayers, graphics, youth lessons, and more.
Online Curricula
Cokesbury offers downloadable curricula for use during Advent.
LIFT: Living in Faith Together
LIFT brings two or more generations together around a table for four activities: share food, enjoy fellowship, worship, and study the Bible. This twelve-session bundle focuses on Advent and Christmas and uses New Testament Scriptures to guide each session.
Celebrate Wonder: All Ages, Winter Year 1
Whether you have a mixed-age group or separate age divisions, this curriculum offers unforgettable experiences, spiritual practices, and opportunities to build stronger relationships with God and each other. In this bundle, children will explore themes and stories for Advent and beyond. It also includes lessons from One Room Sunday School.
Cokesbury’s Advent Study Comparison Chart
Cokesbury has posted an Advent study comparison chart to help you decide which Advent study to use with your church or small group this year. We have even more Advent studies available at the Media Center, so keep reading to discover additional options.
Advent Studies for Adults
New for 2024
On the Way to Bethlehem: An Advent Study
by Rob Fuquay
Rob Fuquay provides insight into the geographical and historical significance of Rome, Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem, along with the important characters through whom the Christmas drama unfolds. You will be drawn into those places in a way that helps you experience the spiritual truths each location holds. Watch a promo video and the video for the first session.
The Christmas Letters: Celebrating Advent with Those Who Told the Story First
by Magrey R. deVega
The letters in the New Testament, known as the Epistles, contain the first attempts by the church to understand and celebrate the mystery of the Incarnation. Read the New Testament letters, Romans, 1 John, Philippians, and Colossians as your first Christmas letters of the season and find within them an invitation from God to deepen your understanding of the Incarnation and embrace a fuller commitment to Jesus Christ. Watch a promo video.
Wanting More: Advent, Christmas and Epiphany
By Michael Roberts with Lauren Delano Grosskopf
First, Wanting More includes a six-week Advent study based on Advent sermons by Methodist founder John Wesley. The second half of the book includes a six-week study to be used during the season of Epiphany, also based on sermons by John Wesley. The book explores the maps, means, and methods of the season, the true reason for the season, and the blessings that come in the midst of it all.
Surprised by Mary: How the Christ Who Was Born through Mary Can Be Born Again through You
By James A. Harnish
James A. Harnish draws on Scripture, tradition, and contemporary experience to explore the surprising claim that the same Christ who was born into the world through Mary can be born into the world again through us. As you follow Mary from the day Gabriel invited her to bear the Son of God to the birth of the church on Pentecost, it will help you become a follower of Jesus who brings hope and healing to a broken world. Listen to an interview with the author and Jerusha Neal.
Triptych 2024: Daily Advent Scripture, Reflection, and Prayer (including Christmas and Epiphany)
By Steve Hickle and Andy Morris
Advent is the season for Christians to remember and rehearse “the coming of the Lord.” The birth of Jesus is God’s embodiment, or incarnation, among us. With this Advent – Christmas – Epiphany volume, we continue the daily devotional design deemed Triptych. A triptych is a three-paneled piece “hinged” together literally, by theme, or both. In this work, three great “responses” The Magnificat (Luke 1:26-55), The Benedictus (Luke 1:5-25, 39-80), and The Gloria (Luke 2:1-21) find mother-to-be Mary, new father Zechariah and the very angels of heaven “responding” to events by which God will be and is made flesh, coming among us to stay.
More Advent DVD Studies for Adults
Heaven and Earth: Advent and The Incarnation by Will Willimon. It’s not within our own power to make a fresh start. If we’re to have a future different from the past, it must come as a gift, something not of our devising. What we need is a God who refuses to be trapped in eternity, a God who not only cares about us but is willing to show up among us and do something with us, here, now. In this study, Will Willimon introduces you to the God who does just that, bringing heaven to earth and changing everything.
An Unlikely Advent: Extraordinary People of the Christmas Story by Rachel Billups. This study focuses on the experiences of four sets of often overlooked characters in the Nativity story. Rachel Billups guides readers through the themes of hope, love, joy, and peace by sharing the stories of Elizabeth and Zechariah, Herod, the Magi, and the shepherds.
Experiencing Christmas: Christ in the Sights and Sounds of Advent by Matt Rawle. Things just look, smell, and taste differently during the Advent and Christmas season, and these differences are a sign to us that God is about to do something radical and different. Christmas is when God surrounded the divine with senses of his own.
Prepare the Way for the Lord: Advent and the Message of John the Baptist by Adam Hamilton. Hamilton explores the Advent themes of John’s life and ministry, and how John calls all followers of Jesus to prepare our hearts for his coming. In each of the Gospels, the story of Jesus is intertwined with that of his cousin John, the one whom the prophets foretold would come to “prepare the way of the Lord.” When we hear the message of John the Baptist, it makes us and our world ready to receive Christ.
The Angels of Christmas: Hearing God’s Voice in Advent by Susan Robb. Explore the four angelic visits surrounding the birth of Jesus with Zechariah, Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds. In this study, the reader will explore the visits and dive deep into the history of the angel Gabriel–and other angels–in the Old Testament. This study uses these four angelic appearances to discuss God’s presence in history and our lives today. The messages of the angels hold meaning for listeners both then and now.
All the Good: A Wesleyan Way of Christmas by Laceye C. Warner, Amy Valdez Barker, Jung Choi, Sangwoo Kim, Barker, Amy Valdez. A group of diverse Wesleyan scholars will take you on an Advent journey guided by the practices in John Wesley’s means of grace. In four sessions of study, prayer, and conversation, readers will look at preparing the way for God, the discipline of prayer, the substance of good works, and the recognition of God’s presence with us in communities that are called to serve the world.
