Of course, the Advent/Christmas season is not about knowing certain facts, but about anticipating something special. When very little information is known about what to anticipate however, it becomes a rather pointless exercise in preparing for something that has no real basis in faith or practice. Each year the shops make a big fuss over trying to get the general public to buy things to celebrate a festival that has lost much of its meaning for the vast majority of shoppers.

So, how do we share information about the faith that brings us together each week at worship, at meetings and at chapel activities, with the many people we know around us who remain happily “un-churched” for the rest of the year? We could invite them to join us for our chapel services in the month of December—who wouldn’t want to sing carols and hear the Christmas story explained in worship? We could also invite them to attend a church or chapel function early in the new year, so they could see how the Christmas message is applied every month, not just in the run-up to the 25th of December.

As we approach the festival of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, I hope that each of us shares information about the meaning his story has for our faith, and that we challenge some of the received traditions that this season provides us. Why do we do certain things and what do they say to us today? It is in questioning the things that make up our faith that we come closer to discovering what is essential to our individual religious perspective. Test yourself: What books in the Bible give us the text of the Christmas story? The first person to tell me will receive an early Christmas present.