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Longing, Waiting, Believing: Reflections for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany
Advent & Christmas, Resources for the Christian YearIn the excitement of the weeks before Christmas, it is all too easy to overlook the fact that Christians have, down the centuries, regarded Advent as a season of penitence, a time of prayer and preparation for the great feast of the birth of Jesus, just as Lent is a season of preparation for Easter, when we remember his death and resurrection. This book of daily Bible readings and reflective comment covers the weeks from 1 December through to Epiphany on 6 January. As well as considering the well-known events of the nativity story, it looks back to those who prepared the way – the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament and John the Baptist and Mary the Mother of Jesus in the New Testament. The book explores the traditional Advent focus on the 'four last things': death, judgement, heaven and hell. Rodney Holder shows how these sombre themes have their place in the build-up to the celebrations, because of another historic aspect of Advent: reflecting on the second coming of Jesus, when he will return, as Lord and King rather than a helpless baby, to set the world to rights.£4.00 -
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Real God in the Real World: Advent and Christmas readings on the coming of Christ
Advent & Christmas, Resources for the Christian YearThis book offers a lively, engaging and accessible look at the theme of the Incarnation, the mysterious event at the heart of Christmas, using personal stories, illustrations from popular culture and the arts, as well as daily Bible readings. The starting-point is what the 'Word made flesh' means for us and how the first Christmas should still have an impact on our everyday lives. We will be taken on an absorbing journey to help us recognise the person of Jesus in the people we meet, the conversations we have, and even in our relationship with nature and the arts. By the end of our journey, we will not only recognise Christ in others but also in ourselves, as we model ourselves on him and share his love, compassion and peace with our neighbours, whoever they are and whatever their backgrounds.£4.00 -
Feast + Fast: Food for Advent and Christmas
Advent & Christmas, Resources for the Christian YearChristmas is one of our best loved festivals. During the long dark days of winter, it gives the focus of a celebration to lift our hearts and spirits, and the food that goes along with it plays an enormous part. But the Christmas season isn't just about shopping, parties, presents and over-indulgence. Advent, the period leading up to Christmas, can also be an important time of spiritual as well as practical preparation. In this, Christina Rees's second collection of writings and recipes following Christian festivals, she explores the wonderful season of Advent and Christmas through the themes of Welcoming, Wondering, Giving, Receiving and Celebrating. With spiritual wisdom and recipes to guide us through the festive season (including Christina's original American turkey stuffing recipe as enjoyed and adapted by Delia Smith!), she provides inspiration for fantastic meals for family and friends, and insight for maintaining a fresh and positive perspective in the midst of all the seasonal activities. Feast + Fast – Food for Advent and Christmas is a rich and creative offering, perfect for anyone seeking joy and love that lie at the heart of Christmas.£9.99 -
Lent is for loving: A Lent course about Love
Lent & EasterLent is not just about denial! Christianity is not a blueprint for repression but for joy; for a life of fulfilment beyond our wildest dreams. Jesus said 'I have come that you may have life and have it to the full'. In short chapters suitable for individual reading or group study, and questions for meditation and reflection, Sheila Cassidy considers the word 'LENT' as an acronym for what it really means to live as a Christian today: L is for LOVE E is for EMPATHY N is quite simply for NO! T is for THANK YOU GOD Sheila Cassidy's honest and wise books on suffering and healing have made her one of the UK's best-loved and most popular writers on pastoral care and personal growth. She is widely known for her work in the hospice movement, and as a young doctor who survived torture for daring to give medical care to an opponent of the Pinochet regime in Chile.£5.99 -
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Jesus: his home, his journey, his challenge. A Companion for Lent and Easter
Lent & Easter, Resources for the Christian Year'After many years of biblical scholarship and teaching, David Bryan set off to learn about Jesus by visiting Israel. On his return, he was plunged into parish ministry in Darlington. Ten years later, he has synthesised his learning and ministerial experience in this inspiring and challenging companion for Lent. The text brings Jesus to life in ways that will not only inform but also energise many individuals and groups. Working with it is a great way to prepare for Easter.'£5.00Stephen Cherry, Residentiary Canon of Durham Cathedral
'David Bryan's face-to-face presentations in local churches, helping the, connect with the human story of Jesus, transfer very successfully into this book. His own devotion to Jesus, his scholarship carried lightly and an ever-present strain of humour, invite us to encounter the challenges that Jesus brought to those he first met. He starkly brings us close to the tough realities of life and strife at the time of Jesus, raising questions along the way to stimulate consideration of the reader's own beliefs and values. Poetry, archaeology and politics are woven together as Bryan invites us to reconsider our identity in the world of today in the light of Jesus' dream of the reign of God. This is an excellent resource for groups of personal study.'
