Baptist churches learn to embrace Advent ritual

Posted: 12/16/05

Baptist churches learn to embrace Advent rituals

By Terri Jo Ryan

Special to the Baptist Standard

When Bill Hardage first “got” Advent after much Bible study more than a decade ago, he fell in love with the sacred season.

He was so smitten by the holy period leading up to the Feast of the Nativity, he even bought a $1,100 Advent stand for his congregation, Valley View Baptist Church in Longview, as a pre-Christmas gift.

Seven years ago, he moved 55 miles northwest, to Clearwater Baptist Church of Scroggins, and took his tradition with him. When he learned that his successor at Valley View found the gold-plated, six-foot tall stand with a large oval beaded glass ring for the wreath “a little heathen” and hid it in the closet, Hardage went to Longview to retrieve his gift for his new faith family.

And it has been put to good use ever since, he added.

“Baptists are a little short on ritual,” Hardage admitted. “Baptists have been missing out on something very important by skipping Advent. It adds to the season.”

From the Hanging of the Greens service, through the lighting of the candles by lay people each Sunday, to the poinsettia memorials that line the sanctuary to the addition of the Christ Candle to the Advent wreath on Christmas Eve, Advent enriches the souls of those longing for the light of the world, he said.

Advent, the four-week season of anticipation that precedes Christmas, means candles of purple and rose will be lit, wreaths displayed and evergreen boughs will be hung in sanctuaries.

Long a regular part of annual worship in Catholic, Episcopal and Lutheran churches, among others, Advent until recent years was as much a stranger to Baptist churches as a certain babe was in Bethlehem two millennia ago.

But no more.

“Advent leads the way in keeping time on a Christian scale, rather than use Hallmark or a secular calendar,” said Burt Burleson, pastor of DaySpring Baptist Church, a Waco congregation that bills itself as “sacred, simple.”

Raymond Bailey, pastor of Seventh & James Baptist Church in Waco, has been marking sacred time with Advent at least 20 years, the last 10 at Seventh & James, “to really identify with the universal church and feel a closeness with other Chris-tians across the centuries and faith expressions.”

Not as old as the feast of Christmas itself, church historians say Advent may have originated in fourth century France and Spain, where a pre-Epiphany time of prayer and fasting likely was observed to prepare for baptisms of new believers conducted on the Catholic feast commemorating the baptism of Jesus. In the 11th century, the 40-day Advent period was shortened to the four Sundays before Christmas.

But after the Protestant Reformation, as some religious movements moved farther and farther from the Roman Catholic Church and its oldest traditions, Advent fell out of favor. An example of that historic lack of attention in Baptist churches to the season is that the Baptist Hymnal contains only eight Advent carols, versus dozens of Christmas carols.

“Pretty much it's Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus, and O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. That kind of shows you where Baptists are on Advent,” Burleson observed.

“We delay singing Christmas carols, to get in touch with the waiting, the longing for the light of the world. But it's hard to stay pure in this culture, when Target started playing We Wish You a Merry Christmas shortly after Halloween.”

DaySpring conducts the Hanging of the Greens–symbolic of the everlasting life Christians say is promised through Christ–on the first Sunday of Advent. The children are involved in lighting the candles each week and put Crismons on the tree.

“We want people to walk in and wake up to something different in the sanctuary,” Burleson said. Recovering the institution “is a way to counter the commercialization of Christmas. It's a way to be deliberately spiritual” during the secular frenzy.

Rooted in the Latin word adventus, meaning “coming” or “arrival,” Advent is a season of spiritual preparation both for Christmas, when Christians mark Jesus' birth, and for his second coming on Judgment Day.

Thus, its theological reach spans from the Old Testament's ancient messianic prophecies to the end of days. Advent articulates that sense of hope, of anticipation, that God has worked in history and will continue to work in history, said Bailey.

Scott Walker, pastor of First Baptist Church of Waco, said the congregation has observed Advent since 1993.

“We have an Advent wreath, which is lit by a family or individual every Sunday. We also have a Sunday when our children process in on the first hymn and bring with them the various characters of the manger scene and place them around the creche,” he said.

One of the church's Sunday school classes also produces a booklet of Advent devotional readings, written by various First Baptist members and mailed to all. “It allows us to share in a new and personal devotional thought” for each day of the Advent season, he added.

