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Christmas Carol Festival
2010 New Wineskins Award Winner!*
Christmas Carol Festival
A New Way to Reach Inactive Catholics!
 Find out how you can turn the Advent/Christmas season into a time of evangelization in your family, neighborhood, and parish. Join Catholics in NJ, PA, OH, NY, WV and New Zealand who are using the singing of sacred Christmas carols to help connect inactive and marginal Catholics with their Christian heritage, with Jesus, and with the Church. Participating parishes are remodeling their pre-Christmas activities around a carol festival and following-up the "Christmas Carol Festival" with events in December and January.
The Power of Christmas Carols
Christmas songs and music are the most popular religious-themed Internet searches during the last five weeks of every year. One of the most popular Website destinations is www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com. It offers the history, lyrics, and music of over a thousand Christmas songs. Over seven million visits were made to this website in the first 15 months after it went live.
This same interest in Christmas carols can be used to draw people into a deeper connection with God and a positive experience of communal faith as they search out their spiritual roots at Christmas time. Sacred, but popular, Christmas carols can be more than entertainment. The power of these Christmas carols is in their description of the birth of Jesus and their proclamation of the basic Gospel message. They offer an opportunity to be touched by Jesus.
Below are some ideas to help parishes and small groups develop simple events that allow this to happen for active, marginal, and inactive Catholics; and for unchurched neighbors, friends, and family during December and beyond.
Reaching out through Christmas music
 Religious Christmas music is meaningful in new ways, when sung in a variety of settings (outside of liturgical space,) and when experienced at different types of events. Neighborhood Christmas gatherings, birthday parties for Jesus, pre-Christmas events in Catholic schools, breakfast with Santa, and Christmas caroling in local stores, malls, and area neighborhoods all are good opportunities for singing. Religious carols and music at such events can be used in an intentional way to evangelize, to draw people into the parish community, and to prepare them for fuller participation in upcoming Christmas liturgies.
A parish "Christmas Carol Festival" event might look something like this:
- Lighting of a Christmas tree (on church property or elsewhere) and/or the blessing of the empty manger.
- Singing lots of explicitly Christ-centered Christmas carols (with words provided)
- Two brief (three minute) conversion stories (witnesses) by active Catholics
- Reading of one of the Christmas Scriptures
- Costumed St. Nicholas or St. Francis enters, kneels before the baby Jesus and is then interviewed by an MC
- Refreshments: donuts, cookies, cider, etc.
- Printed invitations to upcoming Advent services, Christmas Masses, food pantry efforts, and outreach to the needy in the area
In all of this, keep in mind the importance of training parishioners in simple ways to invite unchurched friends and family to the festival, as well as to Christmas Mass and to follow-up events after the Christmas season.
*New Wineskins Award Winner!
"Christmas Carol Festival" won the 2010 "New Wineskins Award" from the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership (NCCL), Washington, D.C.
The "New Wineskins Award" is designed to:
- Highlight, celebrate and encourage extraordinary achievement in evangelization and catechesis
- Reflect the spirit of the "new evangelization" promulgated by Pope John Paul II and the General/National Directories for Catechesis.
"The Selection Committee affirmed the potential of [the "Christmas Carol Festival"] program to not only reach far beyond the borders of the Trenton diocese but to be an inspiration to others in connecting evangelization and catechesis for people on their journey of faith regardless of where they are on that journey." (from the Award Letter)
Plan now for December
The next "Christmas Carol Festival" Training Workshops are scheduled for June and July 2010. Click here for the 2010 Flyer (46k, .pdf)!
Attendees will receive a 70 plus page Christmas Carol Festival Guidebook (by Therese and John Boucher) that includes suggested ads, e-mails and post-card invitations that can be sent to all addresses in your area, as well as guidelines for witnessing, and simple notes about familiar Christmas carols, information about online resources, and tips for creative activities. (Example: FREE Coupon - cup of hot cider and a fresh apple or two donuts at St. Greg's Christmas Carol Festival, Sunday, December 11, 1:00 to 3:00 P.M.)
The training sessions will include material to take home and train active parishioners in ways to invite active, marginal, and inactive Catholics, as well as unchurched relatives, friends, and neighbors to a festival. There will be a panel of Parish Christmas Carol Festival Leaders at the workshops who will share their experiences with this project. And to help parishes think and plan beyond the event, there will be suggestions for follow-up with participants after the holidays. "Christmas Carol Festival can be an opportunity to invite people to events and programs such as a "Jesus is Alive" one-day parish retreat, "Jesus in January" evening, "Awakening Faith," "Catholics Returning Home," "Being a Christian in the Modern World" three day mini-mission, "NEW Life in the Spirit Seminars, "Theology on Tap," and other evangelization efforts.
John Boucher is Director of the Office of Parish Life, Evangelization Ministry of the Diocese of Trenton. For more information about "Christmas Carol Festival" contact us at jbouch@dioceseoftrenton.org. Adapted from an article published in Evangelization Exchange, June 2007 at www.pncea.org.
Copyright © 2010, John Boucher.
Contact Us:
Office of Parish Life
Evangelization Ministry
Director: John J. Boucher
609-406-7400 ext. 5590
Fax: 609-406-7415
jbouch@dioceseoftrenton.org
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