0:08

It is the Pastors Heart and Dominic Steele . And

0:10

how can we make our Christmas services

0:12

and talks better with Dave

0:14

Jensen and James Galea ? Just

0:16

a few days to Christmas now , and while

0:18

some people are well planned and totally organised

0:21

, there are some of us who haven't really started thinking

0:23

about our Christmas Day services or

0:25

our Christmas Day address , and lots

0:28

of staff teams are going to be working this week on

0:30

planning and structure , whether

0:32

it's Christmas Day , christmas Eve , kids

0:34

Service , carols . What mistakes

0:37

have you seen made at Christmas gatherings

0:39

and how might we avoid them ? James

0:41

Galea is the senior minister at Freshwater

0:44

Anglican Church and it's his first

0:46

Christmas in that senior minister role . Dave

0:49

Jensen is finishing up at EV Church

0:51

on the Central Coast and will next year be

0:53

working in the Sydney Anglican Church on

0:55

a roving brief to come

0:57

alongside ministers , lay people and churches

1:00

to work with them encouraging

1:02

evangelism and helping people

1:04

do evangelism better . So , james , thanks

1:06

for coming in , if we can start with you and

1:09

your Pastors Heart as you come

1:11

to your first Christmas at Freshwater

1:13

.

1:14

Yeah , well , I mean , I love Christmas . I

1:16

think I just love the familiarity , I

1:18

love the lights , I love the food , and

1:21

so we are just

1:23

the abundance . I think what it is is the abundance

1:25

of Christmas can be overwhelming , but

1:27

on Sunday just gone , we had a Thanksgiving service

1:29

where we just shared all the things we're thankful for

1:31

. And so for me , stepping

1:34

into this first Christmas , I'm just amazed

1:36

at how much God has blessed us again

1:39

and again , not only as Australians

1:41

, but also as believers , and so

1:44

, just when you stop and think about

1:46

that , it is overwhelming , and

1:48

so I'm going in with the expectant heart to seeing what

1:50

God will do , overwhelmed by His

1:52

goodness and that outpouring of thankfulness

1:54

. So , yeah , David Jensen .

1:56

As we come to plan our Christmas services

1:59

, what should be the goal ? What's

2:01

the outcome we're looking for ?

2:02

Yeah , that's a really great question . The first one is to have

2:04

a goal , so to

2:06

actually step back and , with

2:09

wisdom and thought and honesty and

2:11

clarity , come up with a

2:14

goal and a desired outcome , that I

2:16

think there's two parts of this that are

2:18

critical . The first one is that

2:20

it's realistic

2:23

. It's not based on fantasy , on nostalgia

2:25

, on some sort of data-less

2:30

dream .

2:31

But actually no , this is going

2:33

to be feasible , starting with the suburb we live in

2:35

and starting with the resources we've got .

2:38

There is that , but rather , starting with how

2:41

people are actually engaging

2:43

with the gospel in our culture , what

2:45

are the ways that people are most likely to become Christians

2:48

? And then , secondly , what

2:51

are the ways in which our people are engaged

2:54

? Our Christian people are engaged in evangelism and

2:56

mission , and so , when you come

2:58

to Christmas or any evangelistic

3:01

endeavor with a realistic

3:03

outcome in mind , I think

3:05

that can allow you to then make plans

3:07

about how to actually achieve that outcome

3:09

. And this is huge consequences for us

3:12

at Christmas , because I'm

3:14

persuaded that Christmas , in particular , of

3:16

all the things that we do during the year , is

3:18

probably the event that is most filled with fantasy

3:21

and with nostalgia and

3:23

with a

3:25

desire to see something happen

3:27

which actually very , very

3:29

rarely happens , and

3:32

so we need to approach it with a different mindset

3:34

, a different way , have a realistic goal that

3:36

we can aim at Okay , we've got to have a realistic goal .

3:38

What's your goal for Christmas carols this

3:41

Sunday at EV Church and

3:43

for your preaching Christmas Eve at EV

3:45

Church ?

