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Should We Cancel Christmas? || SLP336 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_04: Hello and welcome to the live cast.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_04: My name is Glenn Scrivener Broadcasting here from Eastbourne and in Crowborough, who do we have?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_04: Paul Feezy.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: Still in Crowbra.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_04: Still in Crowbra.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_04: Still with you enjoying the.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_04: Just lost some weight.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_04: What's the secret to losing so much weight, Paul?
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you have to grow a mighty fine handlebar moustache to begin with, or horseshoe moustache, which obviously carries a hefty amount of weight, and then just shave it off.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a pound.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_04: Were you hesitating over with the with the razor as you're about to shave this off?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: No, I mean I knew it had to go really.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_04: You've lost decades from your Facebook death.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: I I feel like a young boy.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like I feel like I've got no definition anymore.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like I was very distinguished before.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Never mind.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_04: But um but Becca, she's she's much happier without the bigger.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yes, much happier.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_04: And the girls?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_04: How how how did the girls like the they've not seen it yet?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: Because there is there.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: I've got to pick them up from school.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: They might not recognize me.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: They might just walk through farms, man.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_04: And uh yeah, okay.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_04: So that was all for November, all for a good good cause.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, okay.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_04: Well, uh it it did suit you actually, and I I quite liked the um the um uh the subtitles, um the the Google subtitles were Paul Fizzy from Crow.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Paul Fizzy and I am a crowbar.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I am a crowbar, as opposed to I'm in Crow.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so I should have said I I I have a handlebar, but no longer.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_04: Never mind.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_04: So we're asking, uh, should we cancel Christmas?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_04: Why would we think of canceling Christmas, Paul?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I guess people are thinking there's all these restrictions on Christmas, how many people you know we can bubble with, or even I don't know all the restrictions are, I can't be bothered to read them anymore.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um but people are just like people have read the actual regulations.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, people think, well, if we can't do Christmas the way we normally do, like the big celebrations and all the parties and everything, let's just give it a miss.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's the gist, I think, from people.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_04: And to that, what do we say, Paul?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_04: What do we say?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: We say no, because Christmas isn't about like having a big ding-dong and uh whatnot.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: A ding-dong's a fight.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: What am I saying?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: What am I looking for?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: What's the it is about having a big ding-dong and high?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: What happens in East Enders every big.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: No, because we know Christmas isn't really about that.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it shouldn't be just about those things.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: It shouldn't be just about gorging yourself on as much food as you can and eating, you know, or eating your own white and mince pies and getting a few.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: No, not solely, obviously.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: Not doing down that aspect, right?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: Both and off.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean so I think you know, we want to say no because there's this year, probably more than any other year, there's an opportunity to maybe for Christmas to be a bit more reflective than it normally is, even for Christians.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um as Christians, like Christmas just bonkers, isn't it?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: Particularly if you are involved in your church in some way.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: If you work in the church, well that's it, you're that's it, December's a write-off for you, isn't it?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um if you go to a church in December, you'll probably be in the church at more points than you normally ever would be for different services and serving and things.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: And by the time you get to Christmas, you're normally just fed up at Christmas.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_04: And I I think that's that that is the culture as well.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_04: You know, there's so much build-up to Christmas.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_04: Then you get to Christmas Day, you sort of exhaustedly kind of collapse over the over the line.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_04: It's almost like like suddenly the shops are closed.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_04: So you feel like, oh well, I I guess I can't go out and shop anymore.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_04: I've I'm I'm I've been forced to sort of collapse.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_04: But then they open up again on boxing.com.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: Straight out again, straight out.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas that's meant to be like the second day of Christmas, and you're meant to have you know 12 12 days to celebrate Jesus, but you know, not really how not so much.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_04: Not so much.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_04: And there's been lots of talk about government saving Christmas, you know, if if only we could lock down, you know, lockdown 2.0 was so that we could save Christmas, which of course was this very sort of domesticated Victorian Venesian kind of idea of a Christmas back in the day.