We finish our current worship series, Life, on Sunday, November 24. We used Following Jesus in a Warming World by Kyle Meyaard-Schaap for this series as our companion book.
We’re trying something a little different in preparation for Christmas this year. Instead of chapters to read in preparation for Sunday’s message, we’ll have a short reflection to read each day.
Daring to Connect is a daily devotional for the four weeks of Advent. Each day, we’ll read a reflection that explores faith through daring stories of risk, birth, and radical trust. Dr. Week’s stories can help revitalize our connection to faith, community, and personal transformation.
The Season of Advent offers opportunities each year to consider the stories we know as part of our faith: stories of risk, birth, and trying again. Moreover, these are stories of mutual, radical trust between God and God’s people, trust manifested by God sending Jesus to live among us.
In Daring to Connect, we’ll read contemporary versions of similar stories experienced by members of Pastor Dawn Darwin Weaks’ congregation. A church totally focused on personal transformation through mission in their community. Beginning with the first Sunday of Advent, each day’s devotion includes an Advent scripture, reflection, and prayer. Candle-lighting moments for each Sunday and Christmas make Daring to Connect an engaging Advent experience.
Rev. Dr. Dawn Darwin Weaks received her B.A. from Baylor University, her M. Div. from Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University, and her D.Min. from St. Paul School of Theology. Initially ordained in the Southern Baptist Church where she served as an associate minister, Pastor Weaks answered a call to become a Disciples of Christ minister in 1999. She is now the co-pastor of Connection Christian Church in Odessa, Texas, with her husband, Rev. Dr. Joe Weaks.
A frequent speaker at events nationwide, she has her writing published in various venues. Her three passions are her family, her relationship with God, and helping others hear and live out the calling God gives them.
Pastor Week’s offers this insight in her introduction:
Sometimes the weight of the world can bog us down. Everything can feel so heavy, it’s hard to move. Yet Advent, this season of waiting for the coming of Christ anew, is meant to be an adventure. It’s right there in the word! Within the pages of this devotional are stories of playfulness, courage, trying again, laughter, and radical trust- from God and us. After all, our story as Christians centers on God’s outrageous risk of sending Jesus to us in the first place.
We’ll have a few books available for purchase, but copies are available through most book retailers and libraries. As of the publication of this article, the price on Amazon for a new paperback edition is $4.99, and the Kindle version is also $4.99.
Our Book Club does not meet as a group. However, our weekly messages reference that week’s chapters. You can anticipate spoiler alerts unless you keep up with the pace. You can purchase your own copy or visit your local library.
You can contact our office with questions by phone or simply type your question or enter a prayer request on our website’s homepage — FlintAsburyChurch.org.
Pastor Tommy
Dawn Darwin Weak. Daring to Connect: Advent as Adventure. Danvers, MA: Chalice Press, 2024.