5 Ways to Build Community During a Pandemic Advent

5 Ways to Build Community During a Pandemic Advent
By Kellen Roggenbuck

Advent is an exciting time in the life of a church, but with the current circumstances, it may look and feel different within your church community. After months and months of the stress and anxiety of this pandemic, Advent can and should be an opportunity to share in the joy of the season and the hope of a new day. With that in mind, fully understanding the toll that this
period has taken on churches and, here are a few early Christmas presents! These are 5 different ways you can make your Advent season fresh and special in your church community without compromising the level of care and protection you have in place:

Mailbox Ornament Exchange
A new twist on this old favorite, invite participants to contact the church through whatever means you are equipped to handle, having them commit to send an ornament to the person they are assigned within the allotted time frame through the postal service. Once you have your participants, give them a random person from the list, making sure everyone has a
different person and everyone is covered. Ask participants to box up the ornament at least a day before sending it, and with the time it takes to be shipped, you have a safe, fun exchange to fill each other’s trees and hearts.

Mailbox Gift Exchange
This is like the ornament exchange except that it is a Christmas present instead. The setup is the same, and since there’s a specific time for Christmas presents to be opened (Christmas!), you can hand deliver the boxes up until December 21 and they are quarantined! This is a great activity to impose a playful theme, like favorite books, in which the participants send their favorite books in an effort to introduce people to new literature, or hobby building, in which the participants send a gift that is designed to help a novice begin a new hobby. In both cases, the recipients get a present that help in a time of staying at home or quarantine.

Christmas Card Blitz
Purchase a bulk of Christmas cards, dividing them into groups of 5 and putting stamps on the envelopes. Send a group to each church member with 5 address labels for people in the church. All participants need to do is to jot down a note, seal the envelope, and drop it in the mail! If everyone participates, everyone in the church will get at least 5 Christmas cards from their church family. And, if you do this early enough, the people who receive cards may send cards back to those who sent them, adding to the number of cards sent and creating even more connections. It could be like a Christmas Card avalanche!

Online Christmas Trivia Night
With the screen-share option of a Zoom meeting or Google Hangout, it’s easy to put together a Powerpoint trivia game. Create several categories of increasing difficulty, like Carol Lyrics, Traditions, Christmas Movies, and the Bible Story, and create a slide for each question and then one for the corresponding answer. After reading the question, begin a timer for 1 minute (an egg timer or app will do). Each participating person or family should have a legal pad or mini dry-erase board on which they will write their answer during this time. After the timer goes off, have them display their answers together and display the answer slide. This can be just for fun, or you can assign points for each round and have a prize for the winner. Between rounds, you can have quick discussion questions like “What was your favorite Christmas present to give?” or “What’s your special Christmas food or drink?” and people can chat openly, or you can ask specific participants to share. With 4 or 5 rounds, and you fulfilling your dreams of being a gameshow host, this can easily be a fun, entertaining event. It is a socially distanced way of enjoying Christmas trivia and interacting together!

Awkward Family Christmas Portraits
This has become a cultural phenomenon and should definitely be part of your church community’s Advent! During the month of Advent, invite people to share their Awkward Family Christmas Portraits with a hashtag for your church or for the event. These can be old pictures that were accidentally awkward or new posed pictures that are awkward all on purpose! In either case, the hashtag will put all the portraits in one place for your church community to enjoy together! You can even share the best (most awkward?) one from each week on the church social media and encourage more people to participate. Since participation is the key to this activity, be sure to engage community members who will post old and new pictures throughout this event, and have your leadership commit to commenting and ‘liking’ each picture as it comes up for maximum fun and interaction. It is a fun way to draw attention to the church social media, interact as a community, and invite people into your virtual space before providing an online Christmas Eve worship experience!

Connection with one another during this season of waiting is a good way of reminding your community that they are just that: a community. Take care to create opportunities to connect in this special season. It takes work, planning, and in some cases costs a little more money, but it is the best chance we have to combat the feelings of isolation and the growing divides within our world. Use these tools or let them be the catalyst that inspires you to try something new to connect your people. And in each thing you do this Advent, may the God who dwells among us and came down at Christmas be with you and your community!

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