Advent Can Still Change the World

You can preorder my next book now!

Hello friends!

Thanks for your patience in waiting for regular content here. I’ve been writing away on my next book, and I’m so excited to share that it is now available for preorder!

The title of this release is Advent Can Still Change the World: Bringing Christmas Past into Christmas Present. Here’s the description from the publisher:

Christmas is a global celebration wrapped in nostalgia and tradition. The movies we return to each year, the carols we know by heart, and the rituals we repeat connect us to Christmases past and to one another. Yet beneath these familiar layers lies a story rooted in real life, unfolding in a specific time and place. To experience the enduring power of the Christmas story today, we must first understand what it meant then before we can discern what this sacred story offers our own moment. Guided by Josh Scott, you’ll discover how reading these texts in their original context opens fresh meaning for contemporary faith, illuminating the gifts and challenges of Christmas for our lives today.

I’m also excited to share that each book comes with a code that will give readers access to the videos and leader guide content we’re creating to support the book, too.

Preorders are one of the best ways to support a book as it comes to launch, so if you’re interested in reserving your copy, you can visit one of the links below. Thanks so much for the support and encouragement you share with me! It means the world to get to do this work!

Amazon
Cokesbury

I’m working on a post for later this week that focuses on what I like to call, The Sacred Art of Cherry-Picking. Until then, have a great week!

JS

Lent and Ash Wednesday

Reimagining the Season from a Pro-Human Lens

Today is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent. This is a season of the Church Calendar that focuses on repentance and preparing for the celebration of Easter. Unfortunately, it’s also a day that is rife with anti-human theology. For those of us who have experienced a faith shift toward a theology that affirms the goodness of our humanity, days like this can be difficult to make sense of.

Last Sunday at GracePointe Church I offered a sermon that introduces Ash Wednesday and Lent—when they began, how they have been understood, etc.—and that seeks to reimagine them in a way that embraces their gifts but also employs a pro-human lens.

If you struggle with this day and this season, if you’ve wondered if there’s still any meaning to be found in it, and/or if you’d like to find a way to reimagine them so that they are not anti-human, then you just might find this sermon helpful. You will find the links to the sermon, as well as a previous Ash Wednesday post I shared here on Substack, below. I hope it’s helpful!

Sermon: An Introduction to Lent and Ash Wednesday

Apple
Spotify

Article: Some Good News for Ash Wednesday