Shepherds, Stars and Student Ministry
It's that magical time of year… Your students are bogged down in deadlines and you’re stressed up to your eyeballs with planning a million and one Christmas events. You’re desperately trying to find the festive cheer and end the term well but at the same time you can’t wait to just get the next couple of weeks out the way and start your own holiday.
Or maybe that’s just me…!?
Yet there’s one truly, not so much magical as highly meaningful, thing that I love about this time of year: Every December, just as it did 2000 years ago, a story about a baby’s birth breaks into the chaotic melee of life and demands our attention.
At times, its easy to overlook the significance of the nativity story. The oh-so-familiar narrative can become monotonous and mundane. But this year, I've been determined to approach it once again with fresh eyes and ears, hoping to see God at work and hear from him in new ways. And He hasn’t disappointed.
As I've read the Christmas story through, I've been prompted to consider the experiences of certain characters who have left me reflecting upon my student ministry. Bizarrely, these classic tales of shepherds and stars have provided some profound challenges to my work, and I’d like to share these with you.
Below are links to a number of short blog posts that consider a part of the Christmas story and what it has prompted me to ask myself. I hope these reflections prove as useful for you as they have for me.