3:47

My goal . I think the

3:51

primary goal whenever

3:53

we preach the gospel has

3:55

to be the conversion of non-Christians . And

3:57

now this may be I'm not saying that

4:00

carols are a gingerbread night is the night that you

4:02

do a full call to respond , nothing

4:04

like that . I'm not saying that . But whenever you preach the

4:06

gospel , you do it for the benefit

4:09

of the non-Christian person who hears the gospel . However

4:12

, almost equal in Christmas

4:14

, particularly Christmas , the

4:16

goal is to start the mission

4:19

engine revving for the year to

4:21

come . So you don't run Christmas

4:23

as the culmination of your year's

4:25

mission . You run Christmas

4:27

with the mindset that this is the starting

4:30

block of the coming year's mission

4:32

. So you're telling your people every

4:35

Christmas as you look at December , you look

4:37

at the year to come . You just beat in a drum

4:40

saying mission , mission , mission

4:42

, mission . The outsider and

4:44

of course this is so

4:47

easy for us through the gospels Luke

4:49

, chapter two Jesus has , you know

4:51

, the angels declare he is the savior , he's on a

4:53

rescue mission , and so

4:55

when we have that mindset , that means we're

4:58

aiming much of our outcomes desired outcomes

5:00

at Christmas towards our

5:02

Christian people . But that only

5:04

works , of course , if we have

5:06

plans in place , steps in

5:09

place that they can take hold

5:11

of for what happens after Christmas . So

5:13

I like to view Christmas as the beginning

5:15

of the year , not the end of the year .

5:17

It's a time we , when we gather our stuff together

5:20

and press forward and that's quite a different mindset

5:22

between , if you like Christmas

5:24

and then I turn off and go on holidays

5:26

or Christmas and I start .

5:29

Yeah , yeah it is . I

5:33

think we need to face reality , and

5:36

reality is hard to face the reality

5:38

, particularly around Christmas . We

5:40

can often come to Christmas services carols

5:43

, gingerbread house , whatever it is and make

5:45

an events with the idea that this will be a way that

5:47

we really effectively engage non-Christian

5:50

people , and we think that because

5:52

non-Christian people do respond positively

5:54

to Christmas invitations . But that's fake news

5:56

. It's completely , completely

5:59

provable that really very , very

6:01

few non-Christians either get converted through

6:03

Christmas , have our first entry into church through

6:05

Christmas . In fact , many non-Christians

6:08

who do attend every single

6:10

year to Christmas services are

6:12

actually the people who are least likely .

6:14

Almost inoculated .

6:15

They're inoculated to them . They're just coming for

6:18

whatever motivation they have . So

6:20

that means if we

6:22

view success at Christmas , as all the church

6:24

is full , but we don't see

6:26

people converted through the year , we don't see more

6:28

non-Christians coming to hear about Jesus , we don't

6:30

have any plan for what happens next .

6:33

It's just I don't want to say to waste . So how are you

6:35

putting all of that into practice , James ? How are you thinking

6:37

, how do you react to what David just said ? Then ?

6:40

Well , that's hard , because the reality is like the

6:42

psychologically the

6:44

year does end for most people mentally

6:47

Christmas , everyone goes on

6:49

two weeks and you leave , and so

6:51

there's that and a lot of it

6:53

ever goes into Christmas and so even

6:56

a lot of passes go away at that time

6:58

. So then going back into

7:00

energy and

7:02

sort of that January

7:04

series of like that mission heat that

7:08

you have to almost go against physiologically

7:10

All right , I've got to go in it again

7:12

, and so that's just the reality

7:14

of that , but I think it still can be done , I

7:17

think . But also do you go from one of your busiest

7:19

Sundays or Christmas times to

7:21

say the Sunday of early

7:23

January and is one of the quietest ones , and

7:26

so , but then it builds up .

