Saturday, November 20, 2004

resourcing spirituality this christmas

adventjournalslice1.jpg

The Overview: Christmas is a hectic season and each year we are faced with the challenge, the opportunity, the question – how to wait, how to prepare spiritually, amid the end of year rush? The Advent Journal is an attempt to encourage personal preparation for Christmas.

The concept:


The concept: Advent is a time of waiting. Four weeks, four Sundays leading up to Christmas. Advent offers us the chance to prepare ourselves to greet the Christmas child. It invites us to be alert to the signs of the times in nature, in Scripture, in newspaper, in our families, to greet the Christ wherever he appears. This alertness, this hope, should be shared. My hope is that the journal encourages a shared personal preparation.

How to proceed?
1. Once you have received the journal, you have 3 days to spend with it.
2. During those three days, put whatever you like in the journal – thoughts, ideas, drawings, photos, recipes, reflections – anything that captures how you are preparing for Christmas and where you are seeing the Christ. Be creative. Write in your own language.
3. After three days, please pass it on to someone else in the church.
4. If you have an Advent Journal on a Sunday, bring it to church to lay on the Advent table.

Who gets a journal? I have prepared 8 journals, including an initial image and text. Each journal is numbered and is different. These will be released into the church community for the first week of Advent. After the initial release, who knows where the journals will go. This is the point of Advent; we wait, we wonder, we watch.

How is it shared? Each Sunday the journals will be brought to church and laid on the “Advent table.” Others in the community can browse, and be inspired in their Advent preparation. We hope to be able to scan journal pages and use them in worship and on the Opawa website. So please be aware that by participating in this project, your work will be shared with others.

Posted by steve at 05:10 PM

9 Comments

  1. you are SO creative. I’m impressed (again)!

    Comment by maggi — November 20, 2004 @ 11:19 pm

  2. I echo Maggi…we look forward to sharing the season of advent with Opawa from a distance…

    Comment by Paul Fromont — November 21, 2004 @ 8:54 am

  3. great idea!
    i’ll have to borrow this one.

    Comment by jen lemen — November 21, 2004 @ 10:24 pm

  4. We’re actually picking up on Waiting theme and are planning an art installation from 13th December alongside weekly waiting topics. Can I borrow this idea too to throw into the mix? Be interesting to compare whoever tries this in all the various places in the end!

    Comment by Fyfe — November 22, 2004 @ 8:35 am

  5. love this concept of participation and dissemination. thanks Steve

    Comment by barky — November 23, 2004 @ 4:14 am

  6. nice one… i also may just have to rip it off!

    Comment by jonny — November 23, 2004 @ 9:21 pm

  7. What an absolutely cool idea! Hmmmm, now I am feverishly brewing some ideas….Heh, heh, heh.

    Comment by Rich — November 25, 2004 @ 9:57 am

  8. This is a great idea. I think I will make one and put it into circulation. Thanks.

    Comment by cheryl — November 30, 2004 @ 10:36 am

  9. Great idea

    Comment by Ande — December 1, 2004 @ 3:19 am

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