“Calm and Bright: 200 Years of Silent Night”
Visual and Media Arts Ideas from the Worship Design Studio
with Dr. Marcia McFee
© www.worshipdesignstudio.com !1
Compiled by WDS Project Manager, Jenna Johnson
Table of Contents About “Calm and Bright” page 3
Anchor Image: Star page 4
Luminaries and Environmental Visuals page 5
Advent Wreath Children’s Craft page 10
Mission Kit Displays page 11
Music Video page 12
Social Media Engagement page 13
© www.worshipdesignstudio.com !2
About “Calm and Bright”
The classic hymn, “Silent Night,” first made its debut on Christmas Eve, 1818 at the St. Nicholas chapel in Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria. The melody by composer Franz Gruber is instantly recognizable from the first few notes, and the original text by Joseph Mohr has been translated from the original German into over 140 languages. In 1914, just four years shy of the 100th anniversary of “Silent Night,” the soldiers fighting World War I along the Western Front held a ceasefire in some areas out of mutual respect for the holiday. Members from opposing sides exchanged gifts and stories with one another, played games, and sang Christmas carols together, including the beloved hymn “Silent Night.” Today, churches all over the world gather together each year on Christmas Eve to join hands, light candles, sing “Silent Night,” and participate in a timeless tradition of inimitable ritual power.
Our fully-scripted Worship Design Studio series, “Calm and Bright: 200 Years of Silent Night,” was developed for the 200th anniversary of the titular song. At the time of this writing in 2018, our communities, our churches, and our world are torn and divided about many issues of cultural contention. Families fight, politicians argue, flame wars spread ignorance and hate on the Internet, and sometimes we feel that hope, peace, love, and light are missing from our lives. It is our sincere prayer that this Christmas will be a time of ceasefire from our own sources of conflict. This year, we will raise our voices in song to celebrate the birth of Christ with spirits of peace and love that transcends all barriers.
These suggestions are to help you explore the series through tangible visual arts as well as media arts. If you are seeing this document without the rest of the resources, the scripts for this series can be purchased HERE (or are free to Worship Design Studio members).
© www.worshipdesignstudio.com !3
Anchor Image: Star Our anchor image for this series is inspired by both the text of “Silent Night” and by the scriptures that tell the story of Jesus’ birth. Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright… glories stream from heaven afar… radiant beams from thy holy face… Even while the song’s verses don’t use the word “star,” the words still evoke the beauty of a calm, still night filled with starlight from above. The magi followed the star in the sky to the manger where Jesus lay, and the angels appeared from the night sky to proclaim the good news to the shepherds as “glory shone all around them.” The star anchor image came to us for these reasons!
There are numerous great sources for finding high-quality, royalty-free stock photos to use for projection, publicity, and inspiration as you work on this series. Here are our favorite photography websites to peruse for this purpose:
Unsplash — check out our album for the series HERE Pexels Photopin Picnoi — photo site exclusively of and for People of Color. Yeah!! Flickr — make sure to filter by Creative Commons licenses only Compfight — search engine that auto-filters CC photos from Flickr to make browsing easier, but seems to offer a smaller selection
© www.worshipdesignstudio.com !4
Luminaries and Environmental Visuals
We the love the idea of creating an immersive environment that will make your worship space feel as though it is bathed in starlight. There are lots of options for creative lighting that can transform your space into a starlit night!
Light projectors like the one shown below (bottom left) can work well in corners or small spaces to cast starry shadows on the walls. You can build one yourself or order one ready-made. The two images on the right are ceiling surfaces wired with fiber-optic cables. So cool! This would be a time-consuming project, but the final effect is absolutely stunning.
© www.worshipdesignstudio.com !5
Star Luminaries
Other lighting ideas include single paper lanterns cut in the shape of stars. Going all-white would add a neutral warm glow to the space, but adding other colors could add some variance to the color scape. Go with what you think will look best!
Check out this DIY tutorial for hanging star luminaries with a strand of Christmas lights for even more sparkle and shine!
Putting small lengths of fairy lights inside glass jars or bowls can also be a cool effect. You could use everything from Mason jars to glass balls for hanging on your Christmas tree.
© www.worshipdesignstudio.com !6
Candleholders
Candles and Christmas go together like frankincense and myrrh. (Ha!) Here are some candles, holders, and other ideas that might add even more flavor to your worship scene:
TOP: Links to view on Amazon from left to right: #1, #2, #3 BOTTOM: Links to view from left to right: #1, #2
© www.worshipdesignstudio.com !7
Star Crafts
There are many templates online for folding or cutting your own paper stars. This could be a great craft project for kids and youth! Hanging strings of stars from the ceiling is one way to add vertical depth in your space. You can also buy strings of stars online.
© www.worshipdesignstudio.com !8
Super simple craft for kids: making stars out of popsicle
sticks! You can even turn these into personalized
ornaments for the children to take home.
Rustic wreath idea: tie a long ribbon into
a star shape. The example is using reclaimed wood
from a barn.
Crowdsource your Christmas visuals!
If you don’t have the budget to go out and get a whole bunch of materials for creating these visuals, ask your congregation for help! Chances are, folks may have extra strings of lights, star-shaped lights or candle holders, Mason jars, etc. that they may be willing to bring in and share with the community during the season. An extra bonus is that crowdsourcing your visuals becomes an opportunity for participation in worship.
See more ideas on Pinterest
Many ideas we’ve shared in this document are inspired by suggestions we found on Pinterest. Check out our board for “Calm and Bright” and do some searching of your own to discover even more possibilities!