7:28

Well , we find the Sunday between Christmas

7:30

and New Year next to no one's here . The

7:33

next one , the first one of the year , still

7:35

pretty quiet , but by the 15th

7:37

of January we are back to normal

7:39

numbers in attendance . However

7:42

, our members aren't there , it's

7:45

visitors . We actually find

7:47

out some of our biggest Sundays

7:49

of the year in terms of visitor

7:51

attendance is late January

7:53

, first part of February . Comment on that , david

7:55

. Yeah well .

7:57

I certainly think the

7:59

perspective that we bring to bear as we

8:01

approach this is crucial . So

8:04

we invest a lot of emotional energy , often

8:06

into Christmas , into carols , into all these activities

8:08

, believing we're engaging with non-Christian people

8:10

in the hope they'll become Christians . It doesn't work

8:12

, doesn't happen very , very rare . Does

8:15

that mean we don't run them ? No , no , no , no , not

8:17

at all . We run those things . It's great to run

8:19

those things , but the primary benefit

8:21

of those things is this is our opportunity

8:24

to get right in the mind of our

8:26

people for the year ahead to say we're

8:28

a church on mission , mission , mission . And

8:30

we tell them hey , in January

8:32

we're gonna be doing X , y and Z . Now

8:34

it might be that for the first two weeks of January you

8:37

don't . You do a quietest

8:39

Sunday , the equivalent excuse expression

8:41

of an acoustic service . You know like

8:44

the drum is away . So you've got that , but by

8:46

you know your context of your area . But

8:48

by that third week you go boom

8:51

we're on and this isn't acoustic

8:53

session anymore .

8:54

Because people are , and that's across the board , because people are

8:56

trying out the kids programs and

8:58

all these things are interrupted .

9:00

So practically for us . We'll do that . The first two

9:02

Sundays of January will be quiet

9:04

and then 14th onwards

9:06

we've got a series of Y . If I live in freshwater

9:08

do I still struggle with one week purpose

9:10

, next week , anxiety . It's third week , happiness . And

9:13

I've done that mainly because I don't wanna do the default Summer

9:15

Sam series , which I think a

9:17

lot of churches do , because it's just the easy one

9:19

to roll out , particularly as preachers . Well

9:21

, I preach on that Sam , I can just roll it out and warm

9:23

up , but it forces me . Okay

9:25

if it's in the calendar , if it's blocked

9:28

in our communicator with church . We're actually doing an outreach

9:30

event where we're trying to engage with our local area

9:32

of that disconnect between I live in a beautiful

9:34

place and yet there's

9:37

still stroke for like something's missing .

9:39

Well , that's the design of the goal . But

9:42

here's the thing that I wanna offer into that space . Even

9:44

so , I wanna say yes , in fact

9:46

I would have recommended the same

9:48

thing . I think that's brilliant . But even

9:50

then the non-Christian who

9:53

comes to those services , they

9:55

might connect , they might come to something next , but it

9:57

generally won't be a straight line . Non-christians

9:59

very rarely follow the path that we have for them . They

10:01

bounce around the place . So even

10:03

those services from week two of January

10:06

onwards , who are they ? You're

10:08

getting in the mindset of your people , you're setting

10:10

the compass for the year Mission , mission

10:12

, mission . How are you doing that ? Well

10:14

, you're doing an outsider service , an apologetic service

10:16

, whatever . But all of this is

10:19

bunkum . It's for naught If

10:21

, by term one , you don't have the punchline

10:23

to the joke . And for us in our culture

10:26

in Australia , in this particular season

10:28

, that is generally an evangelistic

10:30

course .

10:32

In 20 years time it might be an AI something

10:34

else , but at the moment it's that we run

10:36

an evangelistic course every term

10:38

and we find our term . One-one is

10:40

generally our highest attendance one , yes , that's

10:42

correct .

10:43

But , what's interesting , we have the same and this is

10:45

not just at EV , but EV is the fourth

10:47

church I've worked at . This has been

10:49

replicated at all of them . This is what's fascinating

10:51

Most of the people who attend

10:54

the evangelistic course in term one have

10:56

not come to Christmas . They have not come

10:58

to the Sunday services and the lead-up . So

11:00

where are they coming from ? They're coming

11:03

because our people , by that point , have

11:05

had eight weeks of mission , mission

11:07

, mission , and because they've got

11:09

confidence in the course , or whatever it is , and

11:11

because you've done a good job of

11:13

the pre-evangelistic activities in December

11:16

and January and the evangelistic

11:18

services .