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_04: But um the true Christmas um is not cozy and it's not domestic, it's actually quite revolutionary.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_04: Because at the weekend I was um preaching on Luke 1, 46 to 56, um, which is the magnificent merry song.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_04: And it's uh um it's a real torpedo if you think that Christmas is just this cozy domestic thing, because you know, it's like princes are being like torn down from their thrones and the loft and the lowly are lifted up and the the rich are sent away empty, the hungry are filled with good things, and the rich are sent away empty.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_04: And like it's it's a passage that has spawned like political revolutions.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, like like South American liberation theology is kind of all based on Mary's magnificence, like Christmas is revolutionary, actually, because the king of all you know becomes a servant like in Mary's womb.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_04: And therefore it's the it's the upending of all our notions and all our power grabbing and all that kind of stuff.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, the idea that Christmas is this cozy thing um is not is not biblical, is it?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_04: Um where do you tend to go to?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_04: So uh uh if you if you were asked to to are you doing any Christmas preaching this December?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh no, I'm not actually.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: I've got my I've just done six weeks of Joshua back to back.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, six sessions on Joshua, which wasn't obviously very Christmas themed.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I in Venice, I've got Titus, I've got an Advent one this Sunday, which is Titus 2, the grace of God has appeared.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um which I've never done that last week.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good one for Christmas, isn't it?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_04: I've never I've never thought that yeah.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: I hadn't really realized when I looked, I knew it was coming, but I hadn't really realised it was part of the Advent kind of series.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: So um yeah, I'd never really thought about it.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, there's a I'm gonna have to think of us an angle of quite how that how to go on that one there.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: But um normally I think my go-to ones are probably the light shining in the darkness and kind of um Isaiah 9 um kind of stuff, but also John 1.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: Again, it I like the light in the darkness stuff at Christmas, that tends to be where I I gravitate to.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: If I was just given free reign, I'd probably do those things.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I think those those passages really come into their own in 2020.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_04: Um very much so.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_04: So earlier this week I uh did an interview with Emma and my wife, and uh we we talked about the difficulties of 2020, we talked about them uh particularly in the context of struggles with mental health, and then we uh had a think about uh whether we should cancel Christmas this year because it's been such a terrible year.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_04: And uh Emma speaks really warmly and wisely about her own past, about her mental health struggles, about the difficulties of 2020, and of why Christmas itself uh is needed more than ever.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_04: So let's have a look at that clip.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_03: So we're thinking about hope in dark times, and uh 2020 hasn't been the brightest of years.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, take yourself back to March 2020, and we're starting to take seriously a global pandemic.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: We're starting to be told to uh wash our hands a lot, we're starting to be told to isolate from one another, and that death is stalking the land.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um why are those things bringing up bad memories for Emma Scrivener?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so growing up um in Ireland, I had a very stable background, very happy, very secure as a little girl.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: But then when I became a teenager, there were lots of things in my life that changed.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my body, people who were close to me started dying for the first time.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: My grandfather, and we were hearing about things like AIDS on the news, this terrible unknown sickness that people didn't know very much about, but you could catch it somehow.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: You just had to, you know, the government health warning was basically don't catch it, but they didn't tell us how we could catch it.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: So um uh and I I was growing up in Belfast where um at that time the the the troubles, there was a lot of bombing, a lot of terrorist attacks and things.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um so lots, and uh, and I uh was discovering faith for the first time, but hadn't really put it all together.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking really not of the true gospel of Christ, but of a sort of a gospel of law um with a God like a headmaster.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, all of this added up um into me and made me feel like I was really messy and out of control, and I didn't know how what to do about it, but I kind of just I discovered things that would make me feel better.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and two in particular, one of them was um anorexia.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't that I looked in the mirror and thought, oh, I I I'm fat.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was that I felt I had loads of questions inside me, loads of things that were spilling out that were too much that I couldn't answer.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the corollary really was my body, and I couldn't answer these big things of you know, what's life about?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Where do I go when I die?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what is AIDS, you know, will there be a cure for it, etc.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: etc.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I could take charge of my own body, I could make my own body smaller, and it felt like if I made my body smaller, I could also in some ways silence these questions within me, make myself small and neat again.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that for me was the lure of anorexia, which went on for many years after that.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: But alongside that, um, I also developed um obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is um where you have lots of uh irrational in many ways, fears or phobias.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Mine were around uh contamination and germs, and you develop uh patterns, routines, rituals to try and stave these things off.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I knew in my head that what I was doing didn't make sense, but I felt like um everything around me was contaminated.