St Peter's Church Christingle Service

Christingle Service at St Peter’s Church on Sunday 14 December at 11.00 a.m.

Celebrating the Light of Jesus Christ into the world.

All age service.

All welcome.

What is the Christingle?

A Christingle is a symbolic object that means ‘Christ’s light.’ It consists of an orange with a candle held in its centre and a red ribbon around it.

Four sticks holding fruit and nuts or sweets are pierced into the orange. The orange represents the world, the red ribbon symbolises Christ’s love and blood, the lit candle represents his light in the world, the four sticks symbolise either the four points of a compass or the four seasons and the fruit or sweets represent all of God’s creations.

The Christingle tradition began in Germany in 1747 when John de Watteville, minister of a Moravian church, gave children a lighted candle with a red ribbon around it. This represented Christ as the light of the world – and the final prayer of the service was ‘Lord Jesus, kindle a flame in these children’s hearts, that theirs like Thine become.’

Missionaries brought the Moravian Church to England during the 1700’s, but the Christingle tradition wasn’t made popular in the UK until 1968. John Pensom, who joined the Children’s Society in the 1950s, came up with the concept of holding Christingle services to raise money for the Children’s Society charity organisation.

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