11:18

So it's all a bit higgledy-piggledy about how they got

11:20

there . But if you didn't do some of those things

11:22

, Well , it is higgledy-piggledy , but no

11:25

, I disagree .

11:27

I'd say it is almost exclusively

11:29

true that the people who come to evangelistic courses

11:31

come as a result of invitations from

11:34

people they know at your church . So

11:36

these things that you're doing across

11:39

December and January are building the

11:41

confidence , flexing the muscle , getting

11:43

in the mind of your Christians to say mission

11:45

, mission , mission . Now that means for us , for

11:48

example , we don't start advertising the term

11:50

one course in Christmas . We advertise

11:52

the summer series in Christmas . We

11:54

don't bait and switch . I don't think it's a huge

11:56

drama to do it , but we don't do that

11:58

because we

12:01

just want people to come to the next thing that's on the calendar

12:03

. We don't have things happening all at the same time

12:05

. They're very clear . But we also

12:07

know , in term one

12:09

, even though there is a huge influx of people who come

12:11

, 90% of those people have

12:14

not come to the Christmas activities . They've

12:16

come because our people have been

12:18

captured with the eternal realities

12:21

that we get to preach on every

12:23

Christmas the reality of heaven and hell , of eternity

12:25

, the encounter , all these things that come through . And

12:27

so , as that comes through , they then like

12:29

oh , you know what ? I can invite Bob

12:32

or James to whatever

12:34

introducing .

12:34

God or whatever . James , do you want

12:37

to respond to ?

12:38

that I think with , at the

12:40

very least , christmas is a beautiful moment

12:42

of giving members of

12:44

church confidence to invite and

12:46

seeing someone say yes to that

12:48

, and so that gives them confidence to do that . I

12:51

think that happens on Christmas Eve . My gut is

12:53

most Christians are doing Christmas Eve services

12:55

. Christmas Day is sort

12:57

of like an open to the community

13:00

of come . I'm just realizing

13:02

how many blockers there are

13:04

for most people coming to church , like I was thinking the

13:06

local mosque , if I , well , I would never go to

13:08

local mosque , I'm not Muslim and

13:11

so . But if there was an open day at the mosque

13:13

I would go . And I think Christmas

13:15

Day is the open to the community

13:17

or the one day where people can

13:19

come without the invitation , and so they do

13:21

enter , yes , without an invitation , but

13:23

every other Sunday it's I need to be invited

13:26

, because there's so many walls that

13:28

alienating people from coming

13:30

.

13:31

Well , for some people I'd say we

13:33

found post-COVID there has been a big

13:35

sort of influx of non-invited

13:38

, non-christian visitors . I think some of

13:40

the walls we think are there . They're

13:43

in loud parts of our society but not

13:45

in most or not in many segments

13:47

. But I agree with what you're saying

13:49

. I want to say that the mission muscle

13:51

that is flexed in December

13:53

is for our people to have an easy invite

13:56

and they can say to their whoever hey , come

13:58

to Christmas , that's normal , hey , that's a good , and I get

14:00

off of confidence there . But

14:02

it's worth us knowing that that doesn't mean

14:04

the non-Christian who comes at Christmas is

14:06

either going to get converted or be

14:09

the non-Christian that comes at life . It may be

14:11

strategically that John

14:14

Christian invites Judy , non-christian

14:16

, to Christmas three

14:18

years ago and she comes and he builds up confidence

14:20

. And then three years down the track he invites someone

14:23

completely different to life , but he's

14:25

built up or sorry , the Evangisic course , but

14:27

he's built up that muscle during

14:29

December . But more than that , it

14:31

will only come as a result of his heart and soul

14:34

being captured with

14:36

the eternal realities that we preach at Christmas

14:38

. And so that's what I will get to preach in 90 momentarily

14:40

. But that's why I think Christmas is a wonderful

14:42

opportunity for us to preach

14:44

to , yes , non-christians , but

14:46

also to our Christian people , about the missional

14:49

reality of Jesus Christ's Incarnation

14:51

at the birth .

