Opportunities at Christmas with Glen Scrivener and Andrew Wilson

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Glen Scrivener
Just seems to me that that’s a pretty good paradigm for what evangelism is. It’s festive joy to which the world is invited. It’s us overflowing with joy in Jesus saying, Oh, come let us adore him. And we we just make a special effort to advertise it, and we make a special effort to go into the highways and hedges and drag people into the festive joy. And I think if that was more how we thought of evangelism, I think that would help. That’s what happens at Christmas, and I’d love that to be the paradigm for all our evangelism throughout the year.

Kendra Dahl
Hi and welcome to this episode of TGC Podcast. I’m Kevin Allen. I work for the gospel coalition, and I’m excited to be joined today by two fellows from TGC Keller Center for Cultural apologetics, Glenn Scribner and Andrew Wilson. You might know Glenn and Andrew from their podcast with TGC post Christianity, or from their many excellent books, articles, podcasts, YouTube videos, which we’ll link to in our show notes. And there are so many things I would love to talk about with these gentlemen today, but we’re going to take a cue from the calendar and zero in on Christmas. So we’re going to discuss what sort of opportunities are inherent to this season, and how can we effectively steward those opportunities, and maybe even what can we Americans learn from our brothers and sisters in the UK about this season? So before we jump into this conversation, I have to know what what does the start of Christmas look like for each of you? When do the decorations come out? What sort of traditions kick off your Advent season? Who wants to go first? Well,

Andrew Wilson
Glenn Anglican, so he’s probably got a much better answer than this. I probably observe the calendar. Our family is entirely like what works for the children, and this is terrible. So I read Fleming Rutledge his book where she sort of laments the idea that people evangelicals put up their decorations at the start of December, and how we need to spend four weeks lamenting and waiting and longing and pining and Advent, which I believe, theologically, in a way, but don’t do it all. We just get everything down from the loft first of December, ideally, Rachel, this year, is trying to get it up a few days. Even before that, the kids like it. It’s just part of the sort of family cycle. So I’m, unfortunately, I’m not sufficiently historically rooted to actually make a liturgical thing of it, but Glenn is going to rescue us.

Glen Scrivener
Man, you’re making me feel even worse for Yeah. I mean, we’re all liturgically oriented. It’s just we’re usually liturgically oriented to the consumerism and the seasons that have been given to us by by the corporations. I think in the UK, Christmas for many people, begins when the large department stores start advertising Christmas, and the very first of them, Waitrose have just dropped their Christmas advertisements. John Lewis is the big Christmas advertisement that people are kind of waiting for. So it usually waits for Remembrance Day, which at the time of recording, is today, the 11th of November is kind of the last thing before we start to glut ourselves on Christmas, such that we are so sick and tired of Christmas by 3pm on the 25th of December that nobody observes the 12 days of Christmas or anything like that. Do they we? I think, I think Fleming Rutledge is right that because we don’t really observe Advent. We’re up. We are all Christmas out by December the 25th and we don’t really do the 12 days of Christmas following that, which is a little bit of a shame. I guess I

Kendra Dahl
feel so silly thinking. I don’t think I realized the 12 days of Christmas start on Christmas. I just assumed it was leading up to Christmas all this time. Yeah,

Glen Scrivener
when you get your cartridge on a pear tree. Yeah, yes, you’ve got, you’ve got a

Andrew Wilson
lot of presents. I agree with Glenn in in principle, we don’t, we don’t do it as a family, but I agree, and actually, as a church, I think to attempt to do that is also very complex in our kind of culture, because a lot of people, you build up to Christmas, lots of people, that’s where the school term finishes. It all sort of culminates in Christmas celebrations and Carol services, and then everyone goes on holiday and takes two weeks off being Christians, or at least that’s the way it feels written. And actually, the the sort of Sunday after Christmas is often in our setting, anyway, maybe not. Glen’s one of the lightest, sort of lowest attendance Sundays of the year. So it is quite difficult to match. And I agree with him, I think that some of this is just commercially shaped and working out how you handle that is a challenge for pastors as well as family members.

Kendra Dahl
Absolutely. Well, I think that there are so many opportunities with the Christmas season that often we miss because we’re so caught up in all of that, the celebration and the parties and things like that. But I’m excited to have this conversation where we can take a step back and think, okay, so how can you lean into the season? What sort of opportunities are there and and one of those opportunities, gun, you wrote an article for TGC a few years ago about an important opportunity at Christmas that you feel is often missed. So tell us a little about that. What, what opportunity is that? Well,