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: There was a period when I thought you know that AIDS might be a virus that I could get, um, for example, but I felt like unless I washed my hands and unless I um stayed away from other people, unless I drew back, there was this terrible sickness that I could get that would not only harm me but could be passed on to the people that I loved.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the only way to try and stop it, the only way to take control was for me to do these rituals of washing and washing, um, you know, washing my hands, washing my body in a certain way, over and over and over, uh, in a certain order, maybe you know, 20 or 30 times in a row to try and get it right.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And if I thought the wrong thing, or I don't know, let's say I did my fingers in a certain order, maybe I I did it in another order, I had to start at the beginning again, do it all over again.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it ended up with me um washing my hands and my body in bleach and my skin cracking open, bleeding, and yet unable to stop because I felt that there was such panic, such fear, and I didn't know how else to get a hold of it.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so March 2020, you know, the girl who um kind of uh in many ways got over OCD by being told, well, look, there aren't these bad things out here, you don't need to keep washing your hands, you know, there's not this terrible sickness and um it's not gonna happen.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of happened, you know.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: It became true.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_03: A pandemic was stalking the land, yeah.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_03: And the the government's actually enforcing you to wash your hands and wash your hands seriously, you know.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_03: And they're enforcing on you this kind of isolation as well.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_03: Uh tell me how that was sort of striking you as as we're going down into lockdown.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_03: Uh what did that trigger in you?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think um speaking to someone uh who certainly has struggled with mental health over the years, one of one of the issues of mental health um struggles, lots of different ones, um, is that you tend to isolate yourself anyway whenever you're experiencing them for different reasons.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe you're anxious and you feel like you can't handle other people.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're frightened of the world and you want to try and bunker down your home, make yourself safe.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you feel like there's something wrong with you, something weird, maybe you've got a contamination fear, maybe you're trying to hide something like an eating disorder or you know, a habit or an addiction.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: These are things that make you pull away from people anyway, and when you pull away from people, you get caught in your own brain even more than you already were.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's a bit like a whirlpool.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And instead of having people outside who can call you out into the light and tell you the truth and help you, you become more and more lost in the thinking that got you into that the problems in the first place, and then the corresponding behaviors become even worse as well.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you've written a number of books about your own experience.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_03: You've got a blog at emma scrivener.net, and um as lockdown sort of struck, um, you wrote this um brilliant piece called Fighting Corona Brain about how you can fight back against these kinds of dynamics.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_03: And I just would love to get your reflections on some of these truths about how we can at least what is medicine for for these times when our mental health is under threat.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_03: And the first thing you said is isolate physically, but do not isolate mentally.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_03: What's that all about?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting, isn't it?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in the early days of um COVID, we were really being told to um uh socially distance.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_05: Socially distance, yes, yeah, yeah.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: But in some ways, that's the very opposite of what we need to be doing.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we need to be physically isolating, absolutely follow the government guidelines, we must do that.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: But um we need to be reaching out socially instead of uh pulling back.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And there are many ways that we can do that um that don't involve close physical contact.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we can do it via Zoom, we can do it via letters, we can do it by phone call, um, you know, and that I think is absolutely crucial because it is isolating whenever you're away from other people.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: We need people, and I mean you know, in our own in our marriage, you're an extrovert and I'm an introvert.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you love being around other people, and I would always have said, put me in a field with a sheep and I'll be very happy.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_03: But I've discovered the sheep, because yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, a wave at it.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: But then I've discovered during this pandemic, uh-uh, yeah, I am an introvert, and yes, I do recharge by myself, but I need people, I miss people.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, as a as a Christian, as a believer, I'm not really joined to Jesus.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: He joins me to his church, and that's for a very, very good reason because I can't do life on my own.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_03: You've also said, don't feed your anxieties.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: We would never want to feed our anxieties, would we?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know about that.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, isn't it tempting to scroll through all of the dar predictions on the news websites?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it, you know, isn't isn't there something kind of hypnotic about going through Facebook or Instagram and finding out a whole load of scary things that could be happening or great things that other people are doing that you're not doing or conspiracies or what's Boris's next pronouncement going to be?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Or sure, what tier am I gonna be on?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: When's it gonna happen?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: When's it gonna end?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what should I and that is before you even get along to the likes of Dr.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Google, you know, um oh I've got a bit of a sore throat.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is it coronavirus?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Google on that.