14:53

What other ingredients do you make sure are

14:55

definitely in the service ? I mean , we try

14:57

to put in an adult testimony of

14:59

someone who's come to faith in the last

15:01

12 , 18 months . What

15:03

about you , james ?

15:05

Yeah , I think for

15:07

me , with Christmas services we were

15:10

talking about it before but the strength

15:12

of Christmas is its familiarity . It's

15:15

people just want the same . They want the same salad

15:17

by their auntie , they want the same

15:19

lights , they want the same traditions , and

15:21

there's a beautifulness in that , the

15:23

familiarity . And so when people

15:26

come to a service , to be honest , they don't want

15:28

Hark the Herald Angel done alternatively Like Hark

15:30

the Herald Angel , they just want it straight up . They

15:33

want because that's that's strength of it , I think . So

15:36

for me , putting together this Christmas service , that

15:38

familiarity look , you could just do the same thing

15:40

each year and there's a goodness to

15:43

that . And as people come , that's

15:45

what they love about Christmas . I don't think you can do that

15:47

any other time of the year , but you can do it . You can't

15:50

do it with a sermon , which we'll get to in a moment

15:52

, but that familiarity

15:55

, I think , is a good thing and play into that . Don't

15:58

feel like you have to reinvent the

16:00

wheel every Christmas , you

16:02

know , and doing it .

16:03

We know we want to do Silent Night on Christmas

16:05

Eve .

16:05

We know we want to do . Oh , holy Night on .

16:07

Christmas Eve . We know we want to do Joy to the World

16:09

and come to your faithful on Christmas .

16:11

Even the most young people like on one contemporary

16:13

services . They become traditionalists at Christmas

16:15

. You know , everyone becomes traditionalists

16:17

, but it's like you know , the idea of not even doing

16:19

a Christmas , celebrating Christmas biblically

16:22

. I don't think you have to do it , but it's a great

16:24

opportunity to do it . But it's amazing how as

16:26

many young Christians are like , oh no , we

16:28

have to do this because everyone , I

16:30

think , loves that tradition of

16:32

Christmas and gathering together .

16:34

I'll just add to that . I couldn't agree more . It

16:36

also , if

16:39

we change things around too much and this isn't the preaching

16:41

as well it really can affect

16:43

the confidence of our people in what we

16:45

do . So they've worked really hard , they've

16:47

got this invite , they've invited the person . We

16:51

know that that person , just

16:54

statistically , is unlikely to really heavily

16:56

engage with what's going on in the way that this person

16:58

might want or they may . Yeah , we don't know . But

17:00

the worst thing we can do is go hey

17:02

, well , it's Christmas , but let's do reverse

17:04

Christmas this year and I'm going to preach on

17:06

, you know , ezekiel , and we're going to do this

17:09

and we're not even going to talk about the birth of Jesus and

17:11

we're going to do all these non-Christian

17:13

carols and whatever . Have you seen that ? Have you seen that happens

17:15

? I have seen a

17:20

kind of rejection . Well , no , it's

17:22

not a rejection , it's a desperate

17:24

desire to engage

17:27

creatively , thinking

17:29

that what will engage with non-Christian people

17:31

is excessive creativity

17:34

. I've seen that kind of thing and I think the familiarity

17:36

is a great strength of ours , of course , but

17:40

not only for the non-Christian , because it will help them engage

17:42

. But again , a lot of the visitors

17:44

at Christmas , you know , aren't

17:46

likely to return , but summer

17:49

, but more so that our people when

17:51

we offer them a hamburger , they know what's in the hamburger

17:54

. We say we're doing Christmas service . They're like

17:56

oh , I can invite my X , y and Z and

17:58

then they turn up . Well , that's what they're going

18:00

to get . They're going to get this sermon

18:02

on Jesus' birth .