Glen Scrivener
we can actually talk about the Incarnation, which, which is wonderful. And you would think that we would naturally go there, that our minds would naturally run to the Word made flesh at Christmas, but, but I think sometimes our Gospel revolves around some quite transactional elements. We set our Gospel presentations up as there’s a sort of a there’s a problem with judgment, and the cross comes to deal with the judgment issue. And we we use Jesus to get to get what we really want, which is eternal life. And our gospels kind of revolve around every other aspect of the biblical gospel, other than the the Incarnation in lots of different ways. And so I think often in our Christmas proclamation, the the incarnation is sort of the bit that we hurry past in order to get to where the action really happens. And I very much believe that we should preach Christ and Him crucified, but we should preach Christ and Him crucified. And I think often we get this sense that when we come to the Incarnation, we’re at the beginning of the story, and it’s the beginning of the story that we want to hurry past in the in order to get to Easter whereas I think if we’ve got, if we’re looking at things biblically, when we read in the beginning was the Word, and then the Word became flesh. We should be saying the word finally when we get to the Incarnation, rather than firstly. You know, I think a lot of Christmas proclamation is, yeah, yeah, the kid was in a manger. But don’t focus on the manger. Hurry, Pastor mate. We need to get to the place where Jesus dies on the cross. But I think if we’re looking through some scriptural spectacles, I think when noticing that Jesus is in that manger as the first act of the finale, right? Not, not, not the first act of the gospel, but but the first event in this finally of Jesus coming, and he’s he’s now come to be one with us, and I think therefore we can preach Christmas as the answer to a lot of problems, rather than the sort of the PROLOG. And everybody skips the PROLOG, don’t they, so I guess my article there was, was an encouragement for people to really dive down into the truth that God, the Son, became God, our brother, so that we can become children of God. I mean, that’s that’s just beautiful gospel truth, and there’s no better time of the year to focus on it.

Kendra Dahl
How about so rich? I think in your article, you talk about a few reasons why you think people shy away from the Incarnation, or at least, you know how they how they rush past it. Can you tell us a little bit what those were? I

Glen Scrivener
think, like the abrupt preaching of the incarnation is quite popular, where it’s just Oh God and man, that’s a bit weird. Anyway, there’s just you, sort of, you focus on the you focus on the paradox sort of thing, as though it’s kind of a puzzle that’s best passed over in order to preach some more helpful stuff about about the atonement and that sort of thing, whereas I think it’s just, we’ve just got such riches to talk about. You know, as Athanasius might put it, God became man that we might become God, right? The Son of God became the Son of Man, so that we, the Son of Man, so that we, the children of men, might become children of God. That there’s, there’s the beauty of an incarnational gospel that gets missed. And in a sense, my diagnosis goes deeper than that. Our Christmas preaching is deficient. I think quite often, our understanding of the gospel is is so anemic that we don’t really focus on the little Lord Jesus and the wonder of the little Lord Jesus, because perhaps we worry that we are diminishing the glory of God by talking about the little Lord Jesus, whereas I think if, If we properly understood what the glory of God really is. The glory of God is in this kind of stooping majesty that God would descend all the way down to that manger. For you, I think that kind of preaching will really warm hearts, whether it’s visitors to our Christmas services or people who have been Christians for 50 years. I’d just love to see more focus on that. I’m

Kendra Dahl
just leaning in thinking that that is so good. And you’re right that this isn’t just something that we want to see come out at the Christmas season. This is something that we could do a better job of talking about all year long. And your article talks about three different aspects of the incarnation that you want to see pastors highlight you mentioned the Athanasian incarnation, the atoning incarnation and the evasing incarnation. So tell us what. What do you mean by each of those? If you have a way with words, right? My friend,

Glen Scrivener
thank you for reminding me I forgot. I’d forgotten that I stretched the alliteration beyond. Breaking Point, I guess the athanation is that that wonderful truth that, yeah, the Son of God became the Son of Man, that we, the children of men, might become the children of God, setting it in a very Trinitarian frame, God, the Son became God, our brother, that in Him, we might become the children of God. And then the atoning kind of incarnation, that the fact that Christ became at one with us, the one who goes to the cross is man and has become man and has shouldered the burdens of humanity as one of us. And the reason why the atonement at Easter works is because we really are one with Christ. He really didn’t make himself one with the human race, so that he can very legitimately bear the sins of man, and so that very legitimately His righteousness is counted to me, because, because of the Incarnation, everything about the atonement actually applies to me, because Jesus has so deigned to take my humanity to himself. So there’s the athanation, there’s the atoning incarnation, and then there’s the abasing incarnation, the fact that Jesus so stooped and revealed His glory to us. And I’m often quoting sort of Luther back in Christmas of 1527, he preached this Christmas sermon where he really, he really brings out the little Lord Jesus in a way that doesn’t diminish the glory of God, but I think shines the spotlight on the true glory of God. He says, reason and will would ascend and seek above, but if you would have joy, bend yourself down to this place, there you will find that boy given for you, who is your Creator lying in a manger? I will stay with that boy as he sucks, as he is washed, as he dies. There is no joy, but in this boy, take him away and you face the majesty which terrifies but I know of no God but this one in the manger. So that’s that sense of bending down to the manger to see where the living God actually is. And Christmas gives you the wonderful opportunity of doing that.