Complete List of Advent Studies
We have 41 DVD-based studies and 15 additional Christmas movies listed in our Advent and Christmas DVDs for Adults pathfinder. We also have 34 book-based studies plus 32 devotionals, program ideas, and additional books listed in our Advent and Christmas Books for Adults pathfinders.
More Books for Advent
Light from Afar: An Advent Devotional from Around the World by Nadiyka Gerbish, Joel Bengbeng, Cláudio Carvalhaes, and Sidwell Mokgothu. This book is a daily Advent devotional that illuminates the season through the unforgettable stories and reflections of four writers from around the world. Authors Nadiyka Gerbish (Ukraine), Joel Bengbeng (Philippines), Cláudio Carvalhaes (Brazil), and Sidwell Mokgothu (South Africa) share cultural and religious traditions of the Advent season in their daily reflections.
Advent: A Season of Surprises by Scott Chrostek. Advent is a season filled with anticipation of what’s coming next. No one could anticipate the surprise that awaited humankind with the birth of Jesus. Two thousand years later, we still look forward in expectation, wondering what lies next. What’s coming next for you?
Fully Human, Fully Divine: An Advent Devotional for the Whole Self by Whitney R. Simpson. Simpson suggests practices that will help us focus on the body God created and embrace what it means to be fully human. By letting go of external demands and giving ourselves permission to be present as we listen for God in our lives, we can learn what it looks like to notice and pay attention to our bodies. Each chapter covers one week of Advent and each week focuses on one of the following themes: Slow Down and Hope, Simplify for Peace, Sit with Joy, and Savor God’s Love. The Upper Room offers an eCourse based on this book.
The First Advent in Palestine: Reversals, Resistance, and the Ongoing Complexity of Hope by Kelley Nikondeha. Trusted scholar and community organizer Kelley Nikondeha takes us back, to where the landscape of Palestine is once again the geographic, socioeconomic, and political backdrop for the Advent story. Reading the Advent narratives of Luke and Matthew anew, in their original context, changes so much about how we see the true story of resistance, abusive rulers and systems of oppression, and God coming to earth.
God Broke Through at Christmas: A Daily Advent Study for Individuals and Groups by Debra Wallace-Padgett. This study focuses on four different aspects of life transformed by Jesus Christ’s birth, ministry, death, and resurrection: Silence, Nights of the soul, Seemingly impossible situations, and Chaos. Each chapter begins with a meditation and study session guide, followed by daily devotionals for the week.
Blue Christmas: Devotions of Light in a Season of Darkness by Todd Outcalt. Blue Christmas reminds us that all of our Christmases, even the darkest ones, can be filled with honesty and hope if we are first willing to sit in silence and bring our deepest fears to God. The book includes daily devotions, additional prayers, a “Blue Christmas” worship service, and reflection questions. The Upper Room offers an eCourse based on this book.
Complete List of Advent Books
View our complete list of book-based Advent studies, devotionals, activity books, liturgies, prayers, and more in our Advent and Christmas Books for Adults pathfinder.
Advent for Youth and Children
Many of our Advent studies for adults also offer separate guides to use these studies with youth and children. Here are some additional resources to help families celebrate the Advent season this year.
Fathom: The Coming of Jesus, The Birth of a Savior by Charlie Baber. This bible study for youth, written by NC Conference Pastor Baber, is a journey through some of the key Old Testament scriptures that shape our beliefs about the specific events leading to the birth of Jesus. A leader’s guide is also available.
Advent: A Journey Of Waiting, Watching And Preparing For The Light by Erik E. Willits. Waiting, patience, and prayer are the hallmarks of the Advent season. We learn to become people who wait for what we know God will do. Advent is a devotional guidebook to that anticipation, a reflective map readying you to receive the best present ever given.
Faithful Families for Advent and Christmas: 100 Ways to Make the Season Sacred by Traci Smith. In this new book of faith practices for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, parents, grandparents, Sunday School teachers, pastors, and anyone who cares about kids will find 100 easy, fun, and meaningful ideas for bringing the sacred back into the season.
Advent A to Z: Prayerful and Playful Preparations for Families by Sharon Harding and John Indermark. Beginning December 1 and running through December 26, each day will explore an Advent-related word that begins with a successive letter in the alphabet. This is followed by suggestions for simple, easy-to-prepare, and complete activities (discussion starters, games, crafts, meditations, journaling, outreach project, devotions).
Children’s Dramas for the Church Year: Reproducible Dramas for Advent and Christmas. You’re only asking for four things when it comes to an Advent or Christmas program for your children’s ministry. It needs to be 10 minutes or less, incorporate all age groups, work for the size of your church, and be super easy to produce. This is the resource that will get you from rehearsals to curtain calls stress-free.
John Wesley Church Mouse by Evelyn Anne Johnson-Neal. It is Christmastime in the small town of Chapin, South Carolina. Chapin United Methodist Church is putting together the last plans for the worship service. Unknown to the staff or Pastor Jody, another secret member of the staff is scampering about to check on each person as they finish up. John Wesley Church Mouse VI is doing his job although a little more slowly this year. “Twas the day before Christmas and all through the church…” Read the poem to hear about a tornado, a fire, a box of hymnals, and a brave little mouse ending in a lesson of great joy!
Complete List of Youth & Children’s Resources
View the Advent and Christmas Resources for Youth pathfinder to see a complete list of our Advent studies and program resources for youth.
View the Advent and Christmas Resources for Children pathfinder for a complete list of our Advent studies, family-friendly movies, picture books, and program resources for children.
Request These Resources
These resources can be borrowed for free by anyone involved with a United Methodist Church in the North Carolina Conference. We will mail them to your home! All you need to do is fill out the Resource Request Form.