What's Christmas all about?

It's been great to have the opportunity these last few weeks of visiting my local primary school to take Keystage 2 RE lessons looking at Christmas - what it's all about and why it is important to Christians.

Here are a few of the resources that I've used this year.

First, we separated out which parts of their Christmas story come from the Bible and which parts are simply tradition. The children enjoyed this video from Igniter Media 




If you've not come across the FreeBibleImages resources yet then visit their website now. They have a whole range of pictures covering the Christmas story to help it be retold with stunning images.

Picture Credit: www.LumoProject.com

Then there are all the resources available via RE:quest - a website that resources those teaching RE and taking assemblies etc who want to explore the big questions of what Christians believe and the Bible teaches.

Click here to watch the video we used to explore why Christmas is important to Christians.

If you know of any other resources let me know - I'll need some different ones next year!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving. 

I first celebrated Thanksgiving in 1992 when I was teaching in Kenya, sharing a house with a guy from California and working with an organisation where Americans outnumbered everyone else. Americans celebrate Thanksgiving - and they generously invited us to join in too.

According to Wikipedia, which is often my first port of call when I want to know something about something that I know nothing about, Thanksgiving was traditionally a harvest celebration - see here for example. And similar to a harvest festival in the UK involved giving thanks to God for his provision.

Having worked with other Americans since 1992, that was not my only exposure to Thanksgiving traditions - most recently being involved in the making of a sweet potato and marshmallow casserole a couple of years ago.

I wonder how many people in the UK, wandering along our high streets realise that today is Thanksgiving. They can't miss the fact that tomorrow is Black Friday - the posters are stuck in every single window - but how many realise the 'link' between Black Friday and Thanksgiving.

On Tuesday I was taking an RE lesson, exploring the meaning of Christmas and why Christmas is important to Christians, and in the Q&A session at the end one girl asked, 'why do people celebrate Christmas if they don't believe in Jesus?' What a great question - and my answer was something along the lines of, 'I don't know, it makes no sense to me, you'll have to ask them'.

Of course, Christmas and Black Friday/Thanksgiving, as well as Halloween and Easter have become just another opportunity for the retail industry to try and trick gullible customers into parting with their cash by convincing them that this is a really good deal that will bring them satisfaction which they could not otherwise experience.

I'm not surprised that the retail industry in the UK plays up Black Friday whilst ignoring Thanksgiving. If they were to get people to focus on the things that they are really thankful for on Thursday, those people might be less inclined to spend their cash on Friday.

Thanksgiving is an important theme in the Bible - but it is the kind of thanksgiving that would want no part in Black Friday. Harvest thanksgiving celebrations were an important part of Jesus' life - three of Israel's annual feasts were linked to different harvests in the agricultural calendar. And so thanking God for his blessing and his provision, rather than taking things for granted, is an important discipline for Christians. But biblical thankfulness is not just limited to God's physical or material blessing. 

In Philippians Paul writes '...in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God...'. For the New Testament writers, their focus was on an eternal future. Their joy was based not on getting a few hundred pounds off the latest flatscreen TV, but on the hope they had for the future. A hope and a future that meant that they could rejoice, even in the face of genuine suffering, persecution and even death. They were thankful for and/or looking forward to:

• the free gift of complete forgiveness for all their sins  (Romans 6:23).
• never having to earn their justification by keeping the law (Galatians 2:16).
• the grace they would need at all times so that they could abound in every good work God had for them (2 Corinthians 9:8).
• that God would complete the good work he began in them (Philippians 1:6).
• eternal life (1 Corinthians 15:52–53).
• being with Jesus and being like Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:8) (1 John 3:2).

We have so much to be thankful for. Of course, it is right to be thankful for the 'stuff' that we have. But the celebration of Christmas without a belief in Jesus, or the marketing of Black Friday without any reference to Thanksgiving alerts us to the danger of becoming so focused on the things that we see that we lose sight of the things that we can't see - the things that really matter. 

Let's give thanks to God for the ways he has truly blessed us.

If you wanted to read some more about this theme of thanksgiving you could start here.

Lights in the darkness

Once a month the three church communities within the village (Anglican, Baptist and Catholic) put on a joint event called Oasis Tea. We avoid putting ages on our publicity ('for the over 55s' etc) but Oasis generally (but not exclusively) attracts the more senior members of our community.

Each month one of the churches is 'in charge' and responsible for the refreshments as well as leading a short 'service'. This includes a short prayer, a couple of traditional hymns, a Bible reading and a short talk. The themes for our talks are put together at the beginning of the year and sometimes link in the with the church calendar. Several times I have had to put my talk together with 'Wikipedia' and 'Google' working overtime as I have no idea about dates in the Anglican or Catholic calendar!

My last Oasis of the year was back in September and coincided with Michaelmas Day. Anything I can tell you about Michaelmas will come straight from Wikipedia so if you want to know more you know where to look!

One of the themes though, which is a familiar picture throughout the Bible is the battle between 'light' and 'dark'. Some of the traditions around this day are to do with seeking God's protection over the winter months with the long, dark nights. In the New Testament Jesus is described as the 'Light of the World' which is a theme that we will pick up again at Christmas.

One of the things that I like to do at Oasis is a simple take-home craft. Expanding the idea that often our newspapers often seem full of bad news, and that as Christians we have the capacity to punch holes in the darkness, we made small pyramid-shaped lamps.

If you wanted to make one for yourself transfer the pattern below onto the paper you want to use.

I used A4 paper with newsprint photocopied on to it just to give it a bit of extra strength.

Cut it out, fold and stick the triangle sections together - but do not put any glue on the tabs around the square base.

Place a battery powered tea-light on the square base and bring the pyramid over the top - sliding the long tab under the base to stop the top popping open again. There is no need to use glue on this part - otherwise you won't be able to open the lid and turn your tea-light off!

Please don't try this with a real tea-light and a naked flame! It won't end well.

Memory Verses

This morning at CBC I briefly talked about how memorising Bible verses is one of several spiritual disciplines that will help us as we seek to become more familiar with hearing God's voice.

God can and does speak to us in a whole variety of ways, but most commonly God will speak to us through the Bible - which is, after all, God's word. The more of the Bible that we have in us the more opportunities we give God to speak to us.

Of course, as is the case with any spiritual discipline, the goal of memorising Scripture is not simply to know lots of verses off by heart. Just as the purpose of reading through the Bible in a year isn't about ticking chapters off a list. It's not about learning the Bible off by heart as much as taking the Bible to heart. Memorisation should be accompanied by reflection and application and prayer.

Back in the 1990s I spent a year teaching in Kenya during which time I came across The Navigators - a Christian organisation that works with secondary school and university students, sharing the gospel and making disciples. They had lots of helpful illustrations including this one about the Bible:

This was where I first came across their Topical Memory System - essentially six sets of twelve cards with verses arranged in themes. The cards are designed with the intention that you carry them with you for easy reference and review as you go about your day.

My first set was pickpocketed on a bus in Nairobi!

Now, cards have been replaced with a whole range of apps that help with the memorising process.

If you're looking for somewhere to start have a look at the Fighter Verse app