On Christmas Eve, Yarralumla Uniting Church are running a service with a difference: A Christingle service.
Yarralumla Uniting Church’s James Ellis told Insights people could expect, “A service that tells the Christmas story but adds a different dimension to it by using the symbol of the “Christingle”. A Christingle is an orange, surrounded by a red ribbon, pierced with four toothpicks containing fruit or sweets, and topped off with a candle in the middle.”
“There’s various symbolism to this, but the meaning we’re taking is: The orange is the world which God came to in Jesus,” Mr Ellis said.
“The four sticks/toothpicks containing sweets or fruit represent the gifts at Christmas and the fruit/gifts of the spirit. The red ribbon symbolises the love of God made known to us in Jesus. The candle shows Jesus as the light of the world. Christingle is an old German word meaning “Christ child” and so the Christingle service aims to focus on the child of Christ in each of us.”
The service will have readings and prayers led by children, and contains the nativity story. According to Mr Ellis, the idea for the service came almost six years ago when he saw a similar service in Sydney in a different denomination.
“This service has played around in my head for a long time and when we were designing our advent and Christmas program at Yarralumla a few months ago I suggested we could put on this unique service as a way of offering something familiar but different for the Christmas season,” he said.
“I’ve adapted a few different materials and of course thrown our own uniting church take on it. I’m fairly certain this is the only service of its kind being offered in Canberra. We’re excited to share it with the Yarralumla and south Canberra community.”
Yarralumla Uniting Church’s Christingle service takes place at 4pm on Christmas Eve.
