The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Christian leaders join Dominic Steele for a deep end conversation about our hearts and different aspects of Christian ministry each Tuesday afternoon.
We share personally, pastorally and professionally about how we can best fulfill Jesus' mission to save the lost and serve the saints.
The discussion is broadcast live on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thepastorsheart">Facebook</a> then on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@ThePastorsHeart">YouTube</a> and on our <u><b><a href="http://www.thepastorsheart.net">thepastorsheart.net</a></u></b> website and via audio podcast.
The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Making your 'Christmas Talk' better - Sam Chan, Andrew Barry and Adrian Russell
How to preach Christmas that engages and connects. -
We've pulled in three experts to help us prepare for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We share talk structures, attention hooks, and illustrations that connect with guests who didn’t come for a sermon but need a Saviour.
Sam Chan talks about tailoring length, tone, and imagery for each.
Andrew Barry frames Christmas with a pastoral lens: some in the room are celebrating their first Christmas in Christ, others their last -- and how this shapes content and cadence, putting joy and gravity side by side.
Adrian Russell talks about speaking into tragedy at Christmas, by preaching peace that is more than a feeling—reconciliation with God that makes real.
For Christmas morning, we share passages and closes that put God’s face turned toward us and the cross in view, with invitations that are personal and memorable.
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Hey, happy Christmas from us at the Pastors Heart. It is Dominic Steele, and look today, last-minute Christmas talk suggestions. I'm imagining that for you like me, uh, this run-up to Christmas has been super busy, and uh so I've phoned a friend to help me with the Christmas talk preparation. Well, I've phoned three friends to help me, and they're here Andrew Barry, senior minister of Menai Church to the south of Sydney, Ozzy Evangelist with the City Bible Forum, Sam Chan, and Adrian Russell from Northmead Anglican Church. And uh look, just to acknowledge, this is our last Pastor's Heart episode for 2025 before we take a couple of week break. Um, and uh let's start with the Pastor's Heart and Sam Chan, you're the best dressed. Um no one else got the memo.
SPEAKER_02:I feel like there's no person. This is fancy dress, but you can tell anyone else. So I'm the doofers that turn up in fancy dress.
SPEAKER_03:I think you look great. I think you look wonderful too, Dominic. Where's your that's right? Look, um uh Sam, what's your past as you sit down for Christmas?
SPEAKER_02:It's Christmas, but this year I've been the best prepared ever. I got all my Christmas shopping done on Black Friday. I had an Excel spreadsheet out like every Asian wood, and I had all the names, all the presents, and where to get the stuff from.
SPEAKER_03:See, Andrew Barry, that's what you should have done. He's staying quiet. Um, keep coming.
SPEAKER_02:Yep, yep. And so then I got into sermon prep. I know maybe I pulled that card out way too early, but this month was challenging because I needed a gingerbread housemaking event talk. Then I needed an under 10-minute uh talk for Carols and for my City Bible Forum workplaces where I speak in workplaces about Christmas, and finally the 20, 30 minute talk for Christmas Day at church.
SPEAKER_03:Um, and what's your heart as you come to do this?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, there's always that mixed feeling of dread, like it's Christmas again. How do I come up with something fresh to say? But also just the excitement like, hey, this is what it's all about, Christmas. Um, and heaps of people invite friends and family who don't normally go to church, and this is a great chance now to think how can I win hearts and minds over to Jesus? Dread and excitement, Adrian Russell.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think that that's everyone's experience at Christmas, isn't it? It's super stressful and intense, and yet it's a time of joy and wonder and amazing.
SPEAKER_03:As a preacher, dread and excitement.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think that's I feel the same thing in terms of trying to figure out how do you do honour to this really significant moment that God came into the world. Um, the challenge I'm always facing is I reckon Christmas is like the first episode of a season, it's like the first act of a movie, in that sometimes we're thinking about what it achieves rather than what it leads to. So as I'm trying to think through Christmas, I'm trying to think, how do I connect it to the cross? How do I connect it to what's next? And I feel like if if people leave our church thinking that was a great story, then we haven't really told the story right. It's it's where it heads to. So I'm feeling that pressure of the joy, the fun, the wonder of angels and shepherds, but where it leads to, that the grown Jesus lives for us, dies for us, rises for us. So feeling how to do that properly.