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_03: No, it's probably a but it's Ebola, exactly.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um so instead of yeah, limit it, instead of feeding yourself things that will feed your anxieties or your fears, you know, put a sensible limit on it.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you listen to the news, for example, maybe do it for one one reliable bulletin a day and leave it at that.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you find that you're um you looking through the the internet or whatever is not helping you, then come off it for a wee bit.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And certainly as a believer, fill your mind with truth.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, that's the next thing you say.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_03: Uh eat a healthy mental diet.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_03: What's a healthy mental diet?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I mean, I would say it is uh putting into your brain whatever is true and lovely and whatever is giving you the real perspective on the world.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I wake up in the morning and I naturally feel everything is terrible and I'm terrible and it's all going to pot.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's why the first thing I've got to do in the morning is to get my Bible open.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not the sake of ticking a quiet time box, it is simply that everything in me says things are bad.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so I need to just get myself into a position where I'm hearing something that reminds me no, the way you look at the world is not right.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Your feelings are not the things that define you.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord is in charge of this creation, he has been with his people through a hundred pandemics, a hundred things like this.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's brought them through, he knows what's going on.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is not the end of the story, and he can be trusted in this.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: That is what is really happening in your life.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now get on with your day.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_03: Very good.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_03: And then you say, uh, be practical.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, practicality is is pretty important.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, all the usual, all the usual boxes.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you take medication, make sure you've got some and make sure you know you've you don't need to.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I like stockpiling things, so there is a limit to that.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: But make sure you've got plenty of the things that you need.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And just be wise.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: It is really, really tempting in these times to try and clock off in ways you know that we wouldn't normally do.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you'd feel like, I'll finish off that bottle of wine, where normally you'd have put it down after a couple of glasses.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you think um, you know, I'm gonna be uh throwing myself into more exercise than is good for me.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe I'm gonna be comfort eating in a way that I don't normally maybe I I you know I'm just gonna be.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I forget bedtimes and I'll forget rising times and I'll just all all of that stuff, which sounds really, you know, and all of this advice is really common sense, but it it matters, it really matters.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: So as well as feeding yourself the truth, you know, from the gospel, it's also just keeping an eye on how you're doing physically, checking in on how you're doing mentally, and you just making sure those things are in place too.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: And as we look out for one another, that's something to be aware of.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: You know, is is my friends, you know, are they in healthy routines?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_03: Do they need help to maintain those sort of practical uh guidelines?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um great.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: Number six, remember Jesus does not self-isolate.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I think about like Jesus meeting the leper, for example.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a man who has been socially isolated for all of his life, people flinch from him, he is sent away.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus comes to him and heals him, he not only speaks to him kindly, he reaches out and actually touches him.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus comes close to us, doesn't he?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: In in every kind of situation.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's that to me is pretty amazing.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, because before I can reach out to anybody else, I need to make sure that there's somebody who is that I'm relying on.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm I'm I if you rely on my strength, there's gonna be nothing there.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: But if I'm relying on the Lord's strength, then out of his fullness I can also point you to him.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: I can say, Oh gosh, this is really hard, isn't it?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hard for you too, my goodness.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: But look, this really encouraged me about Jesus today.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Or can I ask you to pray for me in this?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's really hard.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_03: Or yeah, and this it's that mindset shift, isn't it?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_03: That actually Jesus is reaching out to me right now, even as I might have to self-isolate, even as I I might have to lock down.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_03: It Jesus is reaching out in this moment, and and Jesus is using 2020 to reach out to me somehow.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is especially reaching out to you at this moment.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean it's interesting, isn't it?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen in the papers, you know, particularly at the moment, they're talking about Christmas should be cancelled, and um you know, because Christmas is this time of festivities and celebrations, and if we can't do it the way we normally do it, then why should we bother?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, Christmas is all about uh light in dark places.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, at Christmas time, we think of the famous verse, uh, the people who are walking in darkness have seen a great light.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: And Isaiah um talks then later on about us as a child is born, a son is given.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: So Isaiah is writing to people who are in real darkness.