Christmas Fund Resources Emphasize Year of Love, Draw on Saints of the Church 

The UCC Council for Health and Human Service Ministries and Pension Boards-United Church of Christ have again teamed up to bring all settings of the church this year’s Christmas Fund Advent resources. The resources include original art, liturgies for the four weeks of Advent, plus children’s sermonettes for each week.

The 2026 Advent liturgical resources were created by the Rev. Dr. Elyse Berry, CHHSM’s associate for advocacy and leadership development, in consultation with Paul Ramsey, philanthropy officer for the Pension Boards. The resources are based on the Christmas Fund theme, “The Greatest of These … Love …” as well as the larger “A Year of Love” theme of the main UCC all-church offerings.

The liturgies include a unique Invocation, Litany of the Advent Candle, Prayer of Transformation and Grace, Invitation to the Offering, and Prayer of Dedication for each week. The accompanying Christmas Fund image, created by Berry, is a needle felting composition showing the nativity scene as well as everyday life.

The artwork asks what it means to pour love out into our communities in an “above and below” depiction, said Berry. “The nativity scene is at the top, while the bottom asks us, ‘How do we live that live out in our day-to-day lives?’ I wanted to draw a parallel between Christmas and the way we experience community, love, and Christ’s presence among us every day.”

The children’s sermonettes also follow the theme, and highlight a different saint of the church each week: Poet Phillis Wheatly (hope), the Rev. Edward Nollau (peace), the Rev. Antoinette Brown (joy), and the Rev. Derek Terry (love).

Berry said that when she considered how to express the theme to children, she thought about “our UCC ancestors who lived living lives of service. I reflected on the many UCC people who are beautiful models of lives of loving,” she added. 

Needle felted images of each person accompany the sermonettes. “It felt so meaningful to craft unique images of these four people to use as the foundation of the children’s sermonettes and elevate their lives and stories,” said Berry.

The Christmas Fund has been caring for active and retired clergy and lay employees of the United Church of Christ for more than 100 years, providing emergency grants, supplementation of small annuities and health premiums, and Christmas “thank you” gift checks each December to the denomination’s lower-income retirees. In addition to the liturgical resources, the 2026 Christmas Fund campaign includes an easy-to-download poster and promotional calendar to make publicizing the fund drive— one of the UCC’s annual special mission offerings—easy to accomplish.

Download the 2026 Christmas Fund materials.