Perspectives On The Environment For Advent Worship

Advent worship involves both penitence and joy, moods that can be conveyed by the visual environment of the worship space. Adapt the following suggestions to local custom. Passing into Winter How does one decorate for Advent in a manner that respects the sobriety of the season-that brings about a feeling of "not yet," a sense of waiting and longing? Begin by stripping away the harvest bounty of November. Simplify and clean the worship place and its entryways. Take a long walk out-of-doors, and look at how the world moves into winter. Advent is the church's winter, a season with a heightened risk of starvation, of disease, of isolation. Winter is exile, a time of pregnancy and anxiety, a passing into death and judgment. The cooperation and self-sacrifice needed if we all are to survive the season can become for us a holy sign. The Advent worship environment should bring reminders of winter-not as cute decorations but as a memento mori, a reminder of death. In contrast, Christmast…