18:03

Okay , what are you aiming for in the sermon ? Well

18:07

, Christmas Eve . Christmas Day Well you're preaching Christmas

18:09

Eve and you're preaching Christmas Day as well . Yeah , what are you aiming

18:11

for on that sermon ?

18:13

In some ways I want them to leave , wanting

18:15

more Mm . Hmm . So it's not going to

18:17

be too long , it's going to

18:19

. I know most people coming there , coming with their expectation

18:22

like this is it's

18:25

going to be familiar , but it's not going to be relevant . And

18:27

so to preach in a way that to show

18:30

them Jesus Christ , from His Word , to say

18:32

actually , you

18:34

know , in Luke 2 it says today's Savior has been

18:36

born to you for them to say , oh

18:39

, maybe this Jesus

18:41

fellow who put us aside

18:43

, thinks they're relevant , actually has

18:45

something profoundly to say to

18:47

my life . And so if they

18:50

can leave that building with

18:52

that , that's a win for me , because it's

18:54

just a warmth , the positivity of like , okay

18:56

, this Jesus actually has something

18:58

to do with my life .

19:00

I agree with that . I would say one

19:02

of the one of the opportunities I think we have at Christmas

19:05

is to really clearly

19:07

preach to both Christians and non-Christians explicitly

19:10

. And I think it's important that we engage

19:12

Christian people with deep

19:15

, profound and sometimes

19:17

not new information in the way like we're making things

19:19

up , but rather offer perspectives

19:21

of Christmas in ways that they haven't considered before

19:23

, in a way that can be very helpful

19:25

. So I

19:27

you know one of the a few years ago

19:29

. The passage we chose was

19:31

Philippians 2 . And I remember at the time

19:33

thinking , ah , that's not , that's a bit

19:36

of bleak care to what ? But of course it's not . That

19:38

is the story of Jesus becoming nothing

19:40

. Now that gives you the opportunity

19:43

very clearly to preach the birth

19:45

of Jesus , and in an engaging

19:47

manner . And this is , I think , one of the key

19:49

parts of the non-Christian is to be engaging . Remember

19:52

, they're listening-ish many , but

19:54

they're also feeling , and so they

19:56

will vibe things as much as listening with

19:59

clarity . So I want to be engaging

20:01

, I want to be funny , I want to get them like that

20:03

, but I also want to be very

20:05

helpfully preaching to Christians . And

20:08

so it's not the 10 minute youth

20:10

group , you know . Jesus born blah , blah

20:12

blah . I'll figure I'll have your lunch , but actually no , no

20:14

. The birth of Jesus has profound implications

20:17

on the life of Christian people who've

20:19

been Christians for 60 years , but

20:21

obviously also the non-Christian

20:24

people , and I don't think those things

20:26

are enemies . I think we should be doing that every Sunday

20:28

, but I that's what I want to offer . I want

20:30

to say you can do things

20:33

for Christians , you can preach to Christians in a

20:35

way that can even better capture

20:37

them with a mission mindset

20:40

. And so to talk about the mission , jesus is

20:42

on . Does that have consequences for how

20:44

the Christian will view 2024 ? Well

20:46

, of course it does .

20:47

So that's what I feel like , when people at the end of the service say

20:49

, oh , thank you for your

20:52

Bible speech , kind of thing . And I say I think

20:54

in there say , oh , it was more

20:56

relevant , like it was more practical than I

20:58

thought it would be For me . I say , well

21:00

, that's the spirit of work , because they come with a presumption

21:02

. This is not relevant for me . There's going to

21:04

be boring over my head and then , preached

21:07

, expository applied

21:09

and compellingly it's

21:11

like oh , okay , maybe there's

21:14

more here than I initially came with

21:17

.

21:17

And this ties in with the bigger picture strategy

21:20

of how Christmas works . I think because what we've noticed

21:22

in culture , of course , is that the reason

21:24

evangelistic courses are working in our context

21:26

but not so much in America is

21:29

because we are so nominal .

21:30

So people are starting . In fact , they're not working in America

21:32

, sorry .