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: These were lights at that time, you know, they've been invaded, they've lost their homes, they've lost their temple, they're far from everything they know and love.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And yet he says there's a light that's coming, a child that God is sending who will light the whole world.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um now, what does that light look like?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Does it look like a kind of an X Factor God who comes down strong and mighty in Philippa's armies?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: No, it looks like a pregnant young woman who is knackered and sleeping in a stable.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like someone who is at the mercy of government edicts, just as we are, although she's being told to go somewhere and we're being told to stay still.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it looks like a nation in crisis as well.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we we the nation have heard this great news about the coming rescuer, but so is the king.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, kill all the baby boys.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: That is a time of massive darkness, and yet in that darkness, this light comes.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um a Lord who even though we don't necessarily want the light, and that is the greatest darkness, isn't it?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just that there's the darkness outside of uh suffering and death, even though that's huge, it's the darkness that's inside us, it's the fact that you know there's something in me that says, I don't actually want the light because I know if I look inside, I don't find Princess Emma at all, I find something really ugly that I don't want to be seen.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: But the great news is God sees me in my darkness, he sees my mess, and he comes to me in it.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Here is a God who comes to us in our broken world and brings us light, you know, who who says, Look, I I will come and I'll be with you, and I will be with you in the darkness because that is a part of every life, and it's certainly a part of the Christian life, and that's absolutely vital to say, you know, the this this idea that if you're Christian, everything is all.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sword, and there's there's no darkness, that's a load of nonsense.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Christians face mental health problems, physical health problems, all sorts of problems, the same as everybody else does.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the difference.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: I know the Lord who is with me in that, and I also know that he will lead me through.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so in dark times in 2020, of which there have been very many, and I, you know, it's been excruciatingly hard for everybody.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think people have lost their homes, they've lost their finances, they've lost people that they love.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there is nonetheless a shakable God who speaks.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_03: An unshakable God.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sorry, an unshakable God who who says, Look, I I walked you through the darkness before, and I came as a child and then grew up as a man and died to take that darkness on me.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: The sin, the grief, the suffering, the death.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's already defeated.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't mean that everything now is happy and rosy.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: It means there is still darkness in their battles.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I am with you, I'm inside you, I'm walking with you, and I promise you, I'm leading you through.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm getting the very strong sense that that for you, um Christians struggle with mental health issues, and that does not disqualify you from Jesus.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, if Mark chapter 2 is to be believed, then it is, Jesus says it's not the healthy, you need the doctor, it's the sick.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_03: I've not come to call the righteous but sinners.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_03: Jesus is precisely for people who are feeling the darkness.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Very much.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's your brokenness that qualifies you as a Christian.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: A Christian is by definition somebody who says, I do not have the answers, I need rescue.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: That is, you know, if you're how can you be a Christian if you don't think you need rescue?
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, and certainly mental health problems can be a part of that.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: But if if you're looking in, you know, if you're sitting in your church on a Sunday or zooming in a church and you look out at all of these faces, sometimes, especially if you have mental health struggles, you look across and you think, gosh, I wish I was more like so-and-so.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: She's got it all together, isn't she amazing?
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: She's doing this and this and this, or he's got it all together.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: People have lots of different struggles, but everybody has got the same heart, and that should really help us.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Whether we're the sort of person who beats up on ourselves for thinking I'm rubbish, I'm not like everybody else, I'm a worm, God can't help me.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's not true.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or on the other side, someone who thinks, you know, well, I've got it fixed, I've got it all sorted.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: No, we're we're all in the same boat.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: The shape of our struggles is different, but we all need rescue.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what makes church particularly such a wonderful place.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because here is somewhere where you can stand, be yourself, and not be ashamed.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: You can say, This is me, and I am a bit of a mess, but you know what?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: I look to Jesus.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: You look to Jesus.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Together we look to Jesus.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's our hope, that's our light, and it's dark, but we carry one another, and we carry one another to him.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_03: Right, because the people walking in darkness have seen a great light.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: Emma Scripton, thanks so much.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_04: So that was recorded as part of a London Institute of Contemporary Christianity seminar that uh Emma and I did yesterday.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_04: And uh you can go to licc.org and uh figure out um the the whole of that seminar.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_04: But um, yeah, lots lots to process there, Paul.