During the pandemic, this Advent and Christmas season will be difficult for many as we are unable to gather together and participate in rituals that give us meaning. This Advent, Sam Lundquist, pastoral assistant, put together an at-home liturgy booklet that will align with Advent worship. We also made Advent candles and a Christmas ornament to go along with it. We hope that even though the congregation is apart, we can sense togetherness by using the same liturgy and candle.

Advent Liturgy Booklet

“Gather with just yourself, your family, or your roommates around candlelight and read along with scripture passages, prayers, and meditations of our special Advent liturgy. We hope this simple ritual will help each of us turn our whole selves towards Jesus throughout the season.”

You can download the PDF.

Advent Candles

SUPPLIES: small glass jar; berries, pine leaves, cinnamon stick; cinnamon fragrance oil, candle oil, water, floating wick, 4 tea light candles for each home

There are very inexpensive ways to create these candles depending on the resources available to you. We bought the jars at an art store that reuses materials at an inexpensive price. The berries and pine leaves were from the garden. We saved on oil by filling two-thirds of the jar with water and the rest with candle oil.

Christmas Ornament

SUPPLIES: Shrinky Dinks for Ink Jet Printers, Ornament Hooks, Clear Gloss Top Coat

To mark this occasion where many will be spending Christmas at home instead of traveling, we wanted to create an ornament. We printed out a design of St. John’s on Shrinky Dink paper and then added it to the Advent Ritual set as a memento gift.