Advent Words 2019 Begins Tomorrow!

The season of Advent begins tomorrow. While this season leading up to Christmas is typically filled with rushing around shopping, attending parties and school events, and gathering with family, it is also a time to slow down and focus. I have found over the years that in order to that in this busy season, I must be intentional. Advent Words, the combining of reading Scripture and responding with creativity, has been the means for my intentional slowing down and reflecting during Advent over the past few years.

The word Advent comes from the Latin word adventus and means "coming" or "arrival". This season leading up to Christmas is about waiting and preparing for this coming. 

• The promised coming of the Messiah to the Jews.
• The coming of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem.
• The promised coming of Jesus' return.
• The continual coming of Christ in the lives and hearts of God's people.

This year's Advent Words focus will bring us words from the prologue to John's gospel found in John 1:1-18.

Click HERE for a PDF version of the calendar to download

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Would you like to participate?

• The daily Bible study devotions, along with how I respond creatively, will be posted on this blog each day beginning on December 1. You can follow this blog by email or there will be daily links to the posts in the Words Challenge Facebook group. If you are a part of the Living Your Word of the Year Facebook group links to the blog post will be posted there as well.
• Respond with whatever creative practice you choose: art journaling, mixed media art, scrapbook, photography, digital art, poetry, creative writing, calligraphy - any way you choose! As you take the Scripture and devotions into your heart and mind, let it sink even deeper as you practice creatively with your hands.
• Join the Words Challenge Facebook group where you can share your art and ideas and join the conversation through the Advent season and beyond.  I host a number of Words Challenges throughout the year. Join here:   https://www.facebook.com/groups/Wordschallengegroup/
• Share on Instagram and other social media with the hashtag #adventwords2019. 
• Reflect and prepare: choose the creative form you will use for your daily practice. Make a journal if that fits your creative form.

Introducing Advent Words 2019

Introducing Advent Words 2019

This year for the Advent Words challenge we will look closely at the Word in John's prologue (John 1:1-18). Using the prologue to John’s Gospel for Advent is a bit different than using the traditional Christmas accounts found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. John does not start with Jesus’s genealogy and birth or include the prophecies of the Messiah as Matthew does. John does not give us the stories and details surrounding Jesus’ miraculous birth as Luke does. In John’s Christmas account there are no mangers, no Bethlehem account, no wise men or shepherds, no virgin birth, no angels or starry night. John simply begins with the main point of Christmas – the Incarnation. 

For Christmas is the celebration of the incarnation, and John helps us focus on God’s Divine revelation - God has come to us in human form. Jesus is God incarnate and God is with us.

Over the years I have used the practice of art journaling as a way to intentionally slow down during the Advent season. This intentional period of slowing down has provided time to reflect and ponder the deeper things of this season - it's a time of preparing my heart for the coming of Christ.

Click on calendar for a PDF version without the image for easier printing.

Would you like to join me in slowing down the Advent season? It's simple:

• The daily Bible study devotions, along with how I responded creatively, will be posted on this blog each day beginning on December 1. You can follow this blog by email or there will be daily links to the posts in the Words Challenge Facebook group. If you are a part of the Living Your Word of the Year Facebook group links to the blog post will be posted there as well.
• Respond with whatever creative practice you choose: art journaling, mixed media art, scrapbook, photography, digital art, poetry, creative writing, calligraphy - any way you choose! As you take in the Scripture and devotions into your heart and mind, let it sink even deeper as you practice creatively with your hands.
• Join the Words Challenge Facebook group where you can share your art and ideas and join the conversation through the Advent season and beyond.  I host a number of Words Challenges throughout the year. Join here:   https://www.facebook.com/groups/Wordschallengegroup/
• Share on Instagram and other social media with the hashtag #adventwords2019. 
• In the days before the Advent season begins reflect and prepare: choose the creative form you will use for your daily practice. Make a journal if that fits your creative form.

In the past I have kept my Advent Words art journal pages in a variety of style s of journals.

This year, for my Living Your Word Journal, I had made a journal out of an old ledger. I made it with two signatures, which ended up being too many for my A-Z challenge in that group. So I decided to continue in this journal using the second signature of pages for Advent Words.

Living Your Word of the Year Letters U & V

In the Living Your Word of the Year group we have spent this past year working through the alphabet using the letters to pick words that support our word of the year. Four more letters left and we close the year and the decade. 

For U, I chose the word unfailing. To live a sacred life, I believe, means we need to have a strong connection with God's unfailing love. On this page I enjoyed clipping painted papers for a little collage.

For the letter V, I chose the word voice. For quite some time I have felt a strong connection with the call found in Proverbs 31:8-9, to be a voice for those whose voices tend to get drowned out by society - the poor, single moms, children -  the list could go on and on.

Wherever you live, I hope you are enjoying the change in season. I spent some time walking at the park yesterday. The sun was not out but everything glowed from the yellow and gold leaves on the trees. This is absolutely my favorite time of year. Despite the weather turning cold, there is just so much beauty to see as the leaves change color.

I am pulling together the word list for  Advent Words 2019. I will publish more details about the Advent Words project in the weeks ahead. 