SPEAKER_03:How do you think about what's your aim, Andrew Barry, in a Christmas talk? What are you what are you shooting for?
SPEAKER_01:I think I often think about probably two groups of people. I think of um, I think people who it's their first Christmas and people who it's their last Christmas. And I think the people with first Christmas, I actually the thing that gets me the most excited is because I think Christmas is a moment. I think that people sort of trace their life cycles by how many Christmases left and how many Christmases they've had. And I love there might be like 20 people across the building on the weekend who've become Christians that year. And I think this is your first Christmas as a Christian, or people who have become Christians, Christians at that time. I I love people becoming children of God at Christmas, but but also the idea that people might have become Christians sometime. This is their first time actually experiencing it as a Christian. But then on the other side, I do think of the last Christmas. I I think that and I think it's important to think about this. There are some people in the room who it's their last Christmas before they go, and some people know that. And I just so thankful that they turn up and um the effort they make to be there. And and I just think there's something really precious about being able to give the last Christmas talk to someone as well as the first.
SPEAKER_03:What's your aim, Sam, as you think about Christmas morning?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so my primary aim is because I work for City Bible Forum, I'm invited to speak in workplaces to a crowd of uh it's a mix between believers and non-believers. I found and so just as an example, in the last two weeks, I've spoken at Westpac, Commonwealth Bank, Cochlear, Department of Justice, Deloitte, and I've got KPMG coming up. I actually asked the workers who've invited me, what are you wanting me to tell the friends that you've brought along? Like, what is the pain point for a worker coming to a Christmas party at the end of the year? And I'm also thinking when I speak at Christmas Day, heaps of the friends and family are coming to keep their parents happy. You know, they're they're just I'll come once a year to church, not because I believe in it, not because I enjoy it, but just to make mum and dad happy.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. So what do the workers tell you they want you to do?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think they say the pain point for a worker is I can't believe one year has gone by. How is it Christmas already? It feels like it was just yesterday we had a Christmas party. So I think the pain point is one year has gone by, but my life is not any better before because of that. And does that mean in one year's time I'll still be living the same life? Will I be happy if I'm the same person I am next year? What are you aiming for, Andrew?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'm aiming to express in lots of uh clear, upfront spoken ways, but also just lots of intangible ways, the joy and the community that relationship with God creates. So you want it to be a happy time. So that really just flows out of. You know God, you know his love, you know he cares, you know he came near to us and he wants us. And so to express that clearly in the talks, but also just in the whole vibe of the environment. So people walk in the door. Um, we had someone at our carols the other night uh who came from a different country 15 years ago, and they said, this is a part of Australia I've never seen before. Um, this community, this joy, this celebration. And to be able to express that in intangible ways, just the vibe of being together. So I want people to see not just this is the message of Christianity, but this is what effect it has on people. We love to be together across generations and we love to celebrate. Jesus is awesome. So that's kind of the big aim, I think.
SPEAKER_03:Can I just say, listening to you three there, it felt like you're all giving me the distinction level answer. If I was to say what the past level answer was, I think I'd say I'm looking for repentance and faith. And so therefore I would say I want to speak of Jesus as Lord and Savior. You know, and if there's any talk that I want to get that right, Lord and Savior with the applicant. He's Lord, therefore you should repent. He's saviour, therefore you should trust. You know, if there's any talk I want to get that right, pray that I might proclaim it clearly as I should. Um, it's Christmas Day, isn't it? But that's my pass level. Whereas when you were speaking, then you were talking distinction level, I think. Isn't that true?
SPEAKER_00:Well, you want us to aim for high distinctions.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I want you to do better. Well, I want you to get past, but then I want you to get distinction. I mean, I'm just shooting for a pass, but no, I no, I want to get distinction as well. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:In one sense, we're facing the challenge of is Christmas a time when people are more open to hearing about Jesus and the things of the Bible? There's a way that that is answered, the answer is yes. But is Christmas a time when people are so distracted by a bunch of stuff? Actually, not much of the real message of the gospel gets through to them. So I've I feel that tension in that what we want to preach first and foremost is the death and resurrection of Jesus, that he came to save us from sin.