Kendra Dahl
Absolutely, I can think of when I was first taught just the concept of the active obedience of Christ and and what a difference it makes to think that if Christ had to actually come and take, take on flesh and and live a life of perfect obedience. That’s the only way that his righteousness is credit sweet. And it sounds so basic when you say that, but it is so crucial, and it is often something that we miss. I’m curious to hear from you too, Andrew, what is some way just even that the doctrine of the incarnation has transformed you personally, or something that you continually come back to, especially in the Christmas season. Yeah,

Andrew Wilson
I find it very I find this solidarity of Jesus with human beings, such a pastorally comforting truth, both for me and for people I’m preaching to. So I find in some ways that I don’t know quite which one of the three categories that goes into I do. I must admit of Glen’s the Athanasian one, is the one I find the hardest to draw out, because I find it so difficult to talk about what the Orthodox would call almost divinization or deification, and without it sounding like people are actually turning into the fourth, fifth, sixth, members of the Trinity. I do find that a difficult one to nuance as a preacher, as a and even as a thinker, but I find that idea that God became like us, it’s very easy and very reassuring, and it’s going to really builds people up. And the idea that not just that God’s like you as a baby, I think the difficulty with the baby image is that people don’t remember what it’s like to be a baby, so you generally picture yourself in that scene as the parent, not the child. And then I think as Jesus grows and goes through puberty or something, then you feel like, okay, that. So I actually, even though that’s not really mentioned in Scripture, I like drawing out that application of the Incarnation, because I think it resonates more with our sounds, very fleecy, our lived experience, though, I think people don’t otherwise, you associate with the wrong person in the nativity scene, you realize Jesus has come to become like you, but you’re not picturing it as you. You’re picturing as the mother or the father or the or the uncle who’s just received a text saying they’ve been born. So I think it’s quite important to find ways of drawing that out. I’m thinking here with my sort of preaching pastoral hat on, really, and I think at a personal level, that’s the one that most reassures and gives me solace as well, the idea that there is nothing I’ve been through, no season of life that I haven’t, that I’ve experienced, that Jesus hasn’t lived through and walked through, as well, in although not all, in all my specifics, but in in the general sense. And I think that was such a reassuring thing that you often get the the church fathers drawing out the idea that Jesus is recapitulating humanity. He’s going sort of through almost all the stages of Israel’s life and all the stages of our life in order to redeem all of it. And I find that of the of those early ways of understanding Christmas such a reassuring, pastorally encouraging, comforting kind of doctrine. So that’s. Where I tend to go. But I, yeah, I fully admit that this sort of more Athanasian we become deified in Christ, like just something. I find it, I believe it, and actually try. And I talk about partakers of the divine nature when I can, and I talk about union with Christ in that way, and do my best to draw it out. But I do find it a more challenging element of Christmas to make clear, maybe with,

Glen Scrivener
maybe with the, with a Trinitarian understanding that the son of the father became our brother, that we might become children of the same Heavenly Father. That kind of that that translates, doesn’t it, that that resonates, but I think, but I think that is very, very much at the heart of what Athanasius means by that, like, who is God? Well, God is a Father loving his son in the joy of the Spirit. So I, yeah, I don’t become the 17,000,000th you know, member of the of the Trinity, but I am in the son filled with the same Spirit brought to the same father, and in that way, I participate in the divine nature. Yeah, that’s, that’s a, that’s probably a, I think

Andrew Wilson
the challenge is, well, a number of those things don’t emerge out of a clean reading of the Christmas story. So think if you preach the Nativity passages to get some of those things, you have to it clearly comes out in John one, but the nativity story is, is. So I think we have one of our challenges as as pastors or communicators, writers, anything is the kind of what looks like, the clear blue water between the way the Nativity stories are told and the theological ramifications of it in the main and obviously you you get the hints of those in the songs of Zachariah and Mary, and you find it in Simeon and Hannah spritz. And so I think we have to go to those places and draw out its meaning. But I think whereas the cross is quite easy to sort of tell the story of the cross and see substitutionary atonement in the narrative, and see Jesus dies so Barabbas doesn’t, or Jesus dies, so this guy next to him gets to Paradise, or whatever. It’s less easy to do that in the Christmas story, and I think that so we actually have to draw in sort of a more theological reading of Christmas to help people’s understanding of what’s

Glen Scrivener
going on. It’s interesting that a preacher who said, I’m preaching about the cross this Sunday, if the preacher then told you that they were preaching from an epistle, you would think, Oh, of course you are. And we don’t say, Oh, so you’re not preaching from Mark 15, or you’re not preaching from Luke 23 whereas at Christmas, we feel like Hebrews two is not a Christmas text, or Philippians two is not a Christmas text. Or revelation 12 is not a Christmas text. Whereas, whereas, actually, you know, all those texts are very deep, rich texts that are all about Christmas, all about the Incarnation in a much broader, you know, scriptural frame. And maybe, maybe we need to rehabilitate those texts. And Isaiah nine and Genesis three. And you know, these are all Christmas texts as well. And then perhaps some of these themes can can come out more richly, in