May you take time to slow down and enjoy the beauty around you this week!

S & T for Living Your Word of the Year

As I contemplated what to do for my art journal pages for the letters S and T, I decided to just play with some of my favorite art techniques. I am still being plagued with this on-again, off-again creative slump I have been battling since March. So play seems to be the best remedy right now!

My word for S is Sabbath. No matter how busy life gets I try hard to protect Friday as my Sabbath day. It gets hard at times, especially when I am busy. This Sabbath discipline has been a much needed lifeline to rest, to re-energizing, and to staying connected to God over the years.

For my page I cut letters out of painted papers. It's such a relaxing activity!

For the letter T I chose the word thankful. And for my page I did some collage with squares of painted papers in a grid pattern. Another very relaxing activity!

There are only 6 more letters and then our A-Z challenge and 2019 will be over. I am currently one letter behind and hope to get caught up by the time the next letter appears on the calendar. This has been a fun way to keep my focus on my word of the year and my goals for it.

Join Our Inspirational Facebook Group: Living Your Word of the Year

Bernice Hopper, Valerie Sjodin and I facilitate a Facebook group about Living your Word of the Year. In it we share insights through blog posts and connect with other like-hearted and like-minded people who want to live out a word focus throughout the year. We offer participants a bi-weekly A-Z Inspiration to help prompt reflection and creativity. as well as other inspirational ways to connect with your word of the year. If you would like to connect with others in creative ways about living your word throughout the year, explore new ideas, record thoughts, prayers, and events, you are invited to join our Facebook group.

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/203309083575277/

Please use #livingyourword2019 on social media.

Check out the other blogs:
Bernice: www.newlycreative.com
Valerie: www.valeriesjodin.com/blog

R is for Restore

R is for Restore

And just like that, with the blink of an eye, it is the middle of September. School is back in session and this past week we welcomed the teachers back to the School Supply Pantry at our church for the first time this school year. This portion of our outreach ministry is truly a labor of love for me, and has become my passion and calling. The School Supply Pantry began in 2008  when we learned that the teachers at the school we had adopted purchased a good portion of the supplies for their students out of their personal finances. We then found out that this is an issue almost everywhere as schools face mounting budgets and have to make cuts to finances in order to continue to operate. So, as we began to pray for ways to serve the teachers and students of our adopted school, a supply pantry was the answer. Now, a little over 10 years later, our little pantry has grown to include six schools supported by seven churches. Through two unused classrooms in our church, we serve 217 teachers representing almost 2400 students, once a month through the school year. It is such an honor and a blessing to bless these teachers who pour out their hearts and souls to their students every day. Our city schools serve a large number of children living at or close to the poverty level. In this ministry we are able to at least relieve some of the burden the teachers face in meeting the needs of their students.

I hadn't planned on beginning my blog post this way, but I guess this is what has been on my heart and mind lately. Now on to our previously scheduled show....

In our Living Your Word group we are exploring our word of the year with an A-Z inspirational challenge. My word of the year is sacred, which I chose because I wanted to explore what it means and looks like for our bodies to be seen as an active part of our spiritual life - for the whole self to be on the journey of living a sacred life for Christ. My exploration of this topic has combined with exploring the impact of inflammation on my body and the role certain foods play in this. I suffer from two health issues that are auto-immune diseases and I would really like to avoid treating them with a list of medications with side effects longer than my arm! I have had Psoriasis my entire adult life and only learned in the past year that it is considered an auto-immune disease. I also have arthritis throughout my body that began giving me issues in my early 40's, and now has been deemed to be Psoriatic Arthritis. This whole year has been an exploration of changing my eating habits, and I have made some big changes! Some have had an impact on my health issues and some have not.

For my R word I chose the word restore. While I cannot undo all of the damage that eating in unhealthy ways and a lack of good exercise has done over the past five plus decades, I can begin to make choices that help restore my health and improve my body's functioning. My mind nor my will-power is slowing down, so I don't want my body to hinder the kind of life I want to live.

Throughout this journey I find that as I make healthier choices in the area of eating and exercise, it also impacts me in mental, emotional and spiritual ways. In other words, making better choices in one area leads to making better choices in all areas. Discipline is discipline, and when we grow in one area all areas benefit.

When asked which commandment was the most important one, Jesus answered:

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ " Mark 12:29-30

There it is, our whole self - heart, soul, mind and strength (body). All operating as God designed, to live as God has called us. And so, my prayer has been:

Join Our Inspirational Facebook Group: Living Your Word of the Year

Bernice Hopper, Valerie Sjodin and I facilitate a Facebook group about Living your Word of the Year. In it we share insights through blog posts and connect with other like-hearted and like-minded people who want to live out a word focus throughout the year. We offer participants a bi-weekly A-Z Inspiration to help prompt reflection and creativity. as well as other inspirational ways to connect with your word of the year. If you would like to connect with others in creative ways about living your word throughout the year, explore new ideas, record thoughts, prayers, and events, you are invited to join our Facebook group.

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/203309083575277/

Please use #livingyourword2019 on social media.

Check out the other blogs:
Bernice: www.newlycreative.com
Valerie: www.valeriesjodin.com/blog