St. John's Episcopal Church Montclair

In the midst of all of our humanness, God shows up. Even when it feels like there is no room at the inn, or no room in our hearts, God shows up. Each and every time. There’s nothing we have to do to make it happen - we already have everything we need.

In this season of Advent we prepare for God to do a new and miraculous thing. To come to earth in human form. To walk, and talk, and live among us. To choose to become vulnerable as a newborn baby in order to show us true love. As much as the story of Christmas is about God doing a new thing, it is also about God building on all that God has done before. It is about God’s love story to humankind,...

I'm convinced that joy is a spiritual practice, that joy is essential to experiencing life at its fullest, to living as God always intended us to live. Researcher Matthew Kuan Johnson says that when we experience joy, we become more fully ourselves. In the early days, advent was really taught and seen as a penitential season where we prepare for the coming of Christ by confessing our sins. But the...