Andrew Wilson
a way you’re the Anglican is more is less constrained by the sort of the classic Christmas passages than the non conformist on this one, which is interesting, because I think in my setting, I mean, I draw in I love revelation 12 is a great I know you’ve written a book on that, so called a dragon. And in the nativity,

Glen Scrivener
it’s a dragon in my nativity,

Andrew Wilson
yeah, which I just I love. And I think that is a brilliant Christmas passage, and Hebrews two as well. But I do find that the Christmas, that this is probably something about, it says something about my churchmanship, and the interface between cultural expectations and the Gospel, the way that you shape your liturgy as a church. But I do find that with that, it almost feels like you haven’t really done Christmas, if you haven’t talked about the nativity scene. And I think perhaps Perhaps it’s less a comment about the kind of Bible passengers we have, and more a comment about the narrative itself, that when you tell the story of Christmas, it is harder to connect wise men and shepherds to the truths we’re talking about here, divinization, or whatever solidarity, than it is perhaps we do the equivalent with the resurrection of the Cross, but I agree

Glen Scrivener
nine lessons in carols, like one interesting thing, you know, it was the Anglicans that kind of gave us nine lessons and carols, although it’s, you know, it’s probably less than 200 years old, that that kind of way of telling, telling the story. And yet it’s interesting having set up Christmas with Genesis chapter three, and with Psalm 72 and with Isaiah nine and things like that. And it actually leads to a even a more cosmic proclamation of Christmas, even if you want wind up with Luke chapter two. And well, in fact, you don’t. You usually wind up with John chapter one. And so I think even even in that kind of very Anglican setting, you’re framing the manger in a much more cosmic setting, which I think at that stage allows you to to go large on some of these bigger themes, it’s

Kendra Dahl
interesting because it seems like there’s different into. Tensions behind, you know, when you go to the narratives, there’s this rootedness of the historicity of this. This is a thing that actually happened. This is, you know, look at how the Gospels are drawing together the Old Testament prophecy and are showing crisis, the fulfillment of these things versus the the incarnation is sort of this jumping off point to all of this rich Trinitarian doctrine and and what does it mean for salvation, and what does it mean for union with Christ? You know, kind of like there’s, there’s two roads that obviously are entirely interconnected, but have different emphases. As a preacher, I imagine, you know, what you’re thinking, your people need. Is there something about the Christmas season that we we seem to like zero in on the historicity of that? And is that, you know, we’re going to shift to talking about evangelism? I’m wondering, is that because we’re thinking about, you know, people coming into the church through the season, or is it just sort of the opportunity to talk about those things with your people? You know, Andrew, what makes you go to those narrative texts more? So what do you think the drive is behind that?

Andrew Wilson
Well, I don’t think it’s a very good reason for me. I think the narrative I actually distinguish narrative and historicity. So I think the narrative, the thing that makes me go to those passages is a combination of tradition, which is, Glenn rightly points out, is a much newer tradition than we think, and something of actually cultural expectation, which, and I don’t, I don’t mean that in an entirely disparaging way either. I don’t think it’s wrong for me to think, as a, you know, for any church to think this is what people think Christmas is, and we’re going to do our best to kind of build a bridge from that which they understand is a churchy thing to preaching the gospel and but doing that involves, you know, in our case, twinkly lights and choral music and things which we know that people connect with Christmas. And that’s fine. Wouldn’t work in Australia, because it’s not so twinkly around this time of year, I guess. But so we so some of it is that, whereas I think the history, I wouldn’t say actually, I think historicity, for me is often a much less significant part of what I’m doing at Christmas, in part because so much of the story is is, on the face of it, very difficult to sort of think of in the sense of historical events, because it involves angels and visions and, you know, things like that. It’s sort of, there are more things. There’s sort of, what’s that thing that is Alice in Wonderland believing seven unbelievable things before breakfast, that kind of idea. And it does feel like the Christmas story is almost deliberately making it hard for a completely materialist account with anything. Whereas if you again talk the cross, the resurrection, you’re bound to talk about historicity, because it did this happen. Whereas with the Christmas story, I find this I’m leaning into an apologetic mode. I’m trying to help people see how many hard to believe things they already believe, and how many things that they can’t prove they also believe, which is a way of trying to soften that argument against it. But I don’t lean into it as a sort of a strength of the story, because I know that as an apologetic level, it’s riddled with things that people find difficult to believe, and I think that also leads to the infantilization of the story, that people think about this as a thing for kids, and so they naturally bundle up all of those things together. Well, of course, there’s a baby in it, but that means we don’t really take it seriously as a historical story. It’s a nice tale. And so I feel like I’ve got a lot, I’ve got harder work to do that, so you still do it, but it’s not the leading edge of what I’m doing, whereas at Easter, I think it would be. That’s how I tend to approach it.

