Hymn-ful Sundays! "Great is Thy Faithfulness"

This week's hymn is by Thomas Chisholm, a Methodist minister and hymnwriter at the turn of the 20th century, who wrote it as a testimony of God's faithfulness over his lifetime.

The Fourth Candle: Anticipating Peace

For the final week of Advent, we are anticipating peace.

It doesn't escape my notice that peace is the focus of the fourth and final week of Advent. I think it's quite appropriate to take THE most hectic week of the year and make its focus peace. Even as we run around, doing all the last minute things that seem to magically come up in the last few days before Christmas, we are to remember that Jesus came to the earth as the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).

Anticipating Christ

One of my absolute favourite times of the year is Advent. Not just Christmas itself, but the four weeks leading up to it that the liturgical church celebrates as Advent. There's something in me that just loves the idea of eagerly anticipating and celebrating the birth of our Saviour.

Each week, a candle is lit, and each candle signifies a word that is the focus of that week: hope, love, joy, peace. (A fifth candle is lit on Christmas day to represent Christ, and the light that he brings to the world.) We sings songs that tell of the coming of the Christ-child, and read some of the greatest passages in the Bible: prophecies of the Messiah coming to earth, that were spoken hundreds of years before his birth.