When ‘#xmasangels’ Tweet

Craftivism combines craft and activism. This paper contributes to the field of contemporary culture, mission, and creative making by examining the Christmas Angels project, in which local churches yarn-bomb hand-knitted angels, as an ecclesial expression of craftivism. Recipient responses to this fresh expression of Christian witness are analysed by examination of over 1,100 ‘#xmasangel’ tweets. Analysis reveals a found theology, in which angels are received with joy and surprise, understood in the context of love, experienced as a place-based gift and embody a participative making. A missiology of making is developed, reading the yarn-bombed Christmas angels as an ecclesial practice of witness in continuity with a theology of making in the Wisdom literature and ‘craft-egesis’ of mission in Acts. The research has relevance in exploring the potential of digital data in empirical ecclesial research and challenging missiology to be practical in ‘making’ a domestic turn

Aesthetics · Art · Context (archaeology · Craft · Expression (computer science · Missiology · Political science · Reading (process · Sociology · Surprise · Theology · Visual arts · Witness · Communication · Computer Science · History · Law · Media, Religion, Digital Communication · Pentecostalism and Christianity Studies · Philosophy · Religious Tourism and Spaces