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_04: What what leapt out to you from that interview?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, I think uh the there's really good stuff obviously there.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: We're uh we're coming to in a second on the what she talks about Christmas.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's just sorts of really good practical advice for people though.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, but I know some people who have found this a really tough season um mentally um and just some of the really practical things about you know, we we talk about social distancing, but we don't need social distancing.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: We can physical distancing, fine, but we need each other because we're people who are built for relationship, you know, we come from a God who's father, son, and spirit.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: So actually we still need those things, um, and not to feed your anxieties.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, those are all kind of good practical things.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: So don't spend your days scrolling through Facebook and looking up you know, conspiracy theories about illness and so on.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I think you know what she says about eating a healthy mental diet is really helpful as well.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, and she speaks, doesn't she, of waking up and she needs to get into her Bible, not because she needs to tick the box that says I've done my quiet time today, but because you know she needs to wake up and she needs to be reminded like of the good news of Jesus and who she is in Jesus because the temptation is just to wake up and think, well, I'm rubbish and the world's rubbish and you know.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I think you know there's such good practical advice in there as well as uh theological truth that we need to hear.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_04: I've been struck by yeah, how much that healthy mental diet uh stuff has been lacking in 2020.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_04: Because you know, when you when you just think of the uh first the fear of the pandemic and then issues surrounding lockdown, and then issues surrounding, you know, race and that that kind of thing, and then the the US political race.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_04: And yeah, I mean my my newsfeed has just been full of like supercharged high octane like visceral kind of cortisol injections like straight through your eyeballs on a daily basis.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_04: And if and if that's my diet, then no wonder I'm stressed and anxious.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's been like a perfect storm of uh stuff, hasn't it?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like you say, the tw I've had days where I've gone on Twitter and I come off it just like, oh no, I feel awful just because everything seems awful and everybody just seems to hate each other.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_04: And there's panic everywhere.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I I spoke about this to Michael Utts, so we're gonna see in a second an interview with Michael Utts that I um did recently.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_04: And and yeah, we were both saying that like wherever you turn, there are many different views about the pandemic and about lockdown, about the government response to things and the scientific response to things and what's best.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_04: But like one common denominator to some very different views is everybody's panicking.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's like you want you either panic about the disease, or you panic about like the economy, or you panic about civil liberties, or you panic about like church freedom, or you panic.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_04: It's just like everywhere you turn, it's tumult.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_04: And and how much do we need, you know, Isaiah 9 at that stage, you know, and the government will be upon his shoulders.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_04: Um that's yeah, that's very necessary at this time.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_04: Um but then yeah, should we have a look at the the Michael Otz uh interview that I did uh recently with him?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_04: And uh speaking about the opportunities that we have at Christmas, and again, like asking that question um, what specifically can we say at Christmas time that is distinctive and that gives hope in a dark time?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_04: Let's have a look.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm here with Michael Otts.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Michael, tell me uh who you are, what do you do?
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Michael Otz, and I work as an evangelist and I uh work mainly with students um normally in universities, mostly this year in my dining room.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and so Christmas this year, are there still Christmas opportunities for evangelism?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there are, yes.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's a bit different.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I've just been filming lots of Christmas talks for some online Christmas events, um uh and a lot of university groups have done that, partly because um university carol services would have been kind of the end of November, beginning of December, so kind of lockdown scuppered plans for in-person carol services.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then there are some plans for kind of physical gatherings as well.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna be speaking at our parish carol service.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um they're basically gonna run a condensed half an hour kind of carol concert, um, which I'll be speaking at.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they'll be doing that four times in a row.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: So basically, half an hour, kick everyone out, fumigate the church with this kind of smoke buster machine.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: Brilliant, yeah.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Ghostbuster thing, like you know.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: And um incense.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, yes.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, you've gone very high church recently.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: Anglican and then there's incense and everything.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: I know, what happens next?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um but so but yeah, so uh so they'll be doing that four times.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um because actually, I guess although social distancing means that capacities in churches are lower than normal, um, if you can run stuff repeatedly, um, then actually you just increase the capacity that way.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: So um so yeah, very much looking forward to that.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's great.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: So hopefully our neighbours will come along to that um and uh we'll be sharing the tickets for that.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_04: So I mean this year um it's uh horrible year, it's 2020, so we should cancel Christmas, right?
