Jesse Tree - St Mary at Finchley, The ancient parish church of Finchley

What's a Jesse Tree?

It looks a bit like a Christmas tree—but it’s not.

Just as Advent points towards Christmas, so the Jesse Tree points towards Jesus: because it’s a tree decorated with all the people in the Bible related to Jesus:

Members of his family, like Mary and John the Baptist;
His great-great-great (etc.) grandparents, like Adam and David,
People Jesus talked about, like Jonah and Moses;
Other important people from the Old Testament, like Daniel and Joseph (the one with the coat) and the temple musicians and the angels

When?

This is something for Advent, and Advent begins Sunday 29th November; so it would be good to have all our Jesse Tree decorations in by Sunday 6th December.

This is where YOU come in:

We would like to put up a Jesse Tree in church for this Advent, but will need your help with the decorations!

Here are a list of ideas for decorations to make: (more templates coming soon!)

For each idea there is a template which you can

print off (or just copy out),
stick to some cardboard,
cut out,
cover with foil or colour in and decorate,
stick on a piece of string

—et voila: instant decoration!

Or if you’re feeling more creative, you can take the idea and do whatever you want with it (as long as we can use it to decorate the tree afterwards!)

To inspire your creativity, we’ve included a link to the original Bible story that tells you more about who, what, and why we are putting on our Jesse Tree.

A parent or guardian should also send an email to Richard (richard@richardmagrath.com) letting him know what you have done (so we don’t end up with 20 Noah’s Arks!); we can also arrange to put up the decorations on the tree—perhaps the most important part!