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Advent Devotions
with Prayers by Church Members

by The Rev. Thomas L. Weitzel
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

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Advent Devotionals are popular items for church members and families to use around the home Advent wreath, and many parishes purchase these each year.  In a number of places, I have developed an exercise to have the adult class or even the youth of the parish to write the prayers for a devotional that is then published and distributed in the parish for everyone's use.  It starts with explaining the parts of a prayer, examining a sample prayer, and then assigning Advent readings to individuals and having them write a prayer related to their reading.  I've drawn the lessons for the first three weeks of the season from the three-year daily lectionary.  The lessons for the final week review the annunciation stories of Luke 1 and Matthew 1.

Click here for a PDF of the Advent Devotions Worksheet.

Once the prayers are written, I place them in a booklet that includes instructions on "Making An Advent Wreath," "How to Use the Wreath & Devotions," and then a brief order for the devotions.

Click here for the start of the Advent Devotions Booklet in RTF (Rich Text Format).  Right click on the link to download it.