Shine Your Light this Christmas
Thousands of churches to take carol services onto streets this Christmas
This December, UK churches are invited to reach one million people by taking the Christmas story of ‘comfort and joy’ beyond church walls. The Shine Your Light initiative, a united effort of denominations, prayer networks, and streams, aims to engage 1,000 churches in sharing their vision of bringing carol services, nativity plays, and other Christmas events to public spaces such as shopping centres, village greens, and community centres.
While the main focus of this four-nation evangelistic campaign is the weekend of 13-15 December, any church can register and benefit from a range of free resources to help spread the Christian message throughout the month.
This invitation comes at a crucial time, as church attendance in the UK continues to decline. Recent statistics reveal that weekly Church of England parish attendance has dropped by 25-40% since 2015, and 15,000 UK churches have congregations of fewer than 20 worshippers.
Last year, Shine Your Light saw over 78,000 Christians from 700 churches across 68 denominations take their Christmas events to the streets. This year, the goal is to involve 1,000 churches and 100,000 Christians, reaching one million UK residents and visitors.
Endorsing the Shine Your Light initiative, Mark Pugh (Elim General Superintendent) and Sarah Whittleston (Elim Prayer Director), said, “Shine Your Light is an initiative founded in prayer and creative in mission. Advent and Christmas are often times when people are open to hearing the story of Jesus.
“How can you and your church 'Shine Your Light' this December? How can you connect with the community? How can you join in with other churches? We commend the resources, and prayer strategy, and encourage all in Elim to consider how they can make the most of this opportunity.”
Bishop Mike Royal, General Secretary of Churches Together in England, commented, “Christmas can sometimes be over-commercialised, with people feeling pressured to spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need. Shine Your Light reminds people of the true meaning of Christmas: God’s gift to the world in the person of Jesus Christ.
“Churches Together in England endorses the Shine Your Light campaign. Our 54 member church denominations unite in declaring this Christmas that ‘Jesus is the reason for the season!’”
Dr. Jonathan Oloyede, Convenor of the National Day of Prayer and Worship, added, “After last year’s Shine Your Light, we heard stories of people coming to faith and churches welcoming new members. It showed that when Christians come together for the Gospel, whole communities can be reached.
“In a recent UK survey, 20% of people said they believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, which is 16% more than those who attend church weekly. By taking the gospel to the streets, churches can reach the 80% with little or no belief in Jesus and engage those with a nominal faith in a neutral venue.”
'Shine Your Light' has produced a variety of free resources for churches including professionally designed and printed carol sheets for events (P+P costs only), music backing tracks to accompany the carols, music scores for each carol and resources for churches to follow up on contacts made at events.
Further information on these resources, programme ideas, and how to sign up can be found on the Shine Your Light website at shineyourlight.org.uk.
A video to show in churches and share on social media, highlighting the vision to bring a message of hope and joy to communities this December, can be found at Shine Your Light 2024.
