In my area (the general Sydney and surrounding areas, New South Wales, Australia), a campaign has started, called; ‘Jesus, All About Life’.

The major Christian denominations are involved, including Catholics - and that’s a first in many regards. Last Friday, many churches put up ‘Jesus, All About Life’ signs, all of a similar design – to show the unity of the Christian message.

In addition, a lot of supporting material has been distributed, and most of it , is very good. I like the main theme: ‘Jesus said, “I have come to give life in all its (spiritual) abundance’ [John 10:10].

Here’s an extract from the campaign’s eight page booklet: ‘So what is this life all about? There are three basics: 1. Being secure. This doesn’t mean personal security so that nothing will ever go wrong, but the security of knowing that God loves you and cares for you. It means you don’t need to be afraid of being alone or of what’s going to happen at the end of your life. God promises to look after us now and in the future. 2. Having a point. Living can feel pointless. You get up, go to work, find something to fill in the day, then go to bed, day after day. In the end you ask – “what’s the point?” Jesus said that life is firstly about following Him and then about helping others. 3. Joyful living. Much of what we do can actually stop us from experiencing joy. When people get older, it’s so easy to look back after 30 or 40 years of work and ask, “Is this it?”

Surely there’s more to life? Jesus tells us that when we live our lives in line with what He said, we will be able to look back and see that our life has meaning and purpose.’ Only one comment , instead of the heading ‘Being Secure’, I would have preferred, ‘Life, in God’s love’.

Today, I drove around my local area – with some hope that I would see lots of signs – I didn’t – but, I did see a few.

Here’s an excerpt from the campaign’s web site: “…  a prime-time media campaign that presents the words of Jesus to the community, will run from September 15th for six weeks … “. The media campaign is about getting people motivated to ask Christians – ‘what is this all about?’  The outcome is for Christians to share their faith with other members of their community.

In summary, I though that the words of Rev Graham Fairbairn, about this campaign, in his weekly bulletin, captures well, the vision of this campaign: “The Jesus. All About Life campaign, while not directly challenging the stereotypes people have about us as Christians, is designed to present Jesus as a person who is worth listening to (because He is God, my addition) and whose claims are worth considering. When we are seeking to engage with outsiders about the Christian faith we need to listen carefully to what they think and say about Christians and the Church – are we too judgmental or hypocritical or moralistic? At times we need to agree with them about the failures of the Church to live up to the standards and values of Jesus.

But we also need to present the real Jesus to them as we meet him in the Gospels. Their attitude to Jesus is far more important than their attitude to us. He is the one who challenges all of us to leave the comfort and security of our own habits and preconceived ideas, to consider his call to live in a way that is radically different, and to submit to his Lordship, knowing that when we do so, his grace and mercy will fill our loves and overflow from us to others.”

Posted on September 13th, 2009 by Shayne
Filed under: General