Glen Scrivener
I think I kind of lean into the coziness of it to begin with, and then and then try and sort of zoom out to the cosmic and, I mean, a lot of preaching tends to try to demythologize Christmas. So a lot of sermons will be, it wasn’t a stable actually. It was probably in a cave. And there, you know, there weren’t three wise men. They might have been many more. And they weren’t wise men. They were, you know, and on it goes. Or, you know, they weren’t, they weren’t kings. They were, you know, Magi, etc, etc. And you sort of de mythologize, de mythologize, de mythologize. And I can understand that as a rhetorical ploy. It’s, it’s, it’s quite interesting. People lean in when you tell them everything you’ve learned about Christmas is a lie. People want to hear what you want to say, and I’ve done that kind of preaching in the past as well. But I think actually, there’s something about the traditional nativity scene that really helps you to frame Christmas helpfully. And I think you know the reason why you’ve got in this sort of Nativity Tableau, you’ve got the three wise men on one side and the and the shepherds on the other side. Even though the wise men are from Matthew and the shepherds are from Luke, there’s something amazing about Gentile and Jew together, isn’t there. There’s something amazing about rich and poor together, isn’t that and there’s something amazing about angels and animals together, you know, in that Tableau that you’ve got sort of, you know, high and low and rich and poor and Jew and Gentile all orbiting around the light of the world. It is a it is a microcosm, and, yes, it’s become stylized over 2000 years. And there’s a time and a place. Debunking certain accretions that have kind of attached themselves to the Christmas story. But I kind of like some of those accretions, actually. I kind of like this framing of the story as this is a microcosm, a little world in which high and low, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile are orbiting around the light of the world, the sun, the son Christ, and so I kind of allow that coziness to draw people in. And instead of then doing the demythologizing point, I then want to say, well, what if at the heart of all reality there is a family, and you are invited in as a child. What if the whole world is meant to orbit around this kind of story? So I try to go from the Cozy to the cosmic in that way.

Andrew Wilson
He just talks in alliteration without even trying. He’s

Kendra Dahl
such a poet. So

Glen Scrivener
tortuous. It’s so tortuous. It’s lovely.

Kendra Dahl
Well, I think with both of the things that you’ve things that you’ve each said, you have in mind this outsider coming in, there is a sense in the Christmas season that you know, people are peering into the church, or that’s the time where they maybe are going to come with their families. And I’ve heard that the church in the UK does evangelism really well at Christmas. So Andrew, would you say that’s true, and what does that look like in your church?

Andrew Wilson
It’s impossible to generalize about that. I mean, I don’t go to other churches, except the two that I’ve been a pastor in, but, but I would say, yeah, that I in my churches, in my acquaintance, the family church I’m part of, and actually in my town, if I think about it, I think Christmas is an evangelistic High Point. And I we, we would, although, for all that Glenn’s just said about, you know, churches naturally gravitate so let’s jump over the incarnation. Get straight to Good Friday and Easter, which at a theological level, I think he’s right. I think at a practical when do most unbelievers come into your church level, and when do you preach the gospel to more people who don’t already know what it is? I would say Christmas is much the highest point in our year. We get, we get, I mean, it’s a big church. We get 1000s of people come to our Christmas services, and a lot of them are not believers, and a lot of them are that might be the only time they come to church. And we get to invite lots of friends who wouldn’t otherwise come. And we get to invite, you know, people from the community who we might not even know directly, but lots of people will turn up for a carol service that won’t come at any other time. Lots of people come through their children, because their children participate in something we’re doing. So there’s a lot of things like that. And I think church is also i My observation would be, I mean, Glenn’s Church of mine are very different in the sense that they would feel very different. He’s got a, you know, the beautiful building and the liturgy and so on that Glen and Glen Glen has, which we don’t we meet in sort of biscuit tin type warehouses, schools and that sort of thing. But actually, I think in both of our cases, our churches have probably found things that we do really well that enable us to communicate Christmas well. And in our case, that would be, you know, the quality of musicianship and the and the court, the singers and the choral things. So it really does feel like a a dramatic and quite a sort of a remarkable experience, which I think for us, even though we’re preaching, it’s much shorter. What I do for our big Christmas event where we’ve got all these people coming, might only preach for 10 or 11 minutes, whereas normally I’d preach 25 or 30. But actually, as a moment to communicate the basics of the gospel to people who don’t hear it is my, probably my best shot in the year in our church, at least. And I think that would be true of many, many evangelical churches, that Christmas is an opportunity like no other in our kind of calendar. I don’t know to what extent that’s different from how it would be in the States. I think in some of it, we were joking before we came on the call about differences of sort of weather and season. But obviously in Britain, you really know like it is, if you don’t have Chris like Narnia was created by an Englishman for a reason. They’re the idea of a English winter without Christmas is an absolute horror. And I do think the darkness and the may just lean in. We’re all indoors. Everything sparked sparkly lights, whereas, if you’re in San Diego, that may not be so necessary. So I think some of it may be that, but some of it, I do think, is just the sheer the challenge, often, of inviting people or people the perceived challenge of inviting people to church, which at Christmas everyone loses their own editions and says, Hey, come to this service, and people do and lots of kids do Christmasy things in their schools and so on. So it is a it’s a huge moment for evangelism in our country, and I think churches, by and large, have picked up on that and capitalized on it. And it’s a great it’s great privilege. I

