Advent Devotional

The Advent and Christmas season can accelerate an already full, and busy life. Our attention can be scattered, our hearts divided, and our prayers infrequent and indifferent. Is this just the reality of life? As followers of Jesus, how do we recenter our hearts, minds, attention, and affection on the person of Jesus - particularly at this time of year?

Prayer and praise anchor the people of God. And the invitation of prayer and praise during the season of Advent is to be present with and to the God who is with us.

Worship and prayer do not flow exclusively from the heart and life of believers.

Everyone prays. Everyone worships. Christian and non-Christian alike. But because of sin, it is not that we cease to worship and pray, but that we aim our worship and words in all the wrong directions. If right worship is to occur, it is first a work of the Holy Spirit - lifting our eyes to behold the beauty, wonder, and work of Jesus. If we are to rightly receive the gift of prayer and praise in the season of Advent those realities must move intentionally from the outskirts and margin of our lives to the deep down center.

This devotional contains the prayers of the saints - those in the story of Scripture, as well as those through the generations. My hope and prayer is that their words become our own as we seek to recenter our prayers and praise this Advent season.

Lent 2023 [A Free Devotional]

In a world that encourages the avoidance of pain, shortcuts to joy, and subtle-yet-significant forms of self-indulgence, Lent invites us to identify with Christ in His suffering through self-denial, confession, and repentance of sin, so that we may share with Christ in His glory (Romans 8:17). Lent is not sullen, but sobering because we trace the shadow of our sin through the shadow of Christ’s cross and empty tomb. In the season of Lent, we remember the great forgiveness that we have received, and are stirred to love and treasure Christ in response (Luke 7:47).

Changes in a season or new year often invite us to consider and practice new rhythms. That is why in this Lenten season we will use the Prayer of Examen (or Daily Examen, or Examen) to move through this season in the Church calendar.

Advent 2022 [A Free Devotional]

Songs are more than a combination of music and melody, lyric and rhyme. Songs are a bridge between our heads and our heart. They give us language to that which we have sensed but been unable to name. They engage our whole bodies in response and collective celebration, lament, and unity. More still, songs are prayers. They are confessions of things we believe. Things we need to believe. And things we desire to believe. This Advent devotional represents a small selection of songs - Psalms, Advent Songs, and Songs in Scripture to help bridge our heads and our hearts this season. Because more than our homes, our hearts need to be prepared to make room and receive the King of kings, and Lord of lords again. I hope and pray that these songs bridge what we know and believe, and what we feel and experience.

Lent Devotional [Free Download]

God has designed our world to be shaped by seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. Our lives are also shaped by seasons - made up of times of abundance, joy, and celebration, as well as times of suffering, pain, and loss.

This is why our calendars are filled with holidays, literally meaning holy days. These are days set apart from all the rest. We mark the days that have marked us. These holidays remind us every season of who we are, where we have been, and who we desire to be. So too with the Church calendar. Followers of Jesus have designed and followed the Church calendar to mark their lives and days by the arrival, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and return of Christ.

Beginning on Ash Wednesday, for forty days during Lent, we strip away some of our usual comforts (often through fasting) to create more space for reflection, repentance, and refining. These days ready our hearts to gaze upon the gore of Good Friday, and the glory of Resurrection Sunday.

Advent + Christmastide 2021 [A Free Devotional]

Living in the midst of a pandemic for the last two years has narrowed our lives.  We plan in pencil, hold expectations loosely, and maybe for the first time have wrestled and rested in the reality that, ‘The heart of man plans his ways, but the LORD establishes his steps (Proverbs 16:9).’

Advent reminds us that we live inside a larger story.  A story that cannot be thwarted by a pandemic.  A story of redemption set in motion before the breath of God awakened the dust-made man, and a story that will continue long after our bodies return to dust.   

If the last two years have left you in a fog of darkness, I hope the images of Light in this devotional will illumine Hope as you prepare your heart for the Advent of Christ.

‘…even the darkness is not dark to You; the night is bright as the dark. For darkness is as light with You.’ Psalm 139:12

Lent Devotional [Free Download]

Lent gives us space,

the Psalms give us the language,

to remember, reflect, and repent.

To lift our eyes to our Suffering Servant Savior who has come, and is coming again.

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Refocus: A 52-Week Devotional For Worship Leaders & Teams [Free Download]

'Worship is more than a song.'

Many worship leaders say and believe this is true, but few worship leaders are actually leading like this is true.

I've written this devotional for worship leaders who want to connect the dots of Sunday morning worship to all of life worship.

Download this 52-Week Devotional for free by entering your email address below.

Worship Leader Weekly Checklist [Free Download]

Whether you lead worship vocationally on a weekly basis or serve as a volunteer on rotation, there are many details for which you are responsible. I created this worship leader weekly checklist to make sure that nothing fell through the cracks during my preparation.