Lake Shore Baptist Church in Waco has printed its own member-written booklet of Advent devotionals since 1984, although the church marked Advent for several years before that, when Roger Paynter–now of First Baptist Church in Austin–was pastor.

Lake Shore Associate Minister Sharlande Sledge said their church's Advent guide has proven so popular through the years, it has gained a following outside Lake Shore's doors.

“Advent slows us down in the rush toward Christmas, and these devotionals put a pause into each busy day,” she said.

Pastor Dorisanne Cooper of Lake Shore said one of the most significant Advent traditions there is the creation of the annual banner. The 9-foot-long, 45-inch-wide banner of velvet and rich fabrics, designed by Pam Allen and assembled by a cadre of volunteer seamstresses, is more than mere decoration, Cooper said. “It's an integral part of our worship in this season.”

Sledge concurred. “We try to choose a theme that is reflective of the year past. In 2001, it was 'On Earth, Peace' with a ribbon-wrapped globe.”

The 2005 banner, “God's Love Made Visible,” is a reaction to the catastrophes in the human family that started just after last Advent–the Pacific tsunami, the summer hurricanes and the fall earthquake in Central Asia. The fabrics that form the central star on the banner come from parts of the world where Lake Shore has missions and represent the local community's numerous acts of kindness, she said.

Seventh & James also has pulpit hangings for Advent–as well as other church seasons, such as Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost–with costs underwritten by the Leuschner Fund and by an anonymous donor family.

Designed by Bill Doser of North Carolina with help from artist-consultant-finisher Bidwell Drake of Conroe, the paraments, elegant ornamental fabric hangings, are made by the same team of stitchers–Mary Ann Bennett of McGregor; Cynthia LaMaster of Chapel Hill, N.C.; and Mona Burchett, Jane Newsome, Rebecca Hartberg and Lu Treadwell, all of Waco–that were involved in the needlepoint project in the chapel at Truett Seminary on the Baylor University campus.

Broadway Baptist Church of Fort Worth began observing Advent in 1973 when John Claypool was pastor, said current Pastor Brett Younger. “Advent is a way of making room for Christ's coming in worship so that we will make room for Christ's coming in our own lives,” Younger said.

When everything around seems busy and hurried, Advent has a kind of solemnity and sacred quality, he added. For example, the services are more elaborate, with the lighting of Advent candles, parade of banners and festival music, such as the singing of Handel's Messiah.

“Our Advent theme this year is 'Let Every Heart Prepare,'” said Younger. The four Advent services include baptisms, parent-child dedications, communion, candles, carols, anthems, Scripture readings and sermons on Christ's coming according to each of the Gospel writers.

“We always choose a Christmas book to read together. This year we're reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and renting a theater to see the new film,” Younger said.

“Different people love different aspects, but there's not much we could skip without someone being disappointed. For some, it's the procession of Advent banners on the first Sunday of Advent. For others, it's drinking sweet coffee in the sanctuary during communion at the Moravian Love Feast (Dec. 7). For many, it's crying at Silent Night at the candlelight communion on Christmas Eve.”

Mark Wingfield, associate pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, a congregation that has observed Advent for more than 15 years, said Baptist churches can engage in these practices without being “high church.”

“We don't speak of the Christmas season, which doesn't start until Dec. 24, but the Advent season,” he said.

The Advent theme for 2005 is “Comfort my People,” from Isaiah 40, a reflection of the year the world endured with numerous large-scale natural disasters, the strife of warfare and the need for God's people to respond in community, he noted.

This theme also links the fall hurricane relief work with the winter emphasis on the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Global Missions offering and next year's launch of KidsHeart Africa–all attempts to help comfort God's children, Wingfield said. Wilshire also published an annual Advent devotional guide, a booklet of devotional thoughts written by Wilshire members.

What is new this year, said Wingfield, is the church hanging liturgical paraments. Displayed in the sanctuary, hanging off the columns on either side of the pews, they are made of cloth of a variety of textures. Purple for Advent while all await the arrival of the King, the paraments will be changed to white for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, symbolizing the birth of the Christ child.

As a Baptist church that values Christian liturgy, Wilshire occupies a niche in the market as common ground for interfaith Christian couples, Wingfield added.

“A lot of people who come to Wilshire come from other Christian expressions, so to them Advent is old hat.”