Advent & Christmas 2026
Books and resources designed to help you move through Advent and Christmas with deeper reflection, honest questions, meaningful conversation, and practical ways to live out the love of Christ.
Border Crossings: An Advent Journey
What happens when God crosses the boundaries we thought were fixed?
Advent is a season of waiting — but the Christmas story is also a story of movement. Again and again, God crosses borders: between heaven and earth, fear and hope, outsider and insider, the expected and the unexpected.
Border Crossings: An Advent Journey invites readers to experience the familiar stories of Advent and Christmas with fresh eyes. Drawing on scripture, reflection, and encounters with the landscapes and sacred places of the Holy Land, Rev. Dr. Hedy Collver explores how God meets people at the boundaries of certainty, belonging, faith, and change.
Along the way, readers are invited to slow down, pay attention, and consider where God may be crossing boundaries in their own lives.
Written for personal devotion, small groups, Sunday school classes, and congregations seeking a meaningful Advent study, Border Crossings offers thoughtful biblical reflection without requiring readers to leave their questions — or the complexity of the world — at the door.
This Advent, journey again toward Bethlehem. Listen to the ancient story. Notice the people and places along the way. And discover what becomes possible when God crosses the borders between where we are and where grace is leading us.
Border Crossings: Leader’s Guide
Designed for pastors, small-group leaders, Sunday school teachers, and congregational facilitators, this guide journeys through the themes of Border Crossings in a thoughtful, engaging, and flexible way.
Each session builds on the corresponding readings in Border Crossings and includes Scripture, guided prayer, Lectio Divina, conversation starters, interactive reflections, ideas for action, and optional opportunities for deeper exploration. The guide is designed to support different learning styles through reading, listening, discussion, reflection, and hands-on activities, while giving leaders the flexibility to adapt each session to the needs of their particular group.
The core study includes four sessions, one for each week of Advent, along with two optional bonus sessions for the Longest Night and Christmas. Together, the sessions invite participants to engage the Christmas story not as a sentimental escape from the complexities of life, but as a story of God entering fully into them.
Border Crossings: Participant’s Guide
The Border Crossings Participant’s Guide is designed to accompany Border Crossings: An Advent Journey and help individuals and small groups engage more deeply with the biblical stories, themes, and questions of the Advent season.
Across four weeks of Advent, plus special reflections for the Longest Night and Christmas, participants are invited to explore the boundaries crossed throughout the Christmas story: between heaven and earth, shame and grace, power and humility, belonging and exclusion, grief and hope. Each section includes Scripture reflection through Lectio Divina, daily reflections and prayers, discussion questions, interactive and creative exercises, practical ideas for action, and space for personal response. The guide is designed to be flexible enough for both group conversation and individual use, allowing participants to engage at their own pace and in ways that fit different learning styles.
More than a workbook, this guide is an invitation to notice where God is already at work, listen more closely to Scripture and one another, reflect honestly on the borders that shape our lives and communities, and consider how the barrier-crossing love of Christ might become visible through us!