In what has become an annual tradition, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, 11 Glidden Street, in Newcastle will present a service of Advent Lessons and Carols on Sunday, Dec. 24 at 9:30 a.m. This service is intended to be a time of spiritual preparation, as we watch and wait for the coming of the Kingdom of God. At this service, readings will be interspersed with carols and hymns, including such favorites such as "People, look East," "O come, O come, Emmanuel," and "Lo, how a Rose e'er blooming." As a highlight of the service, soprano Sherri Dietrich will sing "He shall feed his flock" from Handel's Messiah.

In 1934, sixteen years after he had introduced "A Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols for Christmas Eve" to King’s College, Cambridge, the Dean, Eric Milner-White, composed a further service, "A Procession with Carols upon Advent Sunday." His concern for more imaginative forms of worship appears in the preface he wrote to that service: 'In the old English liturgies, the Advent Offices made a preparation for the coming of our Lord to this earth far more vivid and eager than those of our present prayer book. So an Advent carol service, if without precedent, is not without suitability, if it helps to express "the desire of all nations and ages".' The purpose of this service was 'not to celebrate Christmas, but to expect it'. For many among those who know both the Advent carol service and the "Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols," however much the Christmas Eve service is, for them, a part of Christmas, the Advent service has a depth and intensity distinctively its own.