This book is a collection of a year's worth of prayers. Prayer is, on the one hand, a personal matter. There is no one "correct" way to pray, so this offering of prayers is not meant to offer a model of how to pray. Hopefully there is enough commonality in human experience that these prayers will prove helpful in leading the reader to pray as needed to pray and in the way the reader prays best. Prayer is, on the other hand, a communal matter. Jesus did, after all, teach us to pray to "Our Father" and not to "My Father." Perhaps, in a small way, those who choose to pray the prayers in this book will find in the knowledge that others are praying them, too, a meaningfully enlarged sense of Christian community. The prayers are divided into sections by days of the week. The book begins with 52 prayers for Sunday, then moves to 52 prayers for Monday, and so on through the final section that contains 52 prayers for Saturday. So, the reader can begin using the prayers at any time during the year.

As we prepare each year to celebrate the Incarnation, the Advent season reminds us that we live in an interim period between the First and Second Comings of Jesus Christ. In this book of twelve riveting sermons on a variety of Advent themes (all based on texts from Cycle B of the Revised Common Lectionary), Michael Ruffin explores the challenges of Christian living in this time between the First and Second Advents -- particularly the tension between the modes of patience and action. Though we await Jesus? return with hopeful anticipation, Advent waiting is active waiting. Ruffin's messages invite readers to share in the richly rewarding life of faith, while providing abundant comfort and inspiration for those who endeavor to live as disciples of Jesus in the modern world.