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, okay.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_04: That will clear your diary, and it's you know, December is a lot clearer.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_04: Um so I mean people kind of think that, don't they?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_04: They they think Christmas is cozy, it's domestic, it's full of lovely twinkly lights like behind.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_04: And so, I mean, Christmas can't stand up to a pandemic, can it?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_04: Like, like what what do you say to people who who just think now's not the time for Christmas cheer, is it?
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's weird actually, because I think, in a sense, people have like embraced Christmas cheer even more, like within the restrictions.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we were kind of discussing on the family WhatsApp group, everyone had got their Christmas trees like extra early this year.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, even my parents, who normally wait till like, you know, the 20th, have got their Christmas tree already.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we have to.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because there is this kind of sense of like, you know, things are so bleak and depressing, and we're stuck at home and we can't really see anyone, and even though lockdown's ending, we're still not able to see anyone.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: So let's do what we can, let's kind of make it make it nice.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there is that kind of sense of like we're we want there to be some kind of hope.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Things are literally dark, you know, we're in the middle of the winter, things feel dark, you know, um, and and we want there to be this kind of sense of hope.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, in a sense, that taps into Christmas, doesn't it?
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um think about Isaiah 9 a lot recently, you know, the idea of into the darkness light comes, into distress, there is rejoicing, into oppression, there is freedom and justice.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: And you kind of think like that's what we long for, and that's what Christmas is all about.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: It is about this light that shines in the darkness.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_04: All the Christmas readings, isn't it?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's like John 1, the light shines in the darkness, the darkness has not overcome it.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_04: Book one, you've got um yeah, the light shining on those living in the land of darkness.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: Which is why Christmas doesn't work in Australia.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_04: No, this this is my thing.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_04: It's like I I love a summer Christmas.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_04: I mean Christmas is fantastic, tropical fruit, backyard cricket, swimming, barbecues, it's fantastic.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_04: But it becomes then a celebration of your sunny circumstances, which is not what Christmas is.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_04: Christmas always happens in dark places in the Bible.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_04: And so it's it's that that reorientation, isn't it?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_04: And and therefore, like one of the mistakes, like a kind of a southern hemisphere mistake, would be that you celebrate your sunny circumstances and that's what Christmas is.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_04: But a northern hemisphere mistake is okay, it's just about family.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_04: It's winterful, it's cozy.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_04: Marshmallows, and that, and that's the whole thing.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas Christmas is is in the dark, and it's a lot more gritty than that, isn't it?
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, and I think that's where we can probably speak into, particularly this year, um, that sense of you know, we have real hope in the darkness, and and actually we don't have to do a lot of work to resonate with people because people have experienced that, and so we're saying there is there is a hope that's bigger than just you know a fuzzy feeling and you know the fact that we can have three families meeting up at Christmas, and there is actually a hope that's even bigger than a potential vaccine in the spring.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: There is this incredible hope, and we want to portray that.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for me, thinking about preaching at Christmas this year, having just recorded some Christmas talks, I guess normally we can play into the kind of fuzziness of Christmas.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, all of our illustrations revolve around presents and tinsel and turkeys and that kind of stuff.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: And and and we kind of want it to feel fuzzy because it doesn't feel right if it feels fuzzy.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: And almost if you talk about the bleakness and the darkness of winter, you feel like the Scrooge, you know, you feel like the kind of the bad guy who's spoiling the Christmas party.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas this year I was like, actually, no, you can preach Isaiah 9 and you're not the bad guy because everyone's living in that kind of world, and we we haven't, you know, we're not pretending otherwise, like that is the reality of our experience.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think it connects more with people's experience.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Brilliant.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_04: Great.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_04: Cheers.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_04: We filmed that with Michael as he used our set to um preach um a Christmas sermon.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_04: And I sat in on his Christmas sermon on Isaiah chapter 9, and I think you know that that passage is really coming into its own this Christmas.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_04: The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_04: On those living in the land of deep shadow, a light has dawned.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_04: For to us a child is born, to us the sun is given.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_04: And I think like we don't we don't recognize how beautiful the gift of Christ is, um, until we recognize the darkness of our own situation.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_04: We don't recognize the humility of Christ joining us until we recognize like how um uh forbidding our circumstances are and how unhospitable this world is to the Son of God.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_04: And yet when you understand the darkness, it's like an incredible gift.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_04: I from when I'm preaching on Isaiah 9, I said, you know, imagine the baby wriggling on the straw, and there's a little gift tag around his ankle, and it says, From God the Father to you.