Resources for Advent and Christmas 2022

Follow The Star: The Great Invitation consists of 12 reflections from a range of contributors including the Archbishops who share personal stories exploring themes of invitation. 

Starting on Christmas Eve and continuing daily (Monday to Saturday) until the Epiphany (6 January), these reflections will help you make space this Christmas. On each of the 12 days, a different contributor will share something that speaks of a Christmas invitation for them, bringing the theme to life through a mixture of personal story, Bible reading, reflection and challenge.

These reflections will also be made available freely via:

• Email
• Audio
• App with accompanying resources for children and families
• The Church House Publishing reflections booklet, along with other shareable print resources.

A free reflections poster will be made available on this page (and via the AChurchNearYou.com Resource Hub) carrying information about all the ways the reflections can be accessed, and a QR code to download the app to listed to the reflections.

Revd Barry Hill explains how you can use our short liturgy to commission your congregation to invite others to church this Christmas.

It can be used as part of a Service of the Word or Eucharist on either 20 or 27 November.

The liturgy, which is specially prepared for this year’s ‘Follow The Star: The Great Invitation’ theme for use in the Church of England, is designed to include the giving out of invitations to or details of special services during Advent and Christmas to which we may invite those close to us.

The resource is also available through the A Church Near You Resource Hub, where there is also a Christmas card template.

The following brand-new resources are available now to help you welcome visitors to your church and to help them take the next step on their Follow the Star journey:

• The Reflections booklet (available individually, in packs of 10 and 50, and also in Large Print)
• A Prayer Bookmark, which includes a QR code to help individuals access more digital resources
• A Family Prayer Card, which offers a prayer in a star shape with space to decorate, cut out and display it at home or in church.
• An Invitation Card, for churches to give to congregation members to send or give out to friends, family and neighbours, inviting them to festive church services and events.

All these materials are available to order now via the Church House Publishing website.

We want to encourage all our churches and all our churchgoers to invite their neighbours and their communities to an in person gathering this Christmastime where they can hear the Christmas story and be welcomed into the love of Jesus.

But what kind of gathering, and what about churches who feel they don’t have capacity to come up with something suitable? That’s where Christmas in a Box comes in. We're providing a small number of model services that you can take and make your own. 

Christmas in a Box resources are available to download now.

In collaboration with a range of Christian charities and organisations, we will produce online services for the Sundays of Advent and Christmas, including an online service for each Sunday of Advent. The weekly online services have been very well received on social media and continue to attract a diverse audience including regular churchgoers and people exploring faith across a wide age range. They will all be broadcast on the Church's YouTube channel and Facebook page.

Reflection booklets (also in large print) are available now for churches to purchase. You can preview sample pages from the booklet online.

A range of new Follow the Star Prayer Bookmarks, Family Prayer Cards and Invitation Cards are also available.

Order these and other print resources today from the Church House Publishing website.

So you have a bunch of resources and assets, but you haven't quite figured out how to use them. Well, the Digital Labs team have been publishing a number of blog posts over the past few weeks to give you ideas and tips about how to exploit the assets you have at your disposal.

Whether it's about trying to leverage the growth in appetite for audio content or using social media to amplify your message, our how-to blogs will help you to share your church's experience and inspire others.

Check out the Digital Labs blog and find resources and advice on design, photography, social media strategy and more.

And if audio is more your style, try our Christmas podcast instead - just the same content in a different format.

For ideas about encouraging generosity and making it easy for people to donate to your church at Christmas, visit the Generous Christmas page. There you can also find out how to add ‘Follow the Star’ branding to Give a Little contactless giving devices, if you use these.

Logo

Our campaign logo pack for print and digital is available to download.

Colour palette

Fuel Yellow
RGB: 231, 170, 34
HEX: #E7AA22
CMYK: 10, 36, 93, 1
Pantone: 7409 C

Dark Cerulean
RGB: 0, 72, 116
HEX: #004874
CMYK: 99, 70, 30, 16
Pantone: 7693 C

Fonts

Abolition Soft can be accessed through the Adobe Font package with a Creative Cloud license. Fira Sans Extra Light is available for free from Google Fonts.

Alternatively, for a free similar font Teko can be used.