This year, let’s do Advent.

It’s always odd that we shift seemingly overnight from backyard BBQs to Christmas tree displays in the front of all the stores. It’s almost criminal, but the reality for those of us in the church world is that it’s important to be reminded that Advent is coming. As those displays go up earlier and earlier, it should signal to us just how quickly culture wants to jump to decorations, wrapping paper, and peppermint mochas, and how much work it takes to be intentional about the days leading up to the day. Christmas doesn’t begin after Thanksgiving. Advent does.

So this year, let’s do Advent. Let’s do it with our families, our small groups, and our churches. Instead of our cheesy slogans about “the reason for the season,” let’s practice a sacred season for the sake of the reason. Let’s joyfully embrace the fact that we will do Advent in the midst of a culture that loves Christmas but doesn’t really understand it. When the church reclaims Advent, the culture will behold Christmas.

To help, we’d like to humbly recommend J.D. Walt’s Not Yet Christmas: It’s Time for Advent. In this twenty-five day reader, you’ll find the trusted texts that have guided the church for centuries combined with daily insight and prayers composed by some of the best Christian poets of our time.

But that’s not actually where we’d like you to start today. We’d like to invite you to start here, with an email series written by J.D. that really sets the stage for doing Advent right. He ends the series with a special offer that will help you save Advent and sow big.

Oh, and if you’re in the habit of really looking ahead, we’d like to encourage you to check out J.D.’s newest resource, Soundtrack: A Forty-Day Playlist Through The Psalms. It’s Seedbed’s Lenten resource for 2016, and like all seasons, it’s coming faster than you think.

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