Glen Scrivener
don’t think we know how good we’ve got it in the UK, like in Australia, it’s summer anyway, and it’s the middle of the summer holidays. You know, the kids are on competition. And it’s just, it just gets in the way. It’s the day before this massive cricket match, the Boxing Day Test, test match in Melbourne is the thing. So many Australians look forward to on December the 26th and Christmas is the day before that, and it’s just the coziness of a British Christmas is just, it is magical. There is something magical about it, and it’s the easiest invitation of the whole year. And and so you might think you’re a terrible evangelist. You can probably stick an invitation into somebody’s hands that that, you know, is well designed and invites people to a Carol’s, you know, service. And those Carol services don’t need to be particularly impressive. People love getting together and singing the old songs. They absolutely love it. It’s It’s an extraordinary opportunity in the UK, and it remains an extraordinary opportunity. I don’t see any any ends to that with secularization happening in the UK. Yes, there’s ever more consumerism, but at the same time, people love a carol service.

Kendra Dahl
It’s I think of, I mean, you did a podcast on post Christianity. I think Britain has always pointed to as this example of post Christianity, and kind of where the US is headed. And so to hear you talk about just how evangelism is thriving in your context, that’s that’s an encouragement to me. I Are there other things you’d say that the American church can learn from your efforts around the Christmas season,

Andrew Wilson
I would, I would think that in many ways, it’s the flip side of a of a challenge, because I think what Glenn just said about coziness, and, you know, that sort of said about weather and so on. So there are some, some sort of, some, just contingent factors. But I think some of it is reflects, actually, that there are the last things to go sometimes, are the the rituals and the rights and the litter, the secular liturgies, in a way. And so the fact that, obviously, we all bemoan the commercialization of Christmas, and we started this conversation by going, that’s what’s really that’s why I get my tree down at that, you know, when we lose Advent and but actually that the fact that even when a culture’s internal world is seems to not be very Christian at all, and many of the decisions they make about many things in life don’t seem very Christ like and wouldn’t profess to be, the calendar remains an opportunity. And I think that I know that in America, you have this odd thing where, actually, in a formal sense, the calendar is less Christian than the British one. But actually a lot more of the population have been Christians for a long time, for various reasons, going back hundreds of years. And so I don’t know whether all of them, all of these things, translate like that. Happy Holidays, etc. I mean, just in Britain, people don’t really do that. Is just obviously a kind of Christmas. Is not, it’s not a weird thing to say, but I do think that those opportunities, the lesson I would draw from it, is that those calendrical and actually life event things as well, you know, birth, deaths, marriages, Christmas, Easter, they become big, big opportunities in a society where people don’t go to church and don’t think about or think they don’t think about religious things for much of A year, there are moments where everything gets thinner, and where the line between Heaven and Earth seems to have disappeared almost entirely. And people are thinking this way, and where you might actually believe in angels for a day, or moving stars or whatever it might be, it just sort of feels part of them. You use that word earlier, the magic of the season. And I think that in a setting, if you’re in a situation where 4% of people went to church instead of 40 or whatever it is. And you’re probably not that in Southern California, I guess, but probably in many parts of the country, it does. There are the moments when people are prepared to take these things seriously, or even just to come along and be part of it, are enormously impactful. And I think because in our setting, often the propositional value of the Christmas story is not what you lead in with, what you lead in with is this is a really lovely thing I’m experiencing, and there is a sense of community and common story and fellowship happening to me at the moment, even if I’m not consciously processing all of its metaphysical implications. That’s the leading edge. That’s the thing which people are open to. And so we start there. And that’s, I think, was where, as Glenn was rightly pointing us. So that may be, in 20 years time, more and more churches in America finding that they are ministering in more that way because of where the culture has gone. I don’t know. And

Glen Scrivener
it’s interesting that that instincts that you have, Andrew of leaning into, okay, so if it is a cozy time, let’s lean into that. And I think that is the right instinct to say yes, but no, but yes, which is, you know, quite often the way Tim Keller would preach. You know, there is this thing. And let me, let me affirm all that’s good about it. And let me show you how we fall short of it, and it messes up our lives in all sorts of ways. But then through the redemption of Christ, here’s how you can have it back again. And I think that should be the kind of shape of our message, because the cozy thing, you could get a preacher just sort of saying, it’s not about coziness. It’s, you know, didn’t you realize that there was a genocide going on and King Herod was slaughtering the babies? Think of. A slaughter. And you know this again, there’s a kind of a rhetorical, I can’t

Kendra Dahl
imagine a Christmas sermon like that. Think of the slaughter.

