The official reminder that the Christmas Market is coming soon!

Outside on the market stalls there will be craft stalls, food stalls (if you haven’t got your chutney from Turner New Leaf, they will be selling it at the market!), a bouncy castle, Santa’s Grotto and much more.

Inside in the church building, there will be crafts to buy and make, raffles, tombolas, the donkey piñata, plus the opportunity to have your Christmas presents wrapped and home baking and refreshments (including luxury hot chocolates, topped with marshmallows or flakes!) to sample. All proceeds from the church activities will go to the Salvation Army Christmas Appeal, helping local families in need.

This is a great opportunity to see the community work together. At 6 p.m. we’ll be holding the ‘Churches Together’ carol service outdoors, so do come along and join us for this. Put the date in your diaries now – Friday 9th December, 4-8 p.m.

We had a birthday to celebrate tonight.

It was a tremendous privilege to have Fredrick and Reeba with us today. This evening, they spoke about their work in India. Reeba gave thanks for the support we give to the tailoring programme, which now runs in two cities (with a third programme due to launch soon in Reeba’s home province), providing skills and equipment to help women become self-sufficient. Fredrick spoke of many Hindus coming to faith, including a taxi driver whose whole family has now turned to Christ and been baptised. They are using talking Bibles to help those in rural areas and the disabled; we gave a gift which we hope will be used to purchase more of these.

In speaking from Luke 2:8-11, Fredrick reminded us that the birth of Christ tackles all our fears and His arrival brings great joy. Jesus is our provider, our redeemer and the one who brings joy, but Christ has to be born in each one of us. He abolishes the caste system so prevalent in India because He breaks all man-made systems and reminds us that every single person has inestimable value. Gal 3:28 reminds us that there is no distinctions any more; we are all one in Jesus Christ. No one is excluded (Matt 1:23), for He was born for all and is a Saviour to all, One who gives abundant life to all who believe.

Jesus brings peace in our lives, despite the many challenges we may face. He wants us to make the most of the opportunities He gives us. When the tailoring ministry started, they had nothing – no machines, no area for teaching – but God supplied all their needs. First of all, God gives us a vision for what He wants, but then we have to persevere through the challenges to see Him supply all our needs. As people respond to the challenge, God supplies the need: ‘where there is a vision, there is provision.’

Christ’s birth was also the sign of God’s favour. His favour rests on us (see Ps 103:14) and because of this, we can respond to all the challenges ahead of us with confidence and faith.

Fredrick and Reeba with a church member:

Enjoying fellowship over a meal after the service:

Back in July, John spoke on us being light-emitting disciples; this morning, Garry reminded us that we need to be streetlights for God!

This weekend, we have been thinking especially about India because of the visit from Fredrick and Reeba. India is a vast country of 1.2 billion people, with 79.8% of the population Hindu. The Hindu religion has a strong caste system, with the Brahmin at the top of the system and the Dalits (the ‘untouchables’) at the bottom of this system. There is much spiritual hunger in India, but people need the truth of the gospel to satisfy that hunger. Just as Paul introduced the Athenians to the ‘unknown god’ they worshipped (see Acts 17:22-23), Hindus and those following other religions in India need to be introduced to Jesus.

Ps 119:18 asks that God will open our eyes to see the wonderful things that are in His law; Ps 119:130 reminds us that the unfolding of God’s word gives light. Light reveals and illuminates truth, and people’s religious yearnings are an attempt to make sense of the reality they perceive around them. God’s Word is a light and a lamp (Ps 119:105) and we need to share this light with others so that those who are in darkness may be brought into the light (see Is 42:1-6, Is 9:1-2, Rom 10:14-15).

Our lives are called to be living stories of God’s grace; Peter urges us to always be prepared to give a reason for the hope we have when asked (1 Pet 3:15) and God wants us to ‘live and tell’ His story with gentleness and respect. We gather together in church meetings, but then we are ‘scattered’ in our daily lives, rather like street lights are not clumped together but are spaced out, nonetheless giving illumination to the road.

Whether we are in the UK or in India, our role is to be the light of the world, allowing God’s light to shine in and through us so that others may be brought into a knowledge of Him. India may seem very different to the UK which is far more secular in its outlook, but the task of the church remains the same, wherever it may be. We are called to ‘live and tell’ God’s story, so that His light may illuminate the darkness and bring people to saving grace.

Last night I ventured to Huddersfield for the ‘Big Church Night In‘ with Tim Hughes and Worship Central and Reuben Morgan (Hillsong) for a great night of worship.

It was encouraging to worship alongside so many other Christians and to sing songs like ‘Mighty To Save’, ‘Cornerstone’, ‘The Same Power’ and ‘Hope and Glory’, proclaiming God’s sovereignty, love and power. Truth sung is valuable to restoring perspective and building faith in us.

Next year, the Big Church Day Out will be held on two different weekends in two different locations: in Sussex on 27-28 May and in Cheshire on 2-3 June.

A reflex reaction is an involuntary and nearly instantaneous movement in response to a stimulus, the most well known of which is probably the patellar reflex (or knee-jerk reaction). It’s something over which we have little or no control but is innate.

Reflex reactions in people are controlled by the reflex arc, which is a nerve pathway which makes a fast, automatic response possible (with signals being passed directly from a sensory neuron via a relay neuron to a motor neurone.) Even babies have simple reflex reactions (e.g. the grasping reflex and the breathing reflex, whereby a baby will grip a finger tightly or will not breathe if underwater.) Reflex reactions include the adjustment of the pupil to light and sneezing and coughing to rid ourselves of contaminants.

Reflex reactions can, however, be learned (or conditioned), the most famous of which is probably the experiment by Pavlov in which he trained dogs to expect food in response to his stimulus of ringing a bell. The dogs were conditioned to salivate when the bell rang, even when no actual food was present.

The phrase ‘His love endures forever‘ occurs 26 times in Psalm 136. Eugene Peterson asks us, ‘Will the repetitions dull our minds into a pious stupor? Or will they condition the reflexes of our spirits to respond with quick praise to any stimulus?’ (‘Praying With the Psalms’)

Our response to many situations seems to be instinctive. This can be good, unless our responses are not Biblical. In those cases, can we really condition the reflexes of our spirits to respond to any stimulus with praise? This seems to be Paul’s goal: ‘give thanks in all circumstances’ (1 Thess 5:18), ‘always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.‘ (Eph 5:20) In other words, thanksgiving has become the ‘reflex reaction’ of the Christian. No matter what the stimulus – prosperity or need, health or sickness, happiness or misery – the response is praise. The reason for our praise is the fact of God’s enduring love, from which nothing can separate us!

My reactions need a lot more conditioning, but I want to learn to respond with quick praise to any stimulus.