© www.worshipdesignstudio.com !9
Advent Wreath Children’s Craft In our Small Group Resources document, WSD Associate Shelley Walters suggests a craft for the children that involves creating their own Advent wreath using painted wooden circles, battery-operated tea-light candles, and construction paper.
Shelley says: "The littlest ones really enjoyed being able to light the candles themselves and having a piece of worship that they could incorporate into their everyday play. (One girl kept her Advent wreath in her dollhouse!)”
Here are a couple of pictures of the craft process and the finished wreath look. For the base of the electric tea-lights, we suggest using wooden stars instead of circles to echo our series anchor images.
© www.worshipdesignstudio.com !10
Mission Kits Our Small Group Projects for this series include mission outreach ideas that the whole church can participate in. To bring these projects into awareness during worship, our scripts call for processing a representative mission kit in with the light at the beginning of each service. We like the idea of bringing the mission kit to a manger to symbolize an offering to the Christ-child.
Designate a space in your worship area for a manger. These can be easily constructed with scrap wood, or you could even use a wooden crate filled with straw, maybe some fairy lights to add a bit of glow from within.
See more about the mission kit ideas in the Small Group Projects document, and read our directions for coordinating this moment in worship in the scripts for “Calm and Bright.”
© www.worshipdesignstudio.com !11
Music Video “We Need a Silent Night In Here” is an original song that was written for this series by WDS Associate Marsha Moors-Charles. We are crowdsourcing a music video to go with the song! Our vision for the video is to include footage snippets of churches from all over the country singing pieces of the song in their own choirs and bands. That means we want to see and hear your church!
We have included a recording of the song in the series downloads for you to sing along with. Take a video recording of your church members singing together along with the sound file. The reason for using the sound file is so that we can keep consistent tempos, pacing, etc., so even if your musicians can play the song, please use the recording so we can all stay on the same wavelength. You don’t need to use anything fancier than a phone or computer to record! Send your video to [email protected], and we might add it to our montage that will be used as the music video. We’ll make the finished product available for everyone to use before the series begins. Read the script for the Christmas Eve service to learn how the music video can make an appearance during worship!
© www.worshipdesignstudio.com !12
Social Media Engagement Spread the word in your community with some engaging posts on social media. Designate a space where folks can have their photos taken in the immersive star-scape that you’ve created. Use the hashtags #BeALight, #BeAStar, #SilentNight, or #CalmandBright to share your photos with other folks who are doing this series!
Personalized ornaments like the ones we suggest in the section about creating star crafts on p. 8 don’t have just have to be for kids. You can provide ornaments for everyone to take home for their Christmas tree or to have around the house! Create paper star ornaments and write or stamp “BeALight” or “BeAStar” on them. Encourage people to take a photo with their star and share on social media with the hashtag. Don’t forget to share your photos with us on our Facebook page!
© www.worshipdesignstudio.com !13
Jenna’s Mini-Guide to Making Photos for Posting on Social Media!
Another way to get people excited for your upcoming worship series is to share posts on social media that will show people what you’re planning. As Marcia says, call it evangelism or call it publicity; getting the word out is important if you want people to walk through the doors on Sunday!
Search for royalty-free stock photos that capture the imagery you’re going for with this series. The photography sites we listed on p. 4 have multitudes of photos of candles, stars, and other Advent-related themes. The photo below is from our collection for “Calm and Bright” on Unsplash.
Pick quotes from the scripts for “Calm and Bright” that resonate with you. Use a text box to layer the quote underneath the photo or over the photo in a “quiet” space where there’s not too much background (like I did with the WDS logo above). You can also include one of the hashtags we’re using for this series, like #CalmAndBright, #BeALight, #BeAStar, or #SilentNight. Make sure to post information about where your church is and when you worship during the week so people know they can join you on the journey!
© www.worshipdesignstudio.com !14
We need a silent night in here. #CalmandBright
References Below is a list of resources not directly cited elsewhere in this document.
Cover • (p. 1) Left https://www.pexels.com/photo/selective-focus-photography-of-
candles-1123256/ • (p. 1) Top right https://www.pexels.com/photo/bright-christmas-decor-close-up-
colors-239573/ • (p. 1) Bottom right https://www.pexels.com/photo/closeup-photo-of-four-tealight-
candles-688842/
Table of Contents • (p. 2) https://www.pexels.com/photo/blur-bright-burn-burning-360209/
About “Calm and Bright” • (p. 3) Background: The Christmas song Stille Nacht, autograph (ca. 1860) by Franz
Xaver Gruber (1787–1863). Photographed by de:Benutzer:Mezzofortist.
Anchor Image: Star • (p. 4) Background https://www.pexels.com/photo/assorted-color-star-decor-on-
wall-1264393/ • (p. 4) Bottom photo https://www.pexels.com/photo/adult-african-american-woman-
business-businessmen-1056561/
Luminaries and Environmental Visuals • (pp. 5-8) All photos from linked articles on Pinterest.
Advent Wreath Children’s Craft • (p. 10) Photos courtesy of Shelley Walters.
Mission Kits • (p. 11) Background https://unsplash.com/photos/dABKxsPTAEk • (p. 11) Bottom photo from linked article.
Music Video • (p. 12) Bottom photo https://www.pexels.com/photo/negative-photography-of-
candles-205304/
Social Media Engagement • (p. 13) Photo courtesy of Jenna Johnson. • (p. 14) https://unsplash.com/photos/DKxi2CUSunM
© www.worshipdesignstudio.com !15
