The United Methodist Connection continues to provide worship resources for local churches to use this Advent season and into the new year.

The Michigan Conference is adding more resources to its Advent Resources Page. New links include People, Look East, performed by Carter Cortelyou and A Time of Prayer for Advent, beautiful music by M. Hayes, performed by Eric Strand, piano. Coming soon:

• A 30-minute children’s Christmas Eve worship service.  Featuring 26 families across Michigan, the service, this service targeted for young children, shares the ABC’s of Christmas.  The service can be embedded into local church websites ready to broadcast and will also be offered in a form so local church worship leadership can customize it with an open and close. 
• A Christmas greeting from Bishop David Bard. This brief greeting is intended as a stand-alone segment or part of your Christmas Eve service. Local churches may share this as part of worship or offer it through social media. 

The United Methodist Publishing House (UMPH) is extending full permission to all churches for use of UMPH copyrighted worship materials through July 31, 2021.  Due to the extraordinary challenges faced by churches and others, UMPH (Cokesbury and Abingdon Press) is assuring easy access to essential worship aids and the use of the Common English Bible for online worship and studies. Read details here.

Discipleship Ministries has featured Advent Antiracism resources developed by Brittney Stephan. Brittney serves as the Michigan Conference Associate Director for Multicultural Vibrancy. Find the resources here.

The General Board of Higher Education and Ministry (GBHEM)  released its annual Christmas card with the theme, “Finding a Light in the Darkness.” The video features sand art by Dawn Scott and may be shared by local churches in their virtual worship services. Here’s the link to the message and video. 

Last Updated on October 31, 2023