The John Lewis advert is perhaps now every bit a Christmas tradition as roasting chestnuts, watching Love Actually (maybe that’s just me?), or even, dare I say it, the Queen’s Speech.

In that sense it’s almost like a national reference point. We’ve pretty much all seen it, and likewise we all know whether we like this year’s offering more or less than previous years, whether it’s 2014’s Monty the Penguin, or 2011’s classic, ‘The Long Wait’ (definitely my fave for tear-jerker value!).

So I think it’s brilliant that Dan Rackham, a community worker based out of a church in Toxteth, has gone and re-made the 2015 advert, but with a Christian twist.

Rather than being about a gift for the ‘Man on the Moon’, this is about the ultimate gift: the ‘Baby from the Stars’.

I hope you like it and want to share it (use this link: https://youtu.be/KoxTF_31yyE)!

Dan’s a mate, and it’s been amazing to see how he’s taken his initial idea of a fun re-make and made it into a fully-fledged viral reality.

And whilst he’s obviously nifty behind the camera, with a good eye for detail, not to mention bags of imagination, the thing that has driven Dan has been a desire to take the opportunity to engage people with the wonder of how we’ve all been #lovedthisChristmas.

One reason I love the way Dan’s re-made the video is because it encapsulates quite a simple message, and yet one that is ever-relevant. In many ways the questions that the girl in the video asks are questions that we all pose to some degree or another:

Is there a God out there?

Does he care?

Can we really know?

And often we can be oblivious to the way in which the Christmas story speaks into those questions.

Yet what we remember at Christmas is precisely the moment that God revealed his answer to those questions, in entering into our world, stepping onto the pages of history, as nothing less than a person: Jesus, the long-promised king.

God himself came to us, both making himself known and making himself knowable.

So one of the hopes with the video and accompanying website, LovedthisChristmas.com, is that it allows people to begin exploring what Jesus is all about, not least with a ‘Continue the Story’ section.

The website also gives you the opportunity to take things further by ordering a free copy of Glen Scrivener’s Four Kinds of Christmas book (as well as entering the competition to win the telescope and helmet used in both the re-make and the original JL video!).

You can also download HQ versions of the video to use offline in churches and at other events. And they’ll be an online Advent Calendar tweeted out via @lovedthisXmas.

The video has already received media coverage through ITV, Premier, and the Liverpool Echo.

Did you know this ‘baby from the stars’ means you’ve been loved this Christmas?

Bizarrely, the other day I remembered this blog post from 2008, in which I exude unashamedly about the time Dan was my housemate and built me my own fold-out bed from scratch. But that’s another story…

The evenings are drawing in, X-Factor’s on the telly, and you already feel ready for a holiday. Yup, September is well and truly here.

Of course with a new term comes new opportunities, but there’s also all the life-admin, calendar-coordinating, and general sense of busyness that comes with these. New rotas, new to-do lists, new courses.

And so as Christians called to be part of local churches, whether we’re in a ‘formal’ position of responsibility or not, we can soon start to feel the ‘burden’ of service:

“Man, why do I put myself through this…?”

“Ok, here we go again then…”

“You know, I really think it’s time I took a step back from all this…”

Just over a year ago I was feeling something of the ‘burden’ of all this when someone put into my hands a book that made me do a 180. In essence, it asked me a question that I was not expecting. Rather than asking me, ‘what are you doing to serve?, instead it wanted to know, ‘are you being served?’.

The book was John Hindley’s brilliant Serving without sinking: How to serve Christ and keep your joy, and it’s essentially a reflection on the stunning truth encapsulated in Jesus’ mission statement in Mark 10:45: [Jesus] “came not to be served, but to serve.” It is essential for our spiritual health that we are resting in the reality that we are served by Jesus. As Hindley puts it:

Jesus doesn’t call you to come and serve Him. He calls you to see that He came to serve you. It’s only if we see that, first and foremost, we are not servants, we are served, that we can know the joyful freedom of the Christian life. And as we do that, we’ll find that we serve like we never served before.

As such Serving without sinking is a brilliant book to get your hands on this September. Hindley understands the everyday tensions and struggles of the Christian life, particularly concerning the different motivations we have for serving others, and he pastorally applies truths about Jesus into them. Each chapter is also fairly brief, and you’ll be able to devour two or three in a short sitting, whether that be on a wet Thursday evening or whilst the kids are napping after lunch.

Here’s the icing on the cake. Not only is it a great book, but its publisher, The Good Book Company, are currently giving the eBook version away for free throughout this month. Just ‘like‘ their Facebook page here and you’ll see a discount code to enter at their online store. There’s no sane reason not to try it.

To whet your appetite, here’s another snippet:

Jesus is saying: “Follow me and I will serve you.”

Or, in His actual words:

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.”

He did not come so that you would serve Him. He came to serve you. Christianity is about Jesus, the God who serves His people.

Jesus comes into our lives to serve us. There is no catch, no small-print, no strings attached—there is just loving, humble, kind service by the Creator of the cosmos for His creatures, for us. Jesus’ greatness is not that He can command the service of millions; it is that He serves millions.

If you follow Jesus, then your relationship with Him, your status before God the Father, and your having His Spirit with you, will never depend on how you serve Him. It is all about His service of you.”

Go and download it for free while you can!

I love a good soundtrack. In fact, one of my “when I grow up I’m gonna be…” dreams was to be a soundtrack compiler (ideally to a Richard Curtis flick). I’m still hoping. Anyway, I love how songs can perfectly accompany a particular moment or activity. But recently I’ve been noticing it’s not just one-way traffic. A song doesn’t just suit your mood, it can also re-direct your mood.

As a Christian I want to ‘tune my heart to sing God’s grace’, and so I’ve decided to have a handful of songs on standby to be my morning soundtrack, as I begin a new day, accompanying me as I do my ‘pre-leaving-the-house’ essentials. That’s not to replace time digging into the Bible and praying, but I suppose to provide an early opportunity to respond to that in praise. They’re my ‘bathroom liturgies’ or my ‘morning anthems’. So following on from the previous sets of three songs that I highlighted back in February, Easter, and in June, here are another three that I’ve been enjoying listening to in these summer months

1. How He Loves Us – David Crowder Band

This song has been around for a while, but it remains one of my faves. I recently spent a week teaching in the book of Ephesians, and Paul’s prayer that we’d know the height and width and length and depth of Christ’s love just hit me again. It is God’s will that we reflect and soak ourselves in the knowledge of the love of God in Jesus. I particularly like the way this song riffs on 2 Corinthians 4, reflecting on how God’s love transforms the reality of suffering.

2. Once for All – City Alight

My mate Tom shared this song on Twitter, and suddenly I’m hearing City Alight all over the place. They’re not unlike Rend Collective, and have that Mumford-esque rock/pop/folk sing-along flavour. Their songs Home and Jerusalem seem particularly popular for singing in church congregations and are excellent, but I love how Once for All takes me back to the cross of Jesus, calling me to see that everything has changed.

3. Fix My Eyes – Lou Fellingham

The Fellinghams have crafted some brilliant songs over the years, and this is no exception. Every day brings with it new challenges and new ‘invitations’ for our attention and affections, and yet this song reminds us it’s in Jesus Christ that there’s true freedom, life, mercy, hope and forgiveness; “In you there’s everything I was looking for”.

What about you? What’s your favourite song you’re listening to help ‘tune your heart’ at the start of the day?