YOUTH AND SOCIAL MEDIA FOCUS FOR UK’S UNITED CHURCH ‘SHINE YOUR LIGHT’ CHRISTMAS EVANGELISM CAMPAIGN 2025
UK CHURCH and Christian Network leaders gathered at London’s O2 area yesterday (OCT12) to hear plans for the Shine Your Light 2025 united churches’ campaign this Christmas – with a new focus on youth and using social media. Pastor Dr Jonathan Oloyede, Founder and Convenor of the National Day of Prayer and Worship (NDOPW), told the gathered leaders – and will share with hundreds more via scheduled Zoom gatherings in the coming days and weeks—that following last year’s success with over 1,500 partner churches reaching over 1 million people via open air carol services and Christmas events, this year the vision is for 200,000 Christians to reach 2 million people! With new partnerships with strategic Christian charities being confirmed weekly, organisers hope to reach those often forgotten at the festive season. A new link-up with Spring Harvest will see a specially-recorded Christmas service broadcast to reach 58,000 Prisoners across the UK, and going into hundreds of homeless accommodation centres. Shine Your Light, a united initiative of denominations, prayer networks and streams is now in its third year. It helps churches take carol services, nativity and other Christmas events from within church buildings out into shopping centres, village greens, community centres – anywhere where the public will gather over December. Whilst the focus of the four-nation evangelistic campaign is aimed for the weekend of 12-14 December, any church can register and benefit from free resources to help them spread the Christian message throughout December. The invitation comes at a time when a Bible Society report, The Quiet Revival suggests more young people than ever are open to the Christian message [1], with churches reporting Generation Z showing up at services unannounced. For Shine Your Light 2025, organisers are keen to urge churches to intentionally focus on reaching young people – as well as those traditionally drawn to carol and annual Christmas events. Shine Your Light has launched a new Youth Social Media Campaign [2] for 2025, led and produced by Christian young people who will utilise Instagram, TikToc, LinkedIn, Facebook and other platforms between now and Christmas Day. Speaking at the afternoon event at OVO Arena Wembley ahead of the SKYLIGHT youth concert, led by gospel singer Emmanuel Smith [3] and attended by over 5,000 young people, Pastor Jonathan Oloyede told Church Leaders: “Last year, in market places, parks, shopping centres and malls, churches in towns and cities united across denominations to reach 1-million people. This year we want even more people – 2-million to know that Jesus is the reason for the season. We live in very dark and anxious times for many and only Christ can offer certainly, lasting hope and bring deep peace into people’s lives. “From experiences shared by church leaders, as well as the Bible Society report, we know young people are searching for meaning and hope and, are open to the gospel. So, let’s join forces throughout December to make sure as many young people as possible hear how Jesus can transform lives.” Pastor Jonathan went on to say that many churches already have Christmas programmes of carol services and events – but all too often, the message sent out has been ‘come to us’. He explained: “Shine Your Light resources church leaders to think outside the box. To ask whether some of their events can be taken outside church walls, out to where people gather naturally. We’ll provide a range of resources on our website, and links to CPO who can produce professional publicity for events. This Christmas, let’s unite and pray that 2-million of our fellow citizens who would never usually hear of the real meaning of Christmas, will hear, read, sing about Him – maybe for the first time ever, or in years – and get an opportunity to respond to His amazing love. I urge every UK church to become a partner church and together, let’s reach this nation for Christ.” Free resources for churches include: Promotional and Youth Video [2&4] to show in churches and to share on social media, and details how churches can register for Shine Your Light 2025 can be found at www.shineyourlight.org.uk Further resources about new partnerships, and the prison and homeless ministry will be revealed in the coming weeks. Editor’s Notes [1] ‘The Quiet Revival’: huge increase in young people attending church – Religion Media Centre [2] First Youth SYL social media promo can be accesses via www.shineyourlight.org.uk [3] Skylight is an annual event aimed at bringing people together to experience Gospel music in its different forms and expressions. The Host (Emmanuel Smith) was a semi-finalist on The Voice UK 2019 and has travelled the world using his talent to inspire and impact people around the world. SKYLIGHT has previously been held at Indigo, at the O2, and for 2025, Emmanuel and his team decided to host it one of the UK’s iconic venues, the OVO Arena Wembley on October 12. [4] SYL 2025 launch video can be accesses via www.shineyourlight.org.uk Picture Note JPEG quality pictures of the launch are available from Adam May or Paul Eddy, and include:- Pastor Jonathan Oloyede speaking to church and network leaders at the launch in London. Jo Moir, new head of Spring Harvest explains a new partnership to reach prisoners and homeless people this Christmas. Emmanuel Smith addressed church and network leaders giving his backing to Shine Your Light 2025 ahead of his concert. Some of the UK Church and Christian Network leaders gathered at the OVO Arena, Wembley to hear of the youth and social media focus for Shine Your Light 2025. The Shine Your Light 2025 launch was held ahead of the Skylight Concert with Emmanuel Smith.