SPEAKER_03:That's the Lord and Savior point.
SPEAKER_00:That Jesus is the King forever because he lived and died and rose again and he rescues us from sin. But what I find at Christmas is one of the challenges is the people are so like the Christmas story, they aren't particularly open to where it goes. So, how do I keep weaving that in?
SPEAKER_03:So, how do we do it, Sam?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so how do we on-ramp them? Well, there are many on-ramps, but at Christmas, one of the easiest ones at Christmas for me is that the angel tells Joseph to name him Jesus. Why? Because it means he will save his people from their sins. So, right from the start, you got the word sin there. So, this is the problem Jesus comes to address. So then we can say the reason why Jesus comes is not this, not this, not this. And that means our primary need, even though it feels that way, is not more holidays, owning more stuff, living longer. Our primary need is we need someone to save us from our sins.
SPEAKER_03:How do you do? I mean, this is kind of the perennial question. Yeah. I'm always looking for a fresh way in this kind of talk to explain sin. So help give let's go for an idea from each of you.
SPEAKER_01:I I I think the best Christmas talk I heard was about 30 years ago, and I haven't forgotten it. And I won't mention who preached it because I don't want to um yeah to show favouritism, even though he was the Archbishop of Sydney and the former uh head of Moore College. But um uh it was about it was using the the illustration of credit cards and how everyone racks up massive credit card debt. And I I it was just a really long introduction, and it was really we felt the weight of the problem, and then felt the weight of the problem of human sin being just like that, that our credit card debt before God was so extraordinary. Uh and then and then it was it was from 2 Corinthians, you know, he who was rich beyond all splendor, yet for our sake became poor, that by through his power he might we might become rich. And I think there was the great exchange there. I I have not forgotten that. You know, that was one of those, yes, it was the gospel like every other time, but it was told so well that for 30 years it stuck in my head, and so I think sometimes you've got to think of ways like that. You can't always most most of the most of the sermons we we we give will be I hate to say it, forgotten in a week, but sometimes something like that will stick.
SPEAKER_03:Adrian, um sin illustrated well in a Christ Christmas talk.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think we're we are looking for the easy way to describe sin, but the reality is it's confronting and people will not want us to talk about it. So we just have to go there. Wrongdoing, worthy of uh judgment. Uh, I think in many ways, uh, the sense that we are um disconnected from God and the fact that uh we we can't have that relationship that we crave. And what's interesting is that uh Christmas, I think, like a lot of things in life, brings out the best and the worst of humanity. And so if you said to someone, imagine if it was Christmas every day, um, there'd be elements of, oh, how good would that be? Don't have to go to work. And but imagine if it was Christmas every day. Wow. The tension, the fights, the stress, the selfishness, the pain, the grief, all that kind of stuff. So I think in one sense, Christmas does open up. There's more going on than that superficial tinsel-covered life. People are really hurting, and to kind of indicate that that is disconnection from God because of defiance of God, um, uh, as a way of trying to get to get in on that.
SPEAKER_03:What have you done this? You've been doing every five or six Christmas talks. What are you doing this?
SPEAKER_02:This year I went with let's make fun of men, because men hate asking for help. So it's humbling to be told I need help, but it's insulting to be told I need to be saved. So this is a very insulting message. And then I said, one way of explaining sin is it's a chicken and egg problem. You know, from a chicken comes an egg, but from an egg comes a chicken. So which comes first? So we are broken in nature, but because we're broken in nature, we break things. And one of those things are the laws that God has programmed into the universe. And because we keep breaking his laws, we end up more broken. So at Christmas, Jesus becomes one of us, the incarnation, so we can have a new nature, but one day he's going to die on a cross to give us a brand new start where we're innocent. So I actually was able to juggle both the incarnation and the atonement by using the chicken and egg analogy for brokenness and breaking things.