21:34

I think in America they'll be hot

21:37

the shot in 20 years time . I think , courses

21:39

, they will flourish in America . But at the

21:41

moment evangelistic rallies

21:43

are still a huge way

21:45

of seeing people converted in America the

21:48

Billy Graham type crusade

21:50

, which I don't think has seen its day completely in

21:52

Australia , but it's still a

21:54

predominant way of seeing people converted because of the largely

21:57

not well still they're nominalism

21:59

, much more nominalism than here and then their nominalism

22:01

is active and largely evangelical

22:04

, sometimes much more than

22:06

ours . But our courses

22:08

are connecting with people because people are starting

22:11

further back Now . I don't think that means we

22:13

need to start the course

22:15

10 years away from the gospel . I think we

22:17

can still start the course at the gospel . But the

22:19

courses work because they give people the opportunity to

22:22

engage , to ask questions

22:24

, to learn from the Word of God

22:26

, to

22:28

wrestle with things over a period of time . And

22:31

when we view Christmas in that way , as I think

22:33

, like the first week of a course , we're saying to

22:35

people hey , the birth of Jesus

22:37

is actually for you because

22:40

you are lost

22:42

and give people permission

22:44

.

22:45

It's okay not to know , because a lot of

22:47

them like , let's say they're further and further back

22:49

, like this Christmas I've done before . I'll start

22:51

with the Panatoni . You know the Italian

22:53

cake , and for me I've seen them everywhere in

22:55

Christmas and like , but I never know what they are like

22:57

, why do you have them ? But they're stacks of them , and

23:00

for me , for a lot of people , jesus

23:03

might be like a Panatoni . You're seeing around , there's an

23:05

activity you know , there's a carol or two about

23:07

him , but you actually don't know what's the purpose

23:09

of this . Why is there shoes everywhere ? And

23:11

so come with me as we explore the two

23:13

and see how Jesus is

23:15

far greater than a Pantatonic and more relevant

23:18

to you , because for me it's a lot of people

23:20

, it's like I don't actually know , and

23:23

then for the Christian it's to be reminded

23:25

of the wonder of Christmas , to know

23:27

again .

23:28

Yeah , I love that and can I say , on that one , it comes

23:30

to preaching and that ties in with exactly what

23:32

you're doing and implying . Just

23:34

fight against being boring . I

23:36

know that's hard for many of us who

23:38

are boring , okay , but I

23:41

think in a general Sunday we should fight against

23:43

. Sorry when I

23:45

say fighting is being boring , let me wheel

23:47

that back a bit to say we need to fight , to be

23:49

engaging . We can't assume

23:51

people are on the bus ready to listen Every

23:54

Sunday . They're not there . But on Christmas they're especially

23:56

not there . Now , that doesn't mean we need to be like chapeau

23:58

and have that bigger than

24:00

life personality , so we're gifted in different

24:02

ways , but I do think we do need to

24:05

consider carefully . As you say , assuming

24:07

people know nothing .

24:08

There's a difference between when

24:10

I'm speaking to the regular group and

24:14

there's actually a trust built up that

24:17

there's a confidence that I'm gonna be interesting . There's

24:19

a good will . And

24:22

when I come to this , whether I

24:24

go out as an itinerant or I come

24:26

to this particular Sunday , this particular

24:28

day , christmas day when there's a whole lot of

24:30

people who don't usually hear me , then

24:32

I've actually got to start doing

24:35

. I've got to work much harder to engage .

24:37

Well , this is one of my challenges as a preacher that

24:40

my boss has been speaking to me about is that I

24:42

can often forget

24:44

that exact thing that I've

24:46

been at the church . I've been at it now for three years , so

24:49

I don't need to start with the big

24:51

story and the big sort of hook every

24:53

week , because they trust me , they'll listen to me , they'll

24:55

answer the people there , of course , with a non-Christian

24:58

crowd , whatever . Well , it is necessary , they're

25:00

not on the bus . You need to go anywhere . Yeah , who are

25:02

you ? Now ? I would still

25:04

offer that , even if you walk up

25:06

and you begin your sermon without an intro , you

25:08

just get straight or your intro is just . Well

25:11

, we're going to continue our series looking at still

25:14

work on how do you say that You're

25:16

engaged on Christians and Christians

25:18

, but at the same point , I think it's right

25:21

.

