Something new to say is a collection of liturgy resources for the season of Advent and Christmas. Author Bronwyn White lives in Aotearoa New Zealand, where Christmas comes at summertime. This collection celebrates a festive season where pohutukawa and rata are in bloom, friends gather around barbecues or picnic at the beach on Christmas Day, and many people travel to catch up with family or enjoy school holidays.

The prayers, affirmations, reflections and blessings are in inclusive language, with an emphasis on “faith not belief” and social justice. This book is ideal for progressive and liberal faith communities and churches; lay and ordained worship leaders will find them especially helpful, and there’s plenty for individual contemplation and enjoyment, too.
 
“Sometimes our lives seem like an endless Advent:

Always waiting, being ready, hustling, preparing
for the big moment, the fulfilment, the dream come true.

When will there be peace on earth, when will poverty be history, our inbox full of good news, happy hashtags, joy instead of hate speech? How long before we need no ribbons, white or red or green?

And we wait. How long, we ask, how long?

This Advent, may we be the promised kept, the word made flesh, the kingdom come; not just on high and holy days, but in ordinary times as well.

So may we enjoy this time of preparation, thrilling to angel song and sparkling lights, Snoopy’s Christmas and Silent Night;
may the little boy drum for us, pum-a-pum-pum, and the wise ones’ gifts be ours, birthing each day the Christ of our imagination.
Let us be the gift we long for, long after the paper’s discarded and the cards are put away;
be the love that keeps on loving: joy in our world, day after day.”

“Let us be the gift we long for” is from Bronwyn Angela White’s latest book of progressive liturgical resources, “Something new to say”.

Rev Dr Margaret Mayman says, “Bronwyn has the creativity, imagination and power to have us sense the sacred in the ordinary. “I remember when I first heard Suddenly there is light all around in a Christmas Eve meditation. The newborn Jesus, described in the same language that Bronwyn used for the moment of falling in love with her own child—the power of the experience of birthing brought into liturgy: earth, blood and new milk… Bronwyn’s words are more powerful and real than a thousand theological treatises on incarnation.”

Purchase for NZ$20.00 plus p&p from www.spiritandfaith.wordpress.com.