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_04: To us a child is born, to us the Son is given.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_04: And and it's that it's that sense of of like the presence of God.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_04: What does God do to a dark world?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_04: He doesn't snuff it out.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_04: Um joins it.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_04: He enters in.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's that's the kind of meaning of Christmas, isn't it?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_04: It's Emmanuel, it's God with us, right?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's the thing for us, I suppose, that we can that can help us through these times that even though things this might be a rough year, and for some of us it we've all had a rough year in in one sense, and some of us have you know been able to kind of just get by and carry on, others have found it much more difficult and we'll continue to find it difficult.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think the thing we can take comfort in is that Jesus is with us in those things.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's not that Jesus is not in this at all.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I think you know, sometimes people think when you're in this season of darkness or night, you know, that's not that you know God is not in those things, but of course, you know, God made the day and he made the night.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, you know, in the in the night um you you you see things in the dark that you don't see in the day.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you know, God put the stars in the sky to you know to be seen at night.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um there is a light in the darkness that you can't see in the light of day.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I think that's uh that's true for us that as Christians and I think others outside of the church as well, maybe in the darkness, they can see a light that they might not have seen in the light of day.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I think there's encouragement for us as Christians, but if we've got non-Christians, we know non-Christians as well, we can hope as well that through this season God is going to shine some light into the darkness that people are living through as well.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_04: Right, right.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_04: And that that brings to life kind of the Philippines 2 stuff that you know, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_04: Um sometimes people kind of say, you know, I I can't witness in the workplace um because it's such a dark place.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_04: You know, everyone is very anti-Christ and it's it's a dark place, so I can't really witness there.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_04: Um whereas like if you take that that star light imagery um seriously, then like the blacker it gets, um then you you just need to be a pinprick of light, don't you?
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like if every everywhere else is they say like a candle, you know, a candle in the darkness, a single flame on a candle can be seen from over a mile away or something like that, you know.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: So just that small light has a great kind of ability to penetrate and and uh shine.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_04: And that's so helpful when you think about all the panic and the fear that is out there, like whatever your views of the pandemic, whatever your views of lockdown, whatever your views of the vaccine, whatever your views of the science and all that kind of stuff.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_04: Um like people are predicting hard times ahead, and there will be hard times ahead.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but this is really where the church can shine, isn't it?
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and 2021 is a time for the church to shine, and we might feel we're too weak to do that.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_04: Well, a flickering candle um can extinguish the darkness in a room.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_04: So let's uh keep clinging to Christ and uh and shining his light out.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_04: Um now the last thing we want to do uh today is make some noise for our Christmas video.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_04: It is out there, it is let me go there, and uh it's our little attempt to summarize Christmas.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_04: What is Christmas?
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_04: Christmas is a quest that the Son of God volunteered for.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_04: And uh though it cost him everything, he said to the father, let me go there.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_04: And we've got a terrific uh uh animation.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_04: If you haven't yet seen it, uh go to youtube.com slash speaklifemedia and you can see our two and a half minutes extravaganza, and we'd love you to share it far and wide and make some noise because uh there is an opportunity for those who uh watch it uh to request a free book at the end and uh to discover more about Christmas.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_04: So it's a great outreach opportunity for you.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_04: So do go to youtube.com slash speaklifemedia.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: Is there anywhere else that people can go to catch up with us, Paul?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, keep up with us on all the other kind of major social medias, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um you can search for Speak Life UK there, and you'll be able to find us straight away and follow our pages, give us a like, a subscribe, whatever it is on those platforms.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then of course, uh speaklife.org.uk is our website.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: And if you want to keep up with what we're doing, uh speaklife.org.uk forward slash sign up, and you can sign up to our email, which will keep you abreast of all the stuff going on and all our resources that we're bringing out week by week.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_04: Wonderful.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you for that, Paul.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_04: And uh, I guess we'll see you again next week.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I hope hopefully so.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: Probably back in person, I think.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, wouldn't that be good?
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, wouldn't that be good?
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_04: Brilliant.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_04: All right, guys, thanks for joining us, and uh until next time, keep speaking live.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_04: Take care, bye bye.