Dear Members and Friends of Harvard-Epworth,

We hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving celebrations this week!  Now that we’ve slept off our turkey-induced L-tryptophan overdose, your intrepid co-pastors are now fearlessly setting up the Advent journey for Harvard-Epworth.

So what is Advent?

Advent is the gentle, hushed, faith-filled part of December, usually overshadowed by the noise and lights and hecticity (Is that a word? I’m going with it!) of the Commercial Holidaze™.  Advent offers us an antidote to the hustle and bustle of the season.

Advent beckons us to a quiet space for reflective, hope-filled waiting: we wait for the coming of a holy child on Christmas Eve; we wait for the return of Christ at the fulfillment of time; we look around for signs of hope, peace, joy, and love in the midst of the fear and chaos around us.

We invite you to look for those signs of hope, peace, joy and love, and to share them with each other.  Together, we will create an online visual celebration of Advent in photographs!  We’re calling it the Advent Photo-a-Day Challenge.  Each day of December will have a theme word (like Hope or Dream or Risk, click here to see the full calendar.)  Your challenge is to take a photograph, inspired by the theme word, and post that picture to the Harvard-Epworth Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/HarvardEpworthUMC) in the comments section.

Spoiler Alert: The word for Sunday, Dec. 1 is Begin.

I take a few daily walks with our dog Toby. I look forward to having a spiritual theme for me to pay attention to as I walk.  It will focus my eyes of faith as I look at the world around me for signs of God’s Advent poking through.  And I am excited to see what creative interpretations all of you will be sharing!

Wishing You Advent Peace,
Pastor Mitch