The A.M.P. has traditionally not featured many traditional Christmas and Advent hymns in our posts, not because we don't love them (we do!) but because they feel obvious: yes, Lo, How a Rose E're Blooming is one of our favorites, too.
Yet hymns are also an integral part of how we mark the Advent and Christmas season as Christians, so this year we also wanted to start a conversation about some of your favorites (and favorite versions). Watch for these posts on the weekends, but here's one of my (Anna's) favorites to start:
This song is always haunting and powerful, but I love it that this version by Bifrost Arts feels a little bit messy and off-kilter, too. The singer's voice isn't trying to be polished, and the music drags a little bit along with her voice.
This version feels earthy, and honest, like it's being sung by someone who might actually be inviting Jesus to come back and break in from the "realms of endless day" in ways that feel both terrifying and much-needed, in ways that bring both justice and total transformation. This is a song sung by someone willing to be flipped upside-down by the grace of God.
Before the Advent Music Project had a name, it was a series of Advent “mixtapes” we made in seminary for ourselves and a few friends. Those early collections were in response to our hunger for music that felt as meaningful as the hymns we sang on Sunday, but that mined the music on the radio for inspiration. We wanted to find strains of Advent in everyday life, and we found it everywhere.
This version feels earthy, and honest, like it's being sung by someone who might actually be inviting Jesus to come back and break in from the "realms of endless day" in ways that feel both terrifying and much-needed, in ways that bring both justice and total transformation. This is a song sung by someone willing to be flipped upside-down by the grace of God.
But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.
- Matthew 19:30And an intro to this year's A.M.P. from both of us:
Before the Advent Music Project had a name, it was a series of Advent “mixtapes” we made in seminary for ourselves and a few friends. Those early collections were in response to our hunger for music that felt as meaningful as the hymns we sang on Sunday, but that mined the music on the radio for inspiration. We wanted to find strains of Advent in everyday life, and we found it everywhere.
So why do we keep doing this? After seminary, we realized that the hunger to look for Advent in the corners of the everyday didn’t leave us. We also realized that despite all the songs we’d already collected, Advent was still all around us, just waiting to be named. We’ve probably collected over 100 songs at this point, and we find more each year.
While we do this project for ourselves, we also wanted to share with others and start a conversation… thus the Advent Music Project was born, and each year it keeps expanding beyond our expectations. This year, our theme, “Shine On,” pushes against our tendencies to favor meditative, sometimes even mournful songs (in the vein of the hymn above or "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”) with a theme that emphatically invites celebration and joy-filled waiting. This year we’ll also occasionally expand beyond music, featuring short art videos or other media, and we’ll be crowdsourcing some posts that could use a whole chorus of voices (like yours!).
As usual, the heart of our devotions are music spanning from New Wave to Psychedelic Pop, Geechee to Hip Hop, and reflections that cast all these songs in the light of Advent. We aren’t shy about what we consider to be “Advent” music around here, so if you’re looking for your daily dose of angelic choirs, you may be in for a surprise. But if you’re looking to be upended by a song you’ve heard on the radio a thousand times, or introduced to an artist you’d never heard of or considered “Advent-y” this might be the place for you.
We’ll be posting regularly on A.M.P. Monday through Friday, with additional activity like the hymn project I mentioned above throughout the week and the weekend on Facebook. Follow us there for all the updates: https://www.facebook.com/adventmusicproject
May you find your way in this season filled with light. Shine On.
-- Lindsey and Anna
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