Alternative worship
Christmas
Iconostasis
The Nativity

For our Christmas Iconostasis we focused on the nativity. We had several nativity's throughout the worship space and one at each station.

The week prior we hung glass ornaments with invitations printed on them in the trees outside (we only found ONE broken!)


We also left a basket of invite ornaments in the church for folks to take.

Our gathering time was a traditional Lessons and Carols

Our colors were pine and cranberry (we had real pine boughs and cranberries decorating the sanctuary through advent (until the fire department made us remove all the greenery!)

Outside, the night of, we lined the steps with luminaries.

Our stations were based on the Nativity story from Matthew and Luke.
Each station had a nativity, scripture and poetry. After folks went through the stations we had paper nativity sets from www.shackman.com


Station One
Mary
Luke 1:26-38

Station Two
Joseph
Matthew 1:18-25

Joseph seems to have fallen over in his excitement! Sorry, I don't know how to fix!
Station Three
Stable and Animals
Luke 2:1-8
with a great poem called Room for Christ by Dorothy Day

Station Four
Angels and Shepherds
Luke 2:8-20

Station Five
The Magi
Matthew 2:1-12

Apparently these guys couldn't handle the journey!

The Nativity
We set up long tables, with craft supplies, served tea, cocoa and cookies and we made our nativity sets together. Some folks chose to take them home.

We cut the baby Jesus out of each set and gave it to folks separately in an envelope with The Gift by Kevin Hart printed on it. People then waited until Christmas to add Jesus to their set