25:21

Because I find , with the Christmas sermon

25:23

because , as I said before , christmas is so

25:25

familiar it comes to those familiar

25:28

passages and as a preacher , you think what am

25:30

I going to say , like that excitement

25:32

of because that overflows into the

25:34

way you preach and that I think , if

25:37

you're desired to be engaging , comes from excitement

25:39

and actually there's truths here which I want people to

25:41

know . That fuels creativity and how can

25:43

we engaging ? But what I found is with

25:48

Christmas , why is Christmas exciting ? It's because of other people

25:50

and we've got young kids . Why is Christmas exciting

25:52

? Because you sit through their eyes and you can't but

25:54

help . That's infectious . And

25:56

so what I found with preaching is I get a

25:59

Christmas advent devotion written

26:01

by , like Alistair Begg or

26:04

Christopher Asher or anything like that . And as I'm

26:06

reading that , I found that personally , from my own

26:08

heart , I start with

26:10

me as a child of God , like how can I see

26:13

and reread these passages and see things that I've

26:15

not seen before and that

26:17

has , in life , in my soul , excited

26:19

me ? And then when you know something , you just you

26:22

want to share it and so when it comes to it makes

26:24

the Christmas sermon a lot easier

26:26

because the word has spoken to me

26:29

and I've done it with someone else and they're

26:31

excited about Christmas . That's fueled me , and

26:33

so that partnership I

26:35

found the last couple of years has helped me not

26:38

make Christmas sermons to stale .

26:42

Mm , yeah , that's right , and I think part

26:44

of all of this has to tie in with the biggest

26:46

strategy of realizing if

26:49

Christmas is our major evangelistic

26:51

event of the year , so this is where

26:53

we hope to see people become

26:56

Christians or connected in with their church

26:58

. If that's

27:00

working where you are , praise

27:02

God , keep it going , but please let me know how

27:04

you do it , because it's generally not how it works

27:07

, as , not you know , the data would

27:09

show that's not what happens . So , if

27:12

that's the case , what that frees

27:14

you to do at Christmas is to , yes

27:16

, preach evangelistically , but not to be stale

27:19

. But , as you say , and Christmas is

27:21

for predominantly Christians , so

27:23

that we can celebrate and rejoice , and it's

27:25

that infectious joy that

27:27

Christians are shaped by at Christmas that separates

27:30

how we view Christmas from the shopping center Santa

27:32

Claus , and I think that's something that we want

27:34

non-Christians to view and witness anyway .

27:37

One thing I've just noticed personally

27:39

is you know the shepherds ? I didn't

27:41

realize . I was reading Even Better Christmas by Matt Chandler

27:43

, and the shepherds obviously were outcasts

27:45

, but their testimony apparently wasn't valid

27:48

in a court of law . And yet God

27:50

used , in His sovereignty , them to be the declarers

27:52

of the rival of Christ

27:54

and how similar that is to the women at

27:56

the resurrection whose testimony wasn't

27:58

valid in a court of law . And

28:00

I just think that for me , I'm going

28:02

to this Christmas with that wonder is that God

28:04

has used the insignificant

28:07

to proclaim the

28:09

news for His arrival in resurrection

28:11

.

28:11

James David , thanks so much for coming in . My

28:14

guests On the pastor's heart James Galeer

28:16

, the senior minister of Freshwater Anglican

28:18

Church , and David Jensen . He'll be working

28:20

next year with the Sydney Anglican Churches

28:22

Evangelism and New Churches team to

28:25

encourage best practice evangelism

28:27

. My name is Dominic Steele . Next week we have Joe

28:29

Gibbs and Graham Fuller with us and

28:31

we're going to be talking about how to do ministry

28:33

teams really well . Thank

28:42

you .