2020 Advent Guide: The Heart of the Work

As I write these words (early enough for compilation, printing, and delivery into your hands), we are all watching polls, listening to commentators, and considering how best to cast a ballot. We are saying, as we did four years ago, this is the most important election of our lives. And it is true again as it is each quadrennium. Every four years, we imagine beginning again. Either beginning with something completely new or beginning to solidify what was begun in the previous four years. It is its own sort of
Advent, ripe with expectation and mixed with a bit of fear of the unknown.

In a year that feels particularly portentous, the seasons of the Christian year, commencing with Advent, offer a different way to mark time and think about beginnings. Each year with Advent/Christmas/Epiphany we remind ourselves of God’s in-breaking into our time. Empires and leaders will rise and fall, while the singular call to God’s people never wavers. We answer the call regardless of our relationship to empire, elected leaders, or market dynamics. It is helpful to remember
that our faith does not hang in the balance of a single election.

The staff of the North Carolina Council of Churches offer you this resource as you move from the election to the Advent of another Christian year, a year like all that have gone before it in which God’s people strive to be faithful to the call to love God and love our neighbors. The Heart of the Work for the Council opens doors for the people of North Carolina to answer the call. We hope these weekly reminders built around the Advent scriptures, grounded in the Council priorities, and spread across the state will enrich your season of expectation. Join us in the Heart of the Work. Click here to access the 2020 Advent Guide: The Heart of the Work.