SPEAKER_03:Hey, how would you change or not change your Christmas sermon this year, given the massacre this week in uh in Bond? I mean, I was talking to the Archbishop of Sydney uh earlier in the week, and uh he was here, and we I was just walking out with him, and I said, Oh, what do you got to do? What's coming up? And he said, Oh, I've got to speak at another couple of carol services, and I'm gonna have to change my talk because of the massacre. But um, so he's clearly changing his talk. What are you thinking about that, Henry?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, look, I think um I think we need to. I mean, Christ comes into the world to save sinners and he comes in the darkness, and I think the light comes in the darkness. So massacres, hardship. In fact, when Christ was born, there was a master. There was a massacre, yeah. And so I he comes into these moments. I think we need to show that all every year at Christmas, but particularly this year. I think one other trend I've seen, Dominic, is a lot of ministers love the incarnation of Jesus and their preaching, but not the particularity of Jesus being born a Jew. And I think there's been a modern I think it's anti-Semitism from preachers to back away from Jesus being Jewish, the king of Israel, etc. etc. I think this year we need to embrace and step forward and say he is the king of the Jews, he's the lion of the tribe of Judah, he's still Jewish. And um, and uh I think that's super important. And I think we need to be holding that out, um, which which is offensive to everyone in a way, but it's also the saving gospel. And I think I think it's actually one of the the the great news of he's not just didn't just come as the everyman, he came as the particular, and he came as the particular in the Jewish nation. Adrian?
SPEAKER_00:And he came to bring peace uh between us and God and between Jew and Gentile. Yep. So the only peace we have is in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_03:So are you going to change your talk to what we're doing?
SPEAKER_00:I think you definitely have to mention it and say we need Christmas now more than ever. Uh, but also to reveal that this is not a new thing. This has been happening through the world in time for forever. And so to be reminded of it's raw and fresh right now, but Jesus is the solution to this. Jesus, there is a before and an after when Jesus comes and when He his effect has an impact on people's lives, uh, it completely transforms the way they relate to people, the way they relate to people who are different to them. So to talk about that transformation with our relationship with God and each other, we got to mention it, but this is it's real peace. Peace isn't just a warm and fuzzy feeling. Peace is God is no longer at war with us, therefore we are united together. Um, and so I I think definitely we need to mention it uh and talk about it, but not lose our sense of joy and celebration. It's interesting that the angels, when they come to Joseph and Mary and the shepherds, the first thing they say, don't be afraid. Because when a messenger from heaven comes, the right instinct is this is scary. What's God gonna do? What he's gonna do is save you and love you and forgive you. So what about you, Sam, changing the talk?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's it gives you a much more definite, concrete landing point or entry point because we preach Christmas as light, peace, hope, and up until now they've been these very fuzzy abstract nouns. But now we realise no, this exists because there is such a thing as darkness, pain, hurt, hate, injustice, and suffering. That's why we preach light, hope, and peace. And I guess even if we don't mention it directly in our talk, because sometimes you've only been given like three minutes or five minutes, the MC could make reference to it. Or the person introducing the carol will say, Hey, we're gonna sing about light. That's because this is a world of darkness. Maybe this is a good time to have that wake-up call that, you know, the 20th century ended up on so much optimism. It was like, hey, we just need better government, better education, better medicine, and the juggernaut of progress is just going to keep on going. But this is the wake-up call that no, no, those things are good, but they're not enough. You know, we we do need a supernatural savior to intervene into our world.
SPEAKER_00:I wonder in the in the helplessness people feel in these moments, it's a chance to say, well, God does the impossible. Uh, a virgin gives birth to a son. Um, the creator becomes part of creation and he removes the barriers and brings love and unity where there was hostility and violence. So Christmas is about God doing the impossible, and we can we can definitely land that into what's been happening.
