Merry Christmas everyone!

I hope all of you out there enjoy the time with your family but more importantly, take some time out to reflect on your year, and your life, and on the generosity of God.

Christmas time is such a busy time for everyone. It’s the time of year where you don’t even bother looking for a parking spot at the Mall, you just park two blocks away and walk. And it’s hard trying to balance family commitments, church, present buying, work xmas party’s and on and on. It’s especially hard to try and take some down time to just pray, and read and meditate on the Scriptures.

This year, my family grew larger, and so it makes Christmas more interesting, and more busy.

Being an MTS Apprentice also means that I share some of the workload that the pastors carry at St. Faith’s at Christmas time.

Let me share with you a couple of thoughts about what Christmas time is like for staff at St. Faith’s. Being on staff, I will be at three services - 5:30 and 11pm Xmas Eve, 8am Xmas Day (that’s a lot of carols!), as well as helping with organisation beforehand. The particular difficulty we face this time of year is trying to negotiate good times with family, whilst trying to prepare and run the services for the regulars and visitors. So in between cups of tea, and welcoming people, I am trying to buy and wrap presents, and manage phone calls to friends and family, as well as change nappies (Nathan’s) and preparing to move house.

And so what ends up happenning is that Christmas time gets so busy, it becomes hard to just stop. And sit, and read, and pray. 2000 years ago, at the first Christmas, there was no mobiles, or malls, but a stable, and a starry night. And Jesus came into the world as a little baby. Now that is an amazing thing. God becoming a man. It’s really what Christmas is all about, it is why we run the services and do all the things we do, but sometimes, in the busyness of Christmas, it’s hard to keep it in our personal focus (it can get lost in the background haze).

This Christmas, why not sit down with your family, and talk about why Christmas is so important.

Don’t just do Christmas, think and talk about Christmas with your family. I think I will too.

I would love to hear about your ideas for keeping the good news about Jesus central in your family at Christmas time.