Look back in wonder

I'm writing this on New Year's Eve. As a good Scot that means I've been desperately tidying up ready for Hogmanay (tidying being something I do very little of on the other 364 days!). I'm not planning any New Year's resolutions - although I can tell you a grand way to keep them, if you're interested (see below).* Instead of looking ahead to my soon-to-be-broken and wildly unrealistic resolutions (anything involving a tidy flat or desk), I'd rather look back on the never-broken faithfulness of our wonderful Lord God. In our last church homegroup meeting of 2007, we had a prayer time where it was suggested that we each thank God for one thing during the past year. We prayed... and prayed... and prayed... No one was able to restrict themselves to just one thing - there was SO much to thank God for! For myself, one of the highlights was the time spent with Christian brothers and sisters in South Africa - being thrilled by their enthusiasm for serving God, and encouraged by their faithfulness to Him. Looking further back, I was privileged during the travels on my sabbattical to meet many Godly people - separated by thousands of miles, but joined by a mutual trust in the Lord Jesus. Many of them are also joined by a common desire to teach God's Word faithfully to children and young people. My prayer for them, and for you, and for myself, is that we will all be able to look back in wonder as we see how God has worked in the lives of the young people we serve, and then look forward in trust to all that He will do in the coming year.

Happy New Year to you all!

* I once resolved to read the whole Bible during the year. I then admitted this resolution to 400 people at an all-age service, and asked them to check up on me. I can confirm that this is a very effective way to stick to a resolution!!

'Such a great guy'

Recently I have been creating lists galore in preparation for our next Bible-Centred Youthworker Conference in January. As I've poured over the names of those coming - 130 so far - I've caught myself thinking (and sometimes saying out loud!), 'Oh, he's such a great guy', 'She's so lovely', 'He's a terrific bloke', 'He's so nice', 'I'm so pleased she's coming back' and so on... I got to the end of the list of 130 and realised that I'd thought something nice about every one of them. This isn't because I'm a sweet person who loves everyone (!), but because the children's and youth workers I've got to know over the past few years are such a terrific bunch. So, if you're one of them, thank you - it's a joy and privilege to know you.

Puzzled by Pullman?

I haven't seen the film yet, and it's years since I read the book - but I HAVE already had a number of circular emails from concerned Christians recommending boycotting 'The Golden Compass'. I'm always wary of mass boycotts. It's true that there are some books and films whose content means we want to warn our young people against them - but given that most of our children and young people are likely to be swept up in the razzmatazz of this film, aren't we better to engage with the issues rather than avoid them? There is a very helpful article on this in the December issue of Youthwork magazine, written by Dr Mark Stibbe (pages 8 & 9). It should soon be possible to get a copy of 'How Golden is Pullman's Compass?' from Mark Stibbe's website. If it's anything like his article, this talk should be good - I'm certainly planning to hear it as soon as it's available.

Is Christmas about Christ?

In a Sunday Telegraph survey of 100 schools, only one in five is opting to stage some kind of nativity play. One in three will stage a religion-free Christmas play or have no event at all. Why? 'To avoid upsetting pupils (and parents?) of other faiths.' The Telegraph article seemed quite balanced to me - you can read it here.

It's the readers comments about it I found fascinating:

• In 78 added comments, only three mention 'Christ' (and one of those is as a swear word!) and none mention 'Jesus'
• Most people assume that scrapping school nativity plays is an attack - but not on Christian belief. They see it as an attack on our national identity.
• Many of the writers assume that it is people of other faiths who are pushing to get nativity plays banned - and sadly some go on to say that these 'immigrants' should go back to their own countries and stop interfering in ours.
• The assumption made by nearly all is that the nativity play is all about tradition.

Where does this leave us, as we aim to teach the Bible's fantastic message about Jesus this Christmas? Since most people believe that we should continue to have nativity plays, let's grab that opportunity in any way we can - and then use it to help them see that the Christmas story isn't about tradition, it's about Jesus Christ, our wonderful, loving, rescuing King.