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Zechariah Echo Pantomime

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One of my favorite intergenerational Christian Formation tools is the echo pantomime. Echo pantomimes tell a story with words and movement. They are a playful, full-bodied way to learn a Bible story and to build community. Here’s how the form works:
1.Choose a leader–an adult or a child who can read.
2. The leader reads a line of the script and performs the indicated action at the same time.
3. The group echoes the leader’s words and gestures.
4. The leader says the next line with the action; the group copies the words and actions again.
5. The back and forth between leader and group continues until the story is complete.

Echo pantomimes can be used with a large group of people or even with a small family. Adults seem to enjoy the movement and playfulness  as much as children. The Zechariah story below can be repeated over and over during Advent. With lots of repetition a group can eventually do it together without a leader, almost as a dance.

Below is the Luke 1 Echo Pantomime of Zechariah’s encounter with the angel Gabriel. It was first published in The Season of the Nativity: Confessions and Practices of an Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany Extremist (2014)  You can download a .pdf or .jpg version of this Zechariah Voice and Body piece.

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Advent Article in The Living Church

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The Living Church asked me to write an article about Advent based on my book The Season of the Nativity: Confessions and Practices of An Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany Extremist.  The article suggests simple ways to practice a Holy Advent. Several incorporate praying in color ideas.The Living Church is a bi-weekly magazine and was first published in 1878. It retains an Anglican, Evangelical  flavor.

Here are two links to the article called Year-Round Advent:

https://livingchurch.org/2017/11/21/year-round-advent/

https://www.scribd.com/document/365089469/Year-round-Advent

A free study guide is available for The Season of the Nativity.

 

Celebrating Advent at Home

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I love Advent for many reasons:

  • Advent is the start of a new Church/liturgical year. I think of the liturgical year as the annual pilgrimage we make as the Church and as individuals through the stories of our spiritual ancestors. Every year we read through a cycle of biblical stories in the Old and New Testaments to get the big picture of salvation history. Every year I have a family reunion with Abraham, Sarah, David, Mary, Jesus, Paul, Peter….But since I am  a slightly different person than I was the year before, I see these spiritual relatives with a different set of eyes. They teach me new things about God and God’s work in my life and in the world.
  • Cooler weather and darker days in November and December invite me to hunker down and go inward. These are the perfect physical conditions for a time of reflection and preparation for Christmas, for a new birth of Jesus in my heart and in my life.
  • Advent engages all of the senses. It emphasizes the humanity of Jesus. In Advent we wait and prepare and hope for a flesh and blood savior. Jesus will come into our down-and-dirty world and meet us as we are. So we wait and prepare not just with our heads and our hearts but with our bodies–our eyes, ears, noses, fingers, arms, legs….
  • Advent is not just a preparation for Christmas. It is preparation for the whole year. Advent teaches us how to be attentive, hopeful, and patient people for the long haul. The practices we begin in Advent fill our spiritual backpacks. They equip and energize us for our annual spiritual pilgrimage and kingdom-building partnership with God.

For years during Advent I read a daily meditation book and the Scriptures associated with Advent and Christmas. I still do this.  But when I wrote The Season of the Nativity: Confessions and Practices of an Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany Extremist two years ago, I wanted to celebrate Advent not just in my head, but with all of my senses. This book invites the whole body into the preparation for Christmas. Although many of the activities could be used with a church group, they are designed for celebrating Advent at home.

Most of the activities in the book can be adapted for individuals, adults, children, and families—purple or blue lights, activities with Advent vocabulary, Praying in Color ideas, various Advent calendars including a “live” Advent calendar in a narcissus or amaryllis bulb, simple Advent wreaths, an echo pantomime of Advent characters…. Here is a collage of some of the ideas in the book.

advent-collage-november-2016b-resized

If you would like to order the book, click on the picture below.

season-of-the-nativity-cover

 

Advent Calendar Templates–A CountUP to Christmas

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Advent calendars are not just for kids! Instead of opening daily doors with pictures or retrieving small gifts or candies from pockets, adults and children can mark the day-by-day journey to Christmas by daily praying/drawing with a calendar template. When I draw, color, and doodle my own Advent calendar, I feel like I’m building something rather than tearing it apart. It is a countup to Christmas, not a countdown. At the end of the 20-some days, the finished Advent calendar is a colorful reminder of what was in my head and on my heart. It is a record of my spiritual journey through Advent.

Here are some examples of calendars from previous years:

Advent Collage 2015

 

Ways to use your calendar:
1) In a space or shape on the calendar, write the name of someone for whom you are praying. Doodle around the name, add color. Think of each stroke of color or each doodled mark (line, dot, arc, spiral…) as a wordless prayer. If words come to you as you draw and color, pray them. When you have finished with your daily entry, say “Amen” or a short passage of Scripture appropriate to Advent like “The Lord is my light and my salvation.” (Psalm 27:1)

2) Write and ponder an Advent word—prepare, await, hope, pregnant, watch, darkness, longing,…—as you doodle and color.

3) Since Advent is a season of hope, write something you hope for each day. Offer that idea to God as you color and draw.

Here are three Advent calendar templates in both .jpg and .pdf form. There is also a version of one of the calendars that is already doodled, so it is more like an Advent calendar coloring page. Click on the words .jpg or .pdf below the version/s you want. Download first; then print. I like to enlarge the 8.5″x11″ format to 11″x17″ card stock. It gives me more room to doodle and color and consequently more time and space with the person or word.
Advent 2015 Trees and Chains Resized

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Advent Tree Calendar 2015 Resized

.pdf  or  .jpg.

Advent 2015 Trees and Chains Coloring Page Resized.jpegResizedpdf or .jpg

Box Calendar 2015 Resized

.pdf or .jpg

Thanks to Cindy O for the box calendar template for 2015 and for her finished Advent calendar from last year. Check out Cindy’s blog called Mostly Markers.
Thanks to Connie Denninger for her finished candle calendar. Check out her blog called Vintage Grace.

Family Tree Advent Calendar

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Advent is the beginning of the annual church pilgrimage through Scripture and salvation history. I think of it as the starting gate to the yearly reunion with our spiritual ancestors from the Bible and from two thousand years of Christian history. In the midst of reconnecting with all of those characters in the stories, I am often confronted with the relationships I have with my own relatives and ancestors.

Maybe Advent is a good time for me to pray for the members of my family, both alive and dead. I carry a full array of emotions, feelings, and thoughts about them–gratitude, sorrow, love, resentment, delight, frustration, friendship, bewilderment, joy, forgiveness, and unforgiveness. Some of those relationships need healing or maybe just a fresh way to view them. I need to vent some ill feelings and forgive some of my relatives. But I also need forgiveness for my behavior with them. Praying for my relatives opens the door to my memory, but also to my heart. In most cases, my prayer time with family members will remind me of the richness and love in those relationships.

Below is a template for a family tree calendar. Pray for a family member each day. Write the name of the person or paste a picture (with glue or digitally) in a ball on the tree. Doodle, draw, and include words if you like. Make this an opportunity for God to be part of the relationship. “Let go, let God,” and listen.

Download as a Powerpoint (looks cut off, but is not when downloaded and printed), a pdf or a jpg. All print nicely on an 8.5 x 11 page. Expand it to an 11 x 17 piece of paper for more space (129%-135%).
Click:   pptx   or  pdf  or  jpg

Family Tree Advent Calendar

Family Advent Tree with Pictures 2014 resized