What makes Christmas Merry?

How would you answer it?

Another way to ask the question could be what brings you joy at Christmas? What makes you
happy?

I don’t know about you, but I am an old school fan of the Christmas ham – I just love it.

What about you? Are there any special parts of the Christmas season that put a smile on your face? Your list might be long. But for others, because of the pain and hardship of the season, it might be quite short or completely non-existent.

This Christmas at Southern Cross, with our dear friends from Quiz Worx, we are drilling into what makes Christmas so “Merry”. I still pinch myself to think we have Quiz Worx joining us on Christmas Eve! It is a real credit to the creativity of Quiz Worx, and our Staff Team’s future planning, to pull this Christmas Eve Family Service off!

I have been able to invite friends of our family who are doing a Lismore Christmas, and they are keen
to be part of the fun. Now, puppets aren’t for everybody. But, I have been part of camp for eleven and twelve years olds (on the cusp of adolescence) and the teaching for the weekend camp was by Quiz Worx. Leading into the camp I was thinking (from my SRE teaching days) that that age group can be a tough crowd. But Quiz Worx were great – there were a heap of smiling faces that weekend. I reckon this Christmas Eve you can expect that same response from young and old!

There’s no need to register for the event. We expect we can comfortably house a good crowd in the hall at Lismore High School. Remember, you are welcome to come from 4pm for light refreshments and face painting outside (we will try to find shade!). Alternatively, the service starts at 5pm and we’ll be all done by 6pm so you can race home to wrap presents, or you can hang around a little longer afterwards as we serve up some fruit and ice-blocks after 6pm.

As we are meeting Christmas Eve, there is no Christmas Day service the next morning. However, as you depart our Christmas Eve Service, you will be provided a short ‘Merry Menu’. This will have a small guide for a devotion to do sometime on Christmas Day, a guided reading which a little person from your home
may like to read and have you all respond, before all joining in together to a Christmas prayer spoken
aloud for everyone in your house on Christmas Day. Also, our 3-8 year olds will be offered the ingredients for a Christmas cooking activity if they would like to give that a try Christmas Day. So there you have it – your merry menu for Christmas Day!

Some of us find the Christmas season right down our alley – food, decorations, ugly Christmas shirts – you love it. For others it’s a painful season – you hate it.

Yet the news of the first Christmas is really meant to bring joy.

Because Christ is just the best.
He’s better than the Christmas ham.
He’s better than your new smart watch.
He brings more contentment that the most appropriately picked gift card.
He brings true and lasting joy.

10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for
all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the
Lord. Luke 2:10-11

SP

This is an edited version of my script from the Preliminary Information Session held last Sunday…

If you read last week’s TPP I answered the “How” of today’s Preliminary Information Session. However, to start our meeting today I would very quickly like to ask the “Why”? Why would we have ministry apprentices at SCPC? Because it’s our heartbeat and it’s our Lord’s heartbeat! Do you remember this –
35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Matthew 9:35-38

So, our king’s heart beats to see lost sheep found. He wants brave men and women to be workers in his harvest field. And I must tell you they are a rare and dying breed. Statistics from 2022 in North America suggest that following the pandemic, around 38% of pastors (nearly four out of every ten) wanted to quit. Not to mention in our denomination, over the next three years around 30 pastors are due to retire and there’s no one in the wings to replace them.

At the last MTS national conference I attended in 2019, I was talking to the National Training Director about the lower numbers of apprentices and men and women heading into theological college. One reason he felt for lower numbers of men putting up their hands to consider paid gospel ministry was the pandemic of pornography that is crippling godly men across the world, particularly in the West. He suggested that the guilt and shame of this hidden sin could so hamstring men, that they feel inadequate and completely ill-suited to the role because of this vice.

Now, I am not trying to be a ‘doomsday’ leader. Rather, I am just trying to help us understand, what is happening nationally regarding apprentices. So, is it a problem if we have not one apprentice, not two apprentices, not three apprentices, but also a fourth (in a volunteer capacity) in 2024? Is this a problem? Are we being greedy? Are we being irresponsible? Are we being opportunistic? I’ll take ‘door’ number three thanks – opportunistic!

Firstly, James and Amelia have lived a wild decade and then faced with the natural disaster last year
it was enough to cry out “mercy”. Yet, in God’s absolute kindness, He was at work through this couple in the midst of the mud and flood relief clean up. James very much spearheaded our networks of teams during the flood clean up. In a season of such weakness, these guys were a strength.

It was late last year, after witnessing this couple in action, I said “wow!” and gently asked if they’d ever thought about an apprenticeship. I think Amelia was shocked, thinking she’d faint at public speaking (or die after fainting). For her, a Ministry Apprentice was one who had a BiG voice and stood on a platform. We have been on a journey over the last twelve months colouring in the ‘million and one ways’ an apprentice can serve (in loud and in very quiet ways). So, how thrilled I was to see Jane Tooher (from Moore College) with her soft voice, speak so loudly about how much she loved Amelia and James. Chase too, was similarly impressed. Amelia and James get a big tick from me.

How does Steve Tilley fit into it? Steve was a part of the faithful core team that has been a backbone of SCG over the last six or seven years, and as we prepare for SCG to combine and continue on Febrary 4, 2024, we might think the job then is done. Not at all. The next 6 to 12 months will be critical for our outreach to Goonellabah. We don’t want to see some of the incredibly hard work somewhat undone. If new members to SCG fail to adequately transition, a number of the SCG church family will need much support, talking it out and encouragement to ‘stick in there’. That undertaking takes time, a lot of time. For Ritchie and I, as we aim to keep our heads above water and not become a statistic like above, trying to take on that pastoral load and need (though vitally important) would simply see us drown.

However, Steve is a seasoned Christian leader and so his apprenticeship will aim to reflect that ability. Rather than doing the traditional Academic Studies in Theology Certificate he will do a more rigorous and in-depth course at a Diploma level with a Diploma of Ministry (from the Australian College of Theology). A dream had been to see Steve follow his passion in mentoring by completing a Graduate Certificate in Christian Mentoring. Sadly, that requires him complete his Diploma first and we are working with academic deans to try to find him a suitable match. We think we can achieve that and that is exciting for his apprenticeship!

So, in the goodness and grace of God, Steve responded to an invitation by Leadership Team to consider completing an apprenticeship in 2024-2025 to help the transition of SCG – not just to see them make it across, but to actually thrive and see the heartbeat of their Gospel Community to Goonellabah, to really start (once again) cranking up their connection to their community in creative and thoughtful ways.

Steve to me is ‘Mr Reliable’, coming in a critical time of need. To be sure, he will also receive excellent training to help him not just in his ministry now, but in decades to come.

I will not recover this ground next Sunday, December 10. So, for anyone absent you may like to relay that information, as next week will do a very brief overview of the figures before putting the motion to a vote.

Please pray…

Father,
How your heart beats for the lost! So much so you are willing to leave 99 and go out to find that one lost!
Would you get our hearts to beat with the compassion you have, that people might come into the green pasture of Christ and find the Good Shepherd.
Father, thank you for ‘under shepherds’ like James, Amelia and Steve who remind of the Lord Jesus and who look to serve, not be served.
Grant us wisdom, sensitivity, thoughtfulness, compassion, and insight as we move through this process.

In Jesus’ name,
Amen.