Glen Scrivener
Well, I think that or so if they, if they don’t rail against the coziness, they might rail against, oh, gift giving, gift giving. It. And it’s got completely out of hand, and it’s just become a consumerist thing. It’s not that. It’s not anything to do with that he was born in poverty. Or you could say, you know, everyone, you ask anyone, what is Christmas about? And they’ll tell you, it’s about family. No, it’s not about family. It’s about Jesus. And I think that that is to that is to do well, the no part of the sermon, and that no part of the sermon is really important, but I think it’s wrapped up with the Yes, but No, but yes, that there is something about family and that there is something about drawing together, when for the rest of the year you’ve lived like it’s about your career, and all of a sudden you remember what’s really important. Well, let me kind of affirm that, that at the heart of reality, there’s a family right at the at the heart of reality, there’s there’s the son who’s inviting you into to become a child of this God. So that that’s just a point about the how you handle the whatever cultural stepping stones there might be in your culture. There is a there is a time and a place for saying no to the consumerism and no to just having a domesticated view of Christ. There is a time for saying, you know, no to the ways in which Christmas gets abused in the culture, but, but I think apologetically, our instinct should be Yes, but No, but yes, just just a thought,

Kendra Dahl
it’s okay. Well, you’ve each written a book or or multiple maybe. I know Andrew, you have a book just that just came out, right? Yeah, is that right? It’s beginning to look a lot like, Chris,

Andrew Wilson
I actually had one turn the camera around, yeah. And

Kendra Dahl
then I thought you had one the gift, but you also mentioned there’s a dragon of mine nativity. So maybe is that also it’s meant for Christmas? I mean, these are both resources intended for helping to come alongside people in evangelism at Christmas. Is that right?

Glen Scrivener
Yeah, I think it’s something that the UK does really well in terms of these short evangelistic books that can be read in about an hour or less sometimes. And so I’ve done four kinds of Christmas. Was another sort of Christmas book. Actually, there’s a dragon in mind. 70 was a was a video rather than the book, okay? But, but these, these giveaway books that you can buy by the 100 and give to every book, every single guest that comes to your your carols, or whatever it is. It’s a really good way of following, following up with people, because one of the, one of the tricky things about doing evangelism at Christmas is, you know, probably the next time you’re going to be able to get them back in the building to do anything won’t be till the New Year, and nobody’s thinking about the new year when they’re sitting through a Carol’s concert on the 20th of December. But, you know, you know, you give them, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. And actually, the time between Christmas and New Year is a great time for people to, you know, settle down with a book and hear the Gospel again in that format. So I’m a big believer in these, these little books. I think, I think they can do a great work.

Andrew Wilson
Yeah, we, we’ve, and we’ve, conversely, used clean things before and and just found some of those, you know, that there’s a, I think sometimes Christmas enables some of the things that Glen has produced, these sort of, you know, videos and animations and those sorts of things in the past, which are often very good, because lots of people are looking for, kind of like they aren’t on a normal Sunday, for content to translate and become a little bit sort of light, but with a bit of a kick at the end, to engage people who don’t normally go to church. And then, as you say, these books, which you give to people, give to people, and because they’re not but, you know, because they’re like a pound instead or $1 or whatever, instead of seven or 10 or whatever a normal book would be, it’s very easy to give them out willy nilly and know that some people won’t read them, but the people who do it might make a real impact on them. So there are lots of opportunities, even resource wise. And this isn’t just like a sales thing. I to be honest, I needed convincing. I didn’t. I hadn’t done these Glens. This is his wheelhouse, really. And then someone said to me a year ago, actually would help, why don’t you consider writing one? I was I never really don’t know what you mean. And then he said, All like this or this or this. And I suddenly realized how many good things there are like that out there. And some people produce one each year, and it’s just internally. As a church, we would have otherwise spent hundreds of pounds producing our own versions of something to give to people, even if it’s just like a program or something. I think actually much better to do something that’s been thought about and written with real care and give that instead. So yeah, it’s a great opportunity for people who like making resources and giving them to people. That’s another good way. It’s quite easy evangelism, because giving someone something, I mean, some people don’t, don’t read them, but some people do, and and you never know what. You know, the seeds of the Word of God has power, even if it’s being read in a lazy chair on the 28th of December. It doesn’t mean it’s not powerful. So, yeah, I think it’s a great opportunity at that level as well.

Glen Scrivener
And people do not throw away a book. There’s, there’s still. Thank God there is that kind of cultural understanding, like if you give them a leaflet, if you give them a program from the carols concert, they don’t mind recycling that, but it takes a pretty callous individual and throw it in the trash. I mean, who does that? What monster does that?

