I had the privilege of speaking at an amazing event at All Saints Church, in Lindfield in Sussex. I have spoken at many carol services over the years in all sorts of places, but this one was really special. Billed as “Big Band Carols”, the church had assembled a band of over thirty excellent musicians and singers who led the carol singing with brass band, swing and jazz arrangements of the famous old classic carols. The congregation joined in, and the sound was wonderful.
Chris Steynor from All Saints explained, “Our “Big Band Carols” developed out of the pandemic, partly because we were all looking for a sense of joy, and partly because God seemed to be sending us plenty of brass and wind players! And so we set about making bespoke arrangements of the classic carols arranged for jazz wind band. 2024 was its fourth outing and the project has grown to a band of over 40 musicians and singers, and this year welcomed over 700 adults across our two services. It’s become an unmissable event in our church’s calendar for so many, but above all, we find that many of the congregation say, “I have unchurched friends that won’t come to anything… but they’ll come to this!” Each year there are so many faces in the congregation we don’t recognise, and it is notable that they are a different crowd from those who come to our trad carols the previous weekend.”
The church is very well connected in its community and they were able to draw 800 people over the services that day, including a lot of visitors from the surrounding area. It’s one of those churches who are facing the happy problem of outgrowing their building on regular weeks, so for the carol service it was a full house! They are genuinely very outward looking and have bought the pub next door to the church to use as church halls and meeting rooms, a very visitor-friendly space.
My subject for the services was “Have You Ever Wondered If Christmas Is More Than A Fairytale?” We began with all the Christmas movies which are so popular. Miracle on 34th Street is perennial classic! It’s a lovely movie – but in the great courtroom scene at the end Chris Cringle suggests that faith in God is an evidence-less claim! It’s great cinema but not good theology!
Richard Dawkins famously sneered, “Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy are part of the charm of childhood. So is God. Some of us grow out of all three.” Never mind the fact that many people such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali grow into belief in God as they think, read and study more; there’s another problem with Professor Dawkins pithy little quote. That is, that the Father Christmas legend has some truth underlying it! Saint Nicholas was a real man who lived in what is now Turkey and who was noted for his generosity, especially to children. Sometime later the legend was reworked by a brilliant Coca Cola marketing campaign; the result of which is that the actual history has been lost beneath commercialism! A bit like Christmas in fact!
The truth of the real Christmas message might be a but hidden in our culture, but if we know where to look we can see it – even in some of the most popular Christmas movies. It’s a wonderful life, is really a film about hope. A Christmas Carol is about redemption. Die Hard and Home Alone are about good versus evil – and Love Actually is about the triumph of love in the face of all kinds of obstacles. If redemption, hope, the triumph of good over evil and the perseverance of love sound familiar – that’s because all these themes are essential elements of the story of Jesus and why he came to earth.
At the end of the service we gave away hundreds of copies of Have You Ever Wondered? to all sorts of people. The church had bought a few hundred from the publisher and made use of their bulk discount, so we could hand them out to people as they left the church.
Chris Steynor concluded. “We started to connect with the work of Solas through a congregation member who has recently joined the organisation’s board. Through this connection we welcomed Andy for an evening of outreach training last year, and then again for Christmas 2024 to speak at the Big Band Carols services. Andy’s message certainly cut through – warming some hearts and challenging others. It was great to be able to hand out his book as well, as we rely heavily on one-to-one relational evangelism for the follow-up. (We are finding in our context that the days of the “course” seem to be waning.) It was wonderful to partner with Solas for the furthering of the gospel and hope we might have opportunity to do so again for future initiatives.”
My talk from the church is available to watch here, and also features my rather natty Christmas jumper.