SPEAKER_02:And also it shows the uniqueness of the Christian worldview because atheism says suffering's an illusion, it's a construct. Eastern religions say the solution is removal from suffering. Yeah. But we have a God who came down and suffers with us. Joined in.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, in a sense, I think I find it easier to do the talk when we know there's pain. In that what I'm meaning is um, I mean, this is not the first time we've had a Christmas talk in a difficult season. Um I remember speaking Christmas in a time of war, Christmas in a time of bushfires. Do you know the there've been moments when there's been a disaster going on around Christmas before this time, and when we can speak into that pain moment, the gospel's at its strength, do you know? Yeah. Um talking of speaking of Christmas into pain, you've been running Blue Christmas for a while. Um talk to us about how you construct the talk there compared to what you might do on uh on if you like one of the more fun days, do you know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And what is Blue Christmas for those?
SPEAKER_01:Well we do Blue Christmas, people call it many things, but um a a chance for people to reflect. It's more of a reflective service where people who've maybe had a harder year or things gone wrong.
SPEAKER_03:So you're doing silent night, not joy to the world.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, maybe. Uh it's it's basically we we we talk about it as we're singing the sing we're still praising God, but we're praising God in a minor key. And I I think we're more like Simeon and Anna waiting for the consolation of Jerusalem, and maybe less like the angels singing praise to God. And and I think uh what we do is look, the talk can be can be not that different, but it can but just acknowledging the pain in the room and and that and that Christ comes for it, and not just the pain in the world. I think I I actually think our worlds have a lot of pain without the news world, and and I think there's people who've lost someone, there's people who've I know people who come into our blue Christmas who lost someone years ago, and they've only this year been ready to come to one of these kind of services. Um we we go low tech, no no announcements, and at the end of the service we say So when you say low tech, do you mean acoustic guitar or what do you mean? We just mean like a single we well, we just have a piano and singer, but we have no nothing. On the screens, um, just everything handouts. Try as much as possible to have um and but at the end of the service, we do something that's very different. We we don't say please stay around afterwards, we actually say please please leave quietly. And and then if you want to stay, someone will come and pray with you. And we've found that half, maybe probably more than half people stay behind and someone prays with them. And and and even though they're not as big as our other services, I I think there's significant ministry that can happen.
SPEAKER_03:As you've thought about, I mean you've been thinking about it for a while, where in the month of December do you run it?
SPEAKER_01:We do it about a week before Christmas. But it really depends where Christmas falls. Um, every minister, I don't know about you, Dominic. I always look every year I think where's Christmas falling this year?
SPEAKER_03:I think about times of Christmas Eve service, always but but we try to do it about a week before.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, basically, um it also does work for people who go on holidays. So we get a few people who also just want to come and join as a church.
SPEAKER_03:How do you think about scheduling in December, Adrian?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we do try and work backwards in terms of making sure that the way the days work and the the the events that we run fit in. Um we we actually have had a little three-week Christmas series in the lead up to Christmas because sometimes we feel like you're not always paying full attention at Carol's and in the Christmas Eve. So just an opportunity to think Jesus coming is um really significant in the lead up to that. But there doesn't seem to be any way around the fact that December is ridiculously intensely busy. And every year I think we're not doing it like that next time. Um, and it happens again. You just have to do it, I think.
SPEAKER_03:Sam, let's come back to the point you made earlier about um the different talks the gingerbread talk, the um the city worker talk, the Christmas Day talk. Um, help. I mean, did you do the same Bible passage for all of them? Help me as you've thought I'm gonna put this in, not put this in, do this for the different ones.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah. So it is a creative process, and you don't know where you're gonna end up, but you do end up somewhere. So the gingerbread housemaking event, the vast majority of people invited don't normally go to church.
SPEAKER_03:And they've come for gingerbread, not to hear sex. Right.