‘SHINE YOUR LIGHT’ UNITES RECORD 1,500 CHURCHES IN SHOW OF UNITY OVER THE CHRISTMAS SEASON
OVER 1,500 churches – more than double the number in 2023, joined in the inter-denominational evangelistic initiative called Shine Your Light this Christmas season – taking carol services and other festive events onto the streets and shopping centres. Shine Your Light (SYL) organisers had hoped to increase last year’s total of 738 participating churches to 1,000, but with registrations still coming in, as of today (31st December) 1,711 churches took part – many working for the first time with other local churches to take the Christmas message outside church walls, and into their community. With their original goal of over 1-million people hearing the gospel smashed, stories are flooding in of churches from different denominations working together for the first time. In Blairgowrie, Perthshire in Scotland, the Episcopal Church worked for the first time in the history of both churches with the Assemblies of God Church. Morag who coordinated this event said: “For the first time in living memory, 85 Christians from seven churches gathered in The Wellmeadow – an open space in the centre of the town – to sing carols and follow the story of the nativity through seven Bible readings. Members of the public joined in, and gifts of Bible texts in rafia-bound mini-scrolls were eagerly accepted, along with free sweets. We returned to the church hall for hot drinks, mince pies, and fellowship. “The event was a powerful public statement of witness and brought together churches who do not regularly worship together – they included: the Church of Scotland; Catholic; Episcopal; Brethren; and Life Plus. Together, we proclaimed Christ as the focus of Christmas” In Wales, in Llangefni town centre, according to Jacqueline, “something extraordinary happened. The Welsh and English congregations got together from four of the different churches to sing carols, pray for the community and share the good news from the Shine Your Light carol booklet. This unity is not usual here! “The Town Council even allowed us to have power from the town clock – which powers all our town Christmas lights – and as the clock struck the first stroke of ‘11’, the power came into our sound system. There was a Christmas market on the same day. Many people stopped and joined in with a carol or two and listened to the prayers and readings as they passed by. As we sang ‘Silent Night’ a holy hush fell on the town centre, and the tangible presence of God was there. It was precious.” Across England, over 1,000 Shine Your Light events took place, including in workplaces, prisons as well as care homes. Amy, who attended a Shine Your Light in the Midlands reported: “There was a group of about 50 Christians from five local churches. It was encouraging as we haven’t worked together in outreach for quite a while. We sang, shared testimonies, read from the Bible, and prayed blessing over our community. Some people stopped and joined in. We were able to give out a number of programmes, to which we’d added a map and info about the churches taking part.” And at Bournemouth’s large Castlepoint Shopping Centre, Gabriel explained: “There were several choirs arranged to sing carols throughout the day, and also 700 bags of ‘Hope and Joy’ to be handed out to shoppers. “Just before the event, the shopping centre Authority raised concerns that the bag contents might be too ‘religious’ – a box of chocolates, a Christmas card including a Bible verse, a list of Bournemouth Christmas Church Services, and a booklet of Testimonies of people whose lives had been changed by Jesus. So, we prayed, and they agreed that we could go ahead – without taking anything out of the bags! “The event was originally planned for the week before but because of the storm forecast, the organisers thought it might have to be cancelled because of the stage needed for the choirs. So, it was postponed till December 14, Shine Your Light weekend. This meant a lot of late organisational changes because not all the people in the choirs were available on the revised date. An estimate that about 50 people were involved in running the event is conservative! “On the day, the Lord blessed us with good weather, and all 700 bags were handed out by about 1 pm – though the event was scheduled to finish at 4 pm. There were many meaningful conversations with shoppers, and some people were prayed for during the day. The following Monday, we received news that the shopping centre Authority would like us to do two Saturdays next December, not two!” This year’s unity was even recognised by Buckingham Palace. King Charles sent a letter of encouragement to the organisers expressing his pleasure in hearing about churches from different denominations coming together over Christmas. Whilst the focus of the four-nation evangelistic campaign was aimed at the weekend of 13-15 December, churches registered to use free evangelistic resources to help them spread the Christian message at any time in December. These included an 8-minute evangelistic talk by Dr Amy Orr-Ewing (adapted for local context), a professionally designed and printed Carol sheet for events, music backing tracks to accompany the carols, or a music score for each carol, and resources for churches to follow up contacts made at events. Pastor Jonathan Oloyede, Convenor of the National Day of Prayer & Worship said: “The Bible says ‘How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity! In this year’s Shine Your Light, we’ve seen more than double the number of participating churches, and we’re hearing more and more stories of churches working together for the very first time in unity to reach their local communities. Shine Your Light has united believers on the essential truths of the gospel, though there will always be some aspects of church life and beliefs we may differ on. “There’s something very powerful when God’s people come together to pray and to witness to their local community. From it friendships are built, barriers are broken down, believers continue to gather for joint events, and over time, the Body of Christ is built up and together,