If you’re looking for some Advent and Christmas ideas, here are some of the resources I’ve mentioned in other posts along with some lockscreens I’ve made for my phone at the end.
For an introduction to Advent, the conversation between Jonathan Rogers and Tsh Oxenreider (author of Shadow & Light: A Journey into Advent) on The Habit Podcast is an excellent starting point.
Art & Theology exists to revitalise the Christian imagination through painting, poetry, music, and more. You can find visual art and music on their blog to engage your thinking every day throughout Advent. I have found that the poems, art and commentary have challenged me to a deeper look at Scripture.
Art & Theology have two Spotify playlists, the first has 10 hours of music, the second only two hours. You can find out more about the music selected and Scriptural themes in this excellent article.
I have been working through the Advent Reflections devotional by BibleProject on the free YouVersion Bible app on my phone. For more from BibleProject, including further resources for this study, have a look here.
YouVersion features a variety of Bible reading plans and devotionals for Advent, from a few days to several weeks in length, covering audio, video and text, in a wide range of styles.
I’ve been really pleased to have stumbled across the Faithward free Jesse Tree toolkit! It really has been very helpful to have a structure to hang my Advent and Christmas storytelling from. It has also been the one thing that moved me from intention to action. There are lots of craft opportunities for cutting, sticking, colouring, painting, threading and arranging on the tree as well as natural opportunities for questions, songs and stories, and the flexibility to make the activities fit your family situation.
I find that the lockscreen on my phone can sometimes serve as an unconscious reset button for my focus, or at least a reminder of how I could be thinking, so I’ve created a few lockscreen options for Advent and Christmas.
I used the free app, Canva, to make the lockscreens above using the free templates for phone wallpapers. Please feel free to use any of the above or get creative with your own. Unsplash also have lots of seasonal images which are free to download and can be used with Canva to create your own lockscreens. Annie Spratt and Joanna Kosinska both have lots of photos on Unsplash which would make excellent backgrounds.
My phone currently shows the following image by Kaitlyn Bouchillon which you can find along with many others on her lock screens stories highlights on Instagram. She also writes about Advent and recommends resources on her website.
I hope these resources are as helpful to you as they have been for me!
I’d love to hear your thoughts! Do you have any go-to Advent resources? Or any you’ve discovered this year?
Brazil from the outside in 
One thought on “Advent – links, lists and lockscreens”