SPEAKER_02:So it's the worst bait and switch. And I think Christians forget that. And in fact, we maybe we can talk way more about this, even how caras was run. So the stay on gingerbread. Yeah, the people invited aren't expecting a monologue. Christians are used to monologues, and we're used to 20-minute monologues. A non-church people is not expecting a monologue. And if it's a monologue, it's a usual one from the mayor that says, Hey, thank you all for coming, stay safe, see you next year. That's what they think you're gonna do, like a three-sentence thing. So it's the all- So what did you do? I'm all the years. It was only it was three to five minutes, super quick. But you've got to acknowledge the gingerbread house. I began with a funny story about my wife and I went to a marriage seminar, and the opening project was we had to make a house from newspaper, and you had to decide do I make the tallest, strongest, most beautiful? And my wife and I had conflicting aims, and we hadn't communicated that to each other. So that was a metaphor for our marriage. But I said, that's tonight what we're gonna do. We're trying to work out what do I do with my house? Do I want the tallest, strongest, or most beautiful one? I said, it's a metaphor for life. Like, do you want to be the tallest, strongest, most beautiful person in the room or how you want your children to grow up? Because that's what survival of the fittest is. If there's no God, you do have to be the strongest and tallest and fittest. And even if there's a God, most religions say you got to climb that ladder up to God. But the message of Christmas is no, Jesus came down the ladder for you. And what makes you special to God is not whether you're tall, beautiful, or strong, but are you his? Do you belong to him in Jesus? And in front of you, you out of your house is the most precious house out of everyone's in the room because it's your house. And that's the message of Christmas. You can be God's, and and that's where you find value and validation.
SPEAKER_03:I really like that. Thank you. I hope none of our church are listening to this for next year's ginger.
SPEAKER_00:All of my church listens to this topic, especially when you start the talk with you and your wife went to a marriage seminar and uh had to make a house out of paper. Yeah, do you know?
SPEAKER_03:I was speaking at City Bible Forum once, and I I had to go to Melbourne, and so I had to give Peter Caldwell, who is the director of my notes, and he said, um, he he stood up in front of the 200 people there at City Bible Forum and he said um now Dominic's away this week, and uh, but he sent me his notes through to speak from. So um, I'll just do that. And he said, I was lying in bed with Kathy. Of course, Peter's wife is Bettina. My wife is Kathy. Sorry, that didn't happen. It was a good moment. Um, I don't know where we were gingerbread house. We're now on to the next one.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, so then the the 10-minute talk to workers, and usually carols, open air, so no slides.
SPEAKER_03:Tell me about carols and open air, because we've you do it, we never have, because I just think it's too hard.
SPEAKER_02:It is way too hard. You fight against the environment, but you know, so I think at the end you're always thinking, okay, there were a hundred things that didn't go well, but there were ten things that did go well, and maybe it's worth it for the sake of the ten things that did go well, but it's so hard. I say it's like you're you're preaching to free-range chickens because they don't have to sit there, they don't have to be there, and they weren't expecting the monologue.
SPEAKER_03:So somehow I mean, yeah, you're a very good communicator, and so I could see that you could hold a crowd in that stand-up moment, whereas I don't think I can hold the crowd in that stand-up moment. Do you know how do you do it? Well, you can't put you found it.
SPEAKER_01:Um actually this year one of my sisters did it, and I thought it was the I thought it was the best.
SPEAKER_03:It was better.
SPEAKER_01:It was the much better than when I've done it. And and what he did was I think you with a it's you've got to realize that you don't have people at church. You you you instantaneously have an regular week at church, 60%, 70%, I don't know. Oh yeah, but you have people are sitting there. You probably have 10% of people who are there already. And uh we had you know, we had a super hot day, thousands or something people. This guy, um uh my assistant minister started his talk with with someone winning a prize, and they and he basically smashed a uh big watermelon in front of the crowd, and and inside was hidden the prize, and then he started the talk. Now, that was brilliant because if you don't do something like that, you don't get people listening to you.
SPEAKER_03:But they never teach you that in New Testament one.
SPEAKER_02:No, but what do you do after the watermelon?
SPEAKER_03:More watermelons. What did he what happened next?
SPEAKER_01:It was it was a it was a good it was a good clear talk. No, I actually think I think the biggest, the hardest thing, we know what to say, but we don't know how to get them at the beginning sometimes. And I think he just got them at the beginning, you know. Uh it's um it was short, sharp, uh a great message, but I I don't think I I I I think it's it's it's probably the hardest environment to to preach in, but I just learned from from him that you need a hook.
