As the countdown to Christmas begins in earnest, a public advent calendar made especially by a local artist has been unveiled depicting scenes from a well-known Christian story.

St Paul’s church in St Albans has launched an initiative to encourage people to pray every day in the advent period, starting this Thursday (December 1) to count down to Christmas Day.

Reverend James Faragher, curate at St Paul’s, unveiled the church’s giant advent calendar created for the church by Harpenden artist Tsz Yan Lau yesterday (November 28).

Based on a painting of the nativity by American artist Randy Wollenmann, the calendar will be available for the public to use throughout December.

Visitors to church, on the corner of Hatfield Road and Blandford Road, are encouraged to pray for themselves or their loved ones, to leave a prayer request for a specific day, or to take a prayer request – and a chocolate – from the calendar.

Rev Faragher said: “The weeks approaching Christmas can be really busy and we can lose sight of its real meaning of preparing ourselves to celebrate Christmas.

“The Christmas story is one of hope and joy and we hope this advent calendar will encourage people to be reflective, prayerful and hopeful, and of course, there’s free chocolate available.”

The church will be hosting evening prayer sessions from 5-5.30pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, which are also broadcast live on Facebook.