Kendra Dahl
I’m so glad to have been made aware of these resources. I hadn’t seen books like this. So when I think of an Advent resource, I think of something like, you know, to read each day, counting down to Christmas, or something like that. So I’m grateful we’re airing this episode at a time, and I think there’s still time you could still order some of these books to have at your Christmas service. And what a sweet opportunity. I think you’re right to it’s it can be such a barrier to think, how do I initiate this conversation with my neighbor? Or where do I start but to invite them to a service, or to hand them a book? Those are things that that might be an easy entry point for many. Well, I know we should be wrapping up here, so I want to close on one other opportunity that Glenn brought up as we were kind of thinking through how we could approach this episode. And that is that that Christmas can be this paradigm for how we do evangelism year round. And I think that’s a fascinating concept. I’d like you to tell us more what you imagine with that.

Glen Scrivener
Well, we try to do a Christmas video every year. We’ve got well over a dozen Christmas videos that we produced in 2022 it was around about the time of the World Cup, which was unusually held around Christmas time. And so we did a, we did a football song, a very famous football song from the UK, it’s coming home. And we made it into a nativity song, and changed the words. And it was just, it was just a bit of fun, and out it went, and Christians were very happily sharing it. And somebody sort of said, you know, why? Why are you doing this? What’s the what’s the purpose of this particular Christmas outreach? And I just said in comments underneath this video, it’s just festive joy, and the world is invited. And I, and I thought, as I was, as I was thinking through what that particular outreach was all about, I was thinking, well, that’s, that’s what our Christmas evangelism is like. It’s festive joy, and the world is invited. Because if they come to a nine lessons and carols, you know concert, or if they come to jazz carols, or however you do you know your big Christmas production, where you are. It’s an unabashedly Christian thing. And you’re singing your heart out to the little Lord Jesus, and you’re singing your heart out saying, Oh, come let us adore him. You’re actually you’re welcoming people into the heartfelt praises of God’s people. And you just, you just say to them, Do you want to join in? Do you want to be part of God’s people celebrating Christ? And it just seems to me that that’s a pretty good paradigm for what evangelism is. It’s festive joy to which the world is invited. It’s us overflowing with joy in Jesus saying, Oh, come, let us adore him. And we just make a special effort to advertise it, and we make a special effort to go into the highways and hedges and drag people into the festive joy. And I think if that was more how we thought of evangelism, I think that would help, rather than just a breadcrumb trail or stepping stones towards something that we don’t think the non Christian will actually enjoy, a more supply side kind of understanding of, you know, from the from the hearts of God’s people praising Jesus and the people invited in. That’s what happens at Christmas, and I’d love that to be the paradigm for all our evangelism throughout the year.

Kendra Dahl
I love that. It’s best of joy in the world is invited. That’s so good. Andrew, as we close, do you have any counsel for someone who’s listening to this and thinks I want to grow and being able to practice evangelism and inviting my neighbors any any word of encouragement or practical counsel you could share. All

Andrew Wilson
of us have got aspects of our personality, our disposition, that make certain forms of evangelism harder and certain forms easier. I think there are those of us who feel like I’m actually I’m a very reserved, temperamentally more sort of bookish, introverted person. And actually, in a situation like that, someone giving a book, as we’ve just been saying, can actually be a really, you can be very you can be thoughtful with it. You can, you know, package it and write it well in a way that communicates, in a way that’s much easier. I don’t Christmas gives you opportunities to do that. It’s much easier to do that than maybe to talk to somebody. Others are just very extroverted, bubbly. Say, Hey, we’re doing this thing. Come along. Others, hey, we’re going to do all this thing with the kids, and it’s all going to be fun. But almost no matter who we are, there will be an element of our personality that it might mean we actually need to honestly seek God and seek advice from others, and pray and say, Lord, what is it about the way you’ve made me that enables me to do this? I think there are some people who are enormously more fruitful in evangelism than others. I think some people are just good at it, and I totally think that’s. True, but I don’t think there’s anyone who doesn’t have an aspect of who they are that doesn’t make it it doesn’t create an opening and make it easy for them to and for them to engage with people about the things of God. And I think that Christmas opens up more of those doors than, at least in the way we do it, than almost any other time of year, because the inviters and the people who like giving gifts and the resource people and the people who just like picking up on the theme of the moment and drawing cultural reflections from what’s on the TV, all of those people have something to work with at this time of year, in a way that probably isn’t true to anything like that degree at any other time. So this is a time to to lean in. It’s a time to, as you were saying earlier, to to look out and say, Okay, Lord, what is it that? What is it that’s creating open doors in my world at the moment that might not have been true a month ago, that I might be able to capitalize on, and it might genuinely be writing one person a note on it and then giving them a book and a very small one, like the ones we talked about. It might be sharing on not even you might say, I don’t even on social media saying you’re sharing on WhatsApp a Christmas video. You thought that was really thought provoking, and it’s 60 seconds. And the worst that happens is people don’t click on the link and don’t see it, but there are opportunities all over like that, and I think at this time of year in particular,

Kendra Dahl
amen. Well, what a great word to end on. Thank you guys so much for taking time to have this conversation. I hope, when you are listening, that this has been helpful to you, and I will link to all these great resources that we’ve mentioned in our show notes. And I hope you have a Merry Christmas. Thanks guys.