SPEAKER_03:I had I mean you've he's got a hook of a watermelon, you've got a hook of a marriage counseling.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so I do a watermelon, but it's even harder because he'd come in with a funny story, but again, they're still thinking, why is he talking about that? They they actually they weren't prepared for that. I think that's hard. I just had a Byrd community event in a park. It was a Burwood community carols. This was not carols, so I've done a few carols, yeah, but this was a separate event put on by Byrd Council. So the mayor who has a free So you've got a wonky platform that you're wonky platform, but they engineered everything to make it work. And I so they got all the food vans lined up to make it feel like an amphitheater rather than an open park. Uh the mayor was on board, I think that was a big one. He gave the church the most prominent store, and it's called the Burwood Church Community, and everyone's involved the Anglicans, the Baptists, the Salvation Army, multiple churches involved. If I listen, I'm still gonna leave one out. Um and I think what made it work is it wasn't a Carol's night. See, with Carols, people come expecting to sing, and they think, well, why is a guy talking? But it was a it was like a school concert night. There were people dancing, and I get it. You you paid attention while my kids dance, I'll pay attention while you give your five-minute monologue on behalf of the churches. But I did have to compete against Santa Claus in the corner, a guy making bubbles over here. Okay, so you guys are six foot still walking through the crowd while I'm giving a talk. So you you didn't. And the SES let off their sides as well. I think you've just got to have little short, sharp. Like if you watch, I know it's anathema to say, but watch stand-up comedians, they have a power line every third or fourth sentence. So you gotta speak in modules, make sure you land on a point every third or fourth line. How did you do it? Well, that's how I did it. Yeah. I just said, hey, the worst time, worst rugby game I had was when I forgot my boots. Something was missing. My wife's worst banana bread was when she left out the baking powder. Something was missing. Michael Jordan came out of retirement three times. Something was missing. What's missing in your life? I'm gonna tell you what it is. Christmas gives it to you, but then you don't answer the question. Then you launch off onto like four or five other illustrations, land on a verse, and end with the Christmas story.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, I'm just gonna quickly say, what's your plan for this Christmas Day passage structure, Adrian?
SPEAKER_00:We we've in our series, we've done the peace of Christmas past, the joy of Christmas present, and we're finishing with the hope of Christmas future. And so we're trying to use that as a springboard to say God's kept his promises, Old Testament, the arrival of Jesus brings joy and celebration, but it actually points to the future, the future as in his death and resurrection. But our future, he's coming back again. The first Christmas says there's another arrival of Jesus. Are you ready for that one? Um, and so that's where the uh the idea of Jesus Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Um, and Philippians 2, in terms of there will be a day when we will see him and celebrate uh his arrival, but that's the real arrival of Jesus when he comes. So looking forward to the future.
SPEAKER_01:Andrew Barry, passage instruction. I'll just give you one of them. The Blue Christmas one is is gonna be um it's about Simeon and and uh speaking to Mary, and a sword has pierced her heart, and and yet uh there'll be great joy in the midst of that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Passage instruction.
SPEAKER_02:I'm using the number six priestly blessing, how the Lord would turn his face toward you and give you peace. And that's what the angels announce peace, and how it's gonna be God turning his face towards us in Jesus. But this is a story I'm gonna land on, and anyone can borrow if they want. I say for a long time I'll I had an iPhone, my wife had an Android, and as you know, they don't talk to each other. So I finally bought her an iPhone and I thought, what have I done? Because now she can do the find my iPhone feature. Find my iPhone because she knows where I am. I'm not sure I want that. And every every now and then a bubble pops up on my phone saying, Your wife is trying to find you. Do you accept? And my finger hovers over that button. Do I, a button, do I, do I opt in to accept? And that's the message of Christmas. Jesus has come, he's found us, but we have to opt into that blessing. Do we accept?
SPEAKER_03:Thanks very much for coming in. My guests on The Pastor's Heart, Adrian Russell, Senior Minister of North Mead Anglican Church. Sam Chan, he's an evangelist with City Bible Forum, and Andrew Barry from Menai Church in Sydney South. My name's Dominic Steele. We will look forward. Well, actually, we've got a couple of replay episodes over the summer, and we'll be back with you on the 6th of January. Thanks for joining us on The Pastor's Heart in 2025.
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