25 resources for the Christmas, Advent season

The celebration of Advent begins Sunday, Nov. 29. The purpose of this season of the church year is to look toward the coming of Christ to earth — a season focused on waiting. It is a time of preparing for the glory of Christmas day. Here are a few resources to help you with your celebration of Advent. Some will help you in your worship planning; others will help you in your church and family devotionals.

Songs for worship

Top 25 Contemporary Hymns for Christmas from LifeWayWorship.com (from a few years back)
Top 25 Traditional Hymns for Christmas from LifeWayWorship.com (from a few years back)
Top 15 Christmas Songs for Churches
All Christmas Music from LifeWayWorship.com
Top Christmas Songs of All Time from PraiseCharts.com
PraiseCarols 1 and PraiseCarols 2 from PraiseCharts.com
Christmas Carols for Acoustic Worship
Great Congregational Christmas Arrangements from HymnCharts.com
Top Christmas Worship Songs 2020 from EssentialWorship

Advent devotionals

NC Baptist Family Advent Devotional Guide
Billy Graham’s Advent Devotional (free ebook)
The Dawning of Indestructible Joy. Daily Readings for Advent (free ebook by John Piper)
Good News of Great Joy: Daily Readings for Advent (free ebook by John Piper)
A Countdown to Christmas (family devotional from Focus on the Family)
Making Meaningful Christmas Memories (Focus on the Family has several pages to help with family celebrations)
CRU Advent Devotional Online
LifeWay online weekly devotionals
YouVersion app Advent Reading Plans

Other resources
Also check out the numerous resources at Resources4Worship.org and search for drama, video, readings, etc. to help in service planning.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on RenewingWorshipNC.org.

Kenny Lamm serves as the worship ministries strategist with the Ministry Strategies group.

Previously, he served 23 years as worship pastor of Front Street Baptist Church in Statesville, North Carolina. Under his leadership, the church experienced worship renewal and became a model for many churches seeking to transform and improve their worship services.

Kenny is a frequent worship clinician and guest worship leader. His heart for the nations has also taken him to international fields of service. He has led worship conferences and outreach events with North Carolina Baptist worship teams throughout Malaysia, Singapore and two other Asian countries. Kenny also spent a summer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, working with churches in worship renewal. Resources developed for these events continue to be used extensively in equipping worship leaders in churches around the world and are currently published in English and Chinese.

Kenny received his bachelor’s degree in music from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also earned a master’s degree in church music from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he was a Rice-Judson Scholar and completed doctoral-level classes in worship to receive the advanced graduate certificate in worship studies from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois.

Kenny and his wife, Sandy, have two grown children. The family lives in Sanford, North Carolina.