News
Round Up Go
on, ask him for something this Christmas You
must have seen the posters by now: a Father Christmas
outfit replaces swaddling clothes on Baby Jesus in a new
advertising campaign that aims to get people to go to
church this Christmas. Professionals from the world of
advertising were enlisted to create the striking poster
and a series of commercial radio ads, which were unveiled
by the Churches Advertising Network (CAN) in In
a radical twist to the traditional nativity scene and
Christmas carols, the new series of Christmas adverts
will follow the theme: 'Ask Him for something' and offer
an alternative to the usual commercial Christmas -
encouraging people to tap into a spiritual dimension
instead. Martin
Casson, a creative director for the campaign, said the
advertisement sent out a number of messages. “It
challenges people’s preconceptions of Baby Jesus in
a manger. He’s not a mythical figure, unlike Santa.
He is also more relevant than Santa.” CAN,
the Churches Advertising Network, is an independent and
ecumenical group of Church communicators which for the
past ten years has produced a series of striking and
often controversial poster and radio adverts. Last
year's award winning radio campaign,' Losing the Plot',
which scooped the Andrew Cross Award for best radio
advert or promotion, was aimed at a youth audience and
broadcast on 24 radio stations including the Galaxy
network and London's Kiss 100FM in the run up to
Christmas 2002. Church
groups from various Christian denominations across the
country will be invited to buy airtime on their local
commercial radio stations in the fortnight before
Christmas, with the aim of reaching young people in their
area. Sponsorship has also been received to place the
advert on the Galaxy network of stations and For
more details of the campaign, visit www.churchads.org.uk. ‘SHHHH
– I’m looking for God – in the local
public library’ Christian
books in City of Local
churches have donated books to their local libraries from
a list compiled annually by Christian Book Promotions
(CBP). On average each book is taken out nine times a
year in “Many
of the books donated by churches through CBP were out on
loan for nine months in the year,” said Gerry
Torley, Supply and Acquisition Officer for City of Trevor
Hames of Christian Book Promotions was delighted with the
news. “We
are very careful to choose books that will appeal to
people at very different points on their spiritual
journeys,’ he said. “It seems to be a question
of ‘Shhhh, I’m searching.’ Libraries
provide a neutral venue where people keen to explore
areas of spirituality can do so in their own time –
without ‘coming out’ as a seeker. This news
from Christian
Book Promotions offer a brochure of carefully-selected
books for use by churches throughout the north
considering buying books for their local libraries. More
info: Trevor Hames 01223 300065. Email:
trevor@christianbookpromotions.org.uk Binge
drinking and the Church - it is an issue “Churches
throughout the A
recent Government report has shown that alcohol use costs
the country £20 billion each year. The study by the
Prime Minister's Strategy Unit shows 17 million working
days are lost to hangovers and drink-related illness each
year. Up to 1.3 million children are affected by parents
with drink problems, the report said. They are also more
likely to have problems later in life themselves.
However, the authors of the report said that even these
figures may be a conservative estimate. In
the light of this report, Hope UK is calling on
Christians and their churches to reassess their attitudes
to alcohol. Better understanding is needed because many
Christians never come face to face with the problems
related to alcohol consumption. “After all,”
says George Ruston, “ we can’t escape from the
fact that alcohol is a mind-altering drug which cannot
help us to focus on the needs of others or our
relationship with God”. “The
most important aspect of this is for churches to take a
positive approach,” says Hope UK. It can help with
information to help Christians consider local issues
relating to alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. Details:
www.hopeuk.org Archbishop
calls for fresh look at children's needs The
Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, has made a
strong plea for society to look afresh at the needs of
children and young people at risk. In
a sermon preached at the recent National Festival Service
of the Children's Society in Canterbury Cathedral, Dr
Williams said: "we are required to face the fact
that, for all our corporate sentimentality about
childhood and for all our well-meant protocols about the
protection of children, thousands of our children in Too
often, he added, we noticed too late: "There are
actions to be taken, things to put in place that may
contain damage or avoid future tragedy, but the cost is
already there, and if we are honest we can't help
acknowledging that we have not had the right habits of
attention. Thousands of children have been invisible to
us." Dr
Williams, making his first major address on children's
policy since becoming Archbishop of Canterbury, warned
that: "The demands on statutory and voluntary
resources will go on spiralling if we do not address the
prior question of our attitude to children in general and
children at risk in particular." The
Archbishop highlighted the importance of approaches to
family life: "not only how we conduct our own, but
how we share it, how we think about equipping a new
generation to approach their responsibilities." And
he was sharply critical of aspects of a youth justice
system "that is still astonishingly slow to treat a
child as a child and to face the question of how the
emotional void that so often appears in 'criminal'
children is to be addressed and healed." There were
"very serious" questions about a youth justice
system in which "the welfare needs of children are
still so often sidelined." Dr
Williams supported the idea of a Children's Commissioner
in Dr.
Williams, who is a President of the Children's Society,
praised its work: "The Children's Society is
committed to seeing children whole, and to enabling all
of us to share this seeing. It is in that sense
simply taking its lead from Christ, who, we read, 'took a
little child and had him stand among them' - had him
stand where he could be seen." He
added: "What we are told to learn from children, I
suspect, is not just the spontaneous joy or trust that we
might first think of when told to become like little
children, but also a kind of endurance and courage, even
wisdom, that breaks the heart because we find it so
difficult to believe that such hard things can be learned
so early." Is
it Big Brother – or the Archbishop of More
than half the public can’t name any of the four
gospels and they are more likely to know the name of the
winner of Big Brother than the Archbishop of Canterbury.
A recent BBC poll shows that while 60 per cent of people
believe in God, less than a fifth are practising members
of a religion. More than half believe in heaven and 32
per cent believe in hell. Some
82 per cent of the public failed to name Dr Rowan
Williams as Archbishop of Canterbury, according to the
poll, commissioned by BBC1’s Heaven and Earth Show.
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