The Church of England has launched a new website encouraging people not only to reflect on what they truly want this Christmas but also to rediscover the joys of waiting for it.

The website was launched at the Archbishop of Canterbury’s official residence, Lambeth Palace, on Monday.

The launch was joined by the Bishop of Reading, the Rt Rev Stephen Cottrell, who has published a new book for Christmas entitled ‘Do Nothing: Christmas is Coming’, which advises people to step back from their busy lives over the Christmas period. Reflections from the book are one of many features on the new website designed to help people look afresh at Advent.

“The real meaning of Advent – even inside the Christian community – has got squeezed out,” he said at the launch.

“As we look forward to the coming of Christ we need to be people who watch and wait and have a different perspective on living.”

The website features an Advent calendar with a difference, giving visitors access to helpful tips and podcasts from the Archbishop of York, the Most Rev Dr John Sentamu, Oxford Professor of Psychology, Dr Mark Williams, TV presenter Mark Dowd of Operation Noah, and theologian Dr Jane Williams.

In a video message on the website, the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams invites people to go beyond the common association of Advent with chocolate-filled calendars to use the weeks running up to Christmas as a time of deeper self-reflection and repentance.

“It is rather a pity that for the few weeks before Christmas we are saturated with Christmas carols,” he said. “We don’t have quite the sort of quiet we need to think, well, what would it be if Jesus really came as if for the first time in my life? What would it be for the Good News really to change me? Because for that to happen I need some reflective time, I need some peace, I need to slow down, I need to take my time about things.”

He suggests that people’s inability to wait for the things they want was one of the driving factors behind the world’s present day crises.