Longing: Advent Small Group Study

Description

Longing

This Advent Small Group Study invites participants to nurture their Advent longing as a powerful spiritual gift. We make our way through an imaginative pilgrimage in an old-growth forest. It offers us scenes encouraging us to notice longing in our ordinary days, recognize its gifts during times of desolation and reclamation, and welcome “thin spaces”—those moments of connection, support, and hope. In the context of a planetary crisis, we explore how to activate Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love in the world God loves.

Blending experience, scripture reflection, and insights from poets, mystics, and theologians like Teilhard de Chardin, this study encourages participants to let their longing ripen as they cultivate Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. In a time of planetary crisis, the world God loves needs our longing and our action. Explore practical ways to be part of the Incarnation story, where deep human need meets ancient Love.

What You Receive in this Small Group Study

• Complete Leader’s Guide for three Advent sessions with ideas for Opening, Singing, Movement or Sound Prayers, Conversation prompts, a Group Spiritual Practice, and Closing.
• Three 8-10-minute audio recordings.
• Three scripts of the audio recordings to download and copy so participants can follow along.
• Access to a Prayer Bench webpage with all the study materials, downloadable image for social media promotion, customizable poster for the series, and other resources related to the study.
• Prayer Bench also gives permission for the content of this study to be adapted for use in Advent worship services. See below for a worship sample you can use with prayers from Let Us Pray: A Digital Collection of Prayers, Volume 1 & Volume 4.

This is a downloadable resource. When you register and pay, you receive a confirmation email with information about accessing a Study webpage. You also receive the Leader’s Guide as a downloadable file. It is also available on the Study webpage. Please check your junk boxes or Email Janice if you have any issues.

Review a sample. Get a taste of the theme of the Small Group Study and see how it can be adapted for use in worship.

Download a free Worship Sample for Advent 1

A portion of the sales from this resource will be donated to The Old-Growth Forest Project, an initiative of the Ignatius Jesuit Centre in Guelph, Ontario. I encourage you to learn more about this 500-year project, visit if you are in the area, and if you are also able, donate to support this ecological project that helps restore our connection to the natural world. Learn more.