When We're Running Out of Hope, God is at Work - "What Do You Fear?" Advent Worship Series

Second Sunday of Advent
What Do You Fear?
When We’re Running Out of Hope: God Is at Work
Isaiah 43:19–21 & Matthew 11:1–11

This Sunday, we keep walking deeper into Advent… not with nostalgia, but with honesty.

Isaiah speaks to a people who feel spent.
A people who’ve watched their world collapse around them.
A people who aren’t sure hope can stretch far enough to reach them.

And into that exhaustion, God says:
“I am doing a new thing… do you not perceive it?”

It’s not a command to cheer up.
It’s an invitation to look again…
to notice the quiet work happening beneath the wreckage of fear.

Then we turn to Matthew…
where even John the Baptist, the bold prophet of the wilderness, sends word from prison, wondering if hope is still alive.
Wondering if Jesus is the One.
Wondering if change is still possible.

It’s deeply human to ask those questions.
It’s deeply faithful, too.
Because Advent has never been about pretending.
Advent is what happens when truth-telling and hope meet.

So we keep asking the question this series leans into:
What do you fear?
Running out of hope?
Watching the world unravel?
Feeling powerless in the face of violence?
Wondering if anything new can truly emerge from all this?

You don’t have to hide any of it.
You don’t have to manufacture optimism.
You don’t have to be “fine.”

Bring your weariness.
Bring your doubts.
Bring your longing for something new… something healing… something just.

Hope doesn’t require certainty.
Hope just asks us to keep noticing where life is breaking through.

This Sunday, December 7, we light the second candle.
Not because everything is mended…
but because light keeps growing, even in the places we’ve stopped expecting it.

Join us for Week 2 - “When We’re Running Out of Hope.”
Sunday at 10am ET
Onsite & Online

There is room for you.
There is room for your questions.
And there is room for the hope rising quietly beneath it all.

WeAreChangingLives.org

You may also like the following events from First Congregational Church, UCC in Randolph:

• This Saturday, 6th December, 07:30 pm, Holiday Spectacular in Randolph
• Next Thursday, 11th December, 11:00 am, Widows' Might: A Ministry of Accompaniment in Randolph
• Next Sunday, 14th December, 10:00 am, Even in Our Fear, We are Called Forward - "What Do You Fear?" Advent Worship Series in Randolph