Mark Woods is editor of The Baptist Times, a weekly newspaper associated with the Baptist Union of Great Britain.
Christmas in the United Kingdom is dominated by commercial interests as it is everywhere in the developed world.
It sometimes seems that there’s a race between retailers to see who can get their Christmas merchandise and decorations up soonest; it seems to have crept back as far as late November nowadays, and the widespread irritation this causes still doesn’t stop them doing it.
Like many European countries, the church in the U.K. is swimming against a secularist tide, quite a lot of it very aggressive and vocal.
A popular book in 2009 was “The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas.” And generally church attendance at Christmas seems to be declining, though it’s still much higher than at other times.
Interestingly attendance at our great cathedrals has risen consistently year by year. Churches and parachurch agencies make a concerted effort at this time to reach out to people who don’t normally attend.
In 2009, there was a national ad campaign using billboards and bus shelters, for instance, and many churches will carry out their own neighborhood invitation programs as well. We try to make sure that services are seeker-friendly, with mixture of welcome and challenge.
Many churches would have a carols by candlelight service, where the old favorites are sung. Some would have midnight communions.
Often the young people will visit elderly members of the congregation or local care homes to sing for them. And many churches will have an outward-looking focus, caring for homeless people or inviting people without families of their own to meals.
On Christmas Day itself, children often are invited to bring one of their gifts to church and show it to the congregation.
The service will be short, probably around 45 minutes, and include lots of singing and a short address.
As a pastor, I prepared literally hundreds of Christmas messages over the years.
But I never found that the old story grew stale or that I ran out of things to say about what that quintessentially English poet, John Betjeman, said about “that most tremendous tale of all” — “that God was man in Palestine/And lives today in bread and wine.”
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