Content and Structure
Life is busy anyway, isn’t it? And Christmas only makes it even more busy. Just think about the daily distractions in your life in a normal working week that are happening in your home and at work. Then when you pick up your mobile phone, there are countless distractions, and then add Christmas on top of that as another layer. It’s a busy, distracting time.
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
Jonathan Gibson
For individuals and families, this 40-day liturgical devotional guides readers through Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany—helping Christians retain their focus on Jesus and meditate on the mystery of his incarnation.
But liturgy—a daily liturgy—can help us by giving us the discipline to do something day after day. And a liturgy helps us with content and structure. Often when we get time to do our quiet time or we carve out the time for a devotion, we’re maybe a bit directionless as to what to do, what to include. Where should I read? How should I pray?
But having a set liturgy with some set prayers and some guided Bible readings can provide you with content and structure when you do find the time for a devotion during Christmas.
Jonathan Gibson is the author of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel: A Liturgy for Daily Worship from Advent to Epiphany.
Jonathan Gibson (PhD, University of Cambridge) is an ordained minister in the International Presbyterian Church, United Kingdom, and associate professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He is a coeditor of and contributor to From Heaven He Came and Sought Her and author of Be Thou My Vision: A Liturgy for Daily Worship. Jonny and his wife, Jackie, have four children.
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