Robin Greenwood, Research Fellow in Applied Theology Durham University
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I am with you
Lent & EasterIn I Am With You, Episcopal priest and theologian Kathryn Green-McCreight examines the biblical portrayal of God’s presence among us as light in darkness. Close readings of Scripture are woven into a framework patterned on the seven monastic hours of prayer and the seven days of creation. With an introduction by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, I Am With You is a reflective and throught provoking guide to the solemn season of Lent.£4.00 -
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Sensing God: Learning to meditate during Lent
Lent & Easter, Spiritual Exercises, The Inner JourneyWe often associate Lent with giving something up but it is also a good time to begin. This refreshing book is a practical introduction and guide to Christian meditation. Through this ascetic discipline, we enter into the tradition of the Desert Fathers, and as we learn to sense God’s presence and nurture the silence within, come to experience joy and well-being in every area of our lives. Fr Laurence offers meditation instructions, guidance and support, as well as 46 enriching daily reflections on the Gospels, which highlight particular Gospel themes and their continued relevance for modern living.£5.00 -
Multicoloured Seasons
Advent & Christmas, Creativity, Lent & Easter, Resources for the Christian YearA collection of sixteen images to colour based around the Church Year, two images for each season starting at Advent, then Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and Harvest with mediations on the reverse of each image.£4.49 -
The Christmas Creative Retreat Activity Book
Advent & Christmas, Creativity, Resources for the Christian YearThis book has been designed to be used from Christmas Day to Epiphany. It has been created to help you find moments of meaning amidst the mince pies and re-runs of old sit-coms. Be inspired by the stories of Saints and find peace with the activities. The Christmas Creative Retreat Activity Book offers a combination of meditations, prayers and activities. Some to challenge and some to help you relax and clear your mind and always to encourage you to hear the 'still, small voice'.£3.99 -
Approaching Christmas
Advent & Christmas, Resources for the Christian YearChristmas, for many of us, is a magical season. We sense that it is a time for happiness and for seeing the good in each other, even if we cannot always say why this is so. The chapters of this book focus on things we all associate with Christmas, such as: making lists, decorations, gifts, Christmas trees, music, food and family. In each one, the author blends personal story, Christmas traditions, spiritual reflection, and quotations from scripture or other sources to offer an imaginative and stimulating way into the riches of the season. Illustrated throughout with fine art, Approaching Christmas is a beautiful and rewarding companion to the Christmas season. Hardback. 128 pages.£9.99 -
Jesse Tree Ornaments
Advent & Christmas, Celtic Daily Prayer & Liturgy, Music & Creativity, Northumbria Community Resources & Teaching, Resources for the Christian YearThe Jesse Tree has been used over many centuries to bring life to the characters who are part of Jesus' family Tree from Jesse through David to Joseph and Mary. This ornament pack contains three sheets of card printed with thirty-one double sided ornaments for you to colour, cut out and use to decorate your own Jesse Tree at home. Each ornament illustrates one of the Jesse Tree readings written by Andy Raine from the Northumbria Community. The readings themselves, one for each day in December, are available in Celtic Daily Prayer Book 2: Farther Up and Farther In published by Collins and available here Also available from the Northumbria Community is the Jesse Tree Pack which contains these card ornaments along with an A5 booklet of the readings - available here Your Jesse Tree can be made from anything you wish but many people use a branch which can be left in its natural state or stripped and painted gold, silver, white and then suspended from a ceiling or 'planted' in a pot. Instructions for preparing the ornaments are included in this pack.£3.00 -
The Journey: With Jesus to Jerusalem and the Cross
Lent & EasterAfter an unforgettable three years, the charismatic teacher who called you and your brother James to follow him says, ‘Right, lets go to Jerusalem.’ It’s thrilling to be setting out on the next stage of the adventure. But life in the company of Jesus is not for the faint-hearted. Certainly there’s fun as you mess about with the other young disciples. But it’s pretty edgey too, not knowing who is going to turn up next and what might be expected of you. And as the days pass by, the huge demands on Jesus as he heals and teaches invoke both a strange tenderness and a growing dread of why exactly you are journeying to the holy city... Looking through the eyes of the disciple John, The Journey follows Luke’s chronology from Luke 9:51, as Jesus ‘set his face to go to Jerusalem’. Absorbing, exuberant and affective, it offers daily (weekday) readings for Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday, with a poem for each Saturday. It is suitable for use by individuals or groups.£7.99
