The Churches Advertising Network (CAN) have thrown down the gauntlet for their latest campaign, offering £500 for the best 30 second summary of the Christmas story. The competition will be promoted through radio ads which attempt to tell the story in a rapid, sports-commentary style. 

The ads are the latest in a series of ad campaigns released to coincide with the major Christian festivals of Easter and Christmas, each designed to get people talking and thinking. Memorable past ideas include a billboard campaign portraying Jesus as Che Guevara, and another with the image of Christ appearing in an empty pint glass. This year’s theme was inspired by research from the Theos think tank that showed that many people do not know the details of the Christmas story. 

“We wanted to carry on with this idea of retelling the Christmas story, but in a medium suitable for radio listeners” said CAN creative director Chas Bayfield. “The new radio ads take on the style of a sports commentary and hope to engage in a humorous way with the youth audiences and encourage them to go to church to hear the Christmas story in full.”

You can hear the ads here. You can also sponsor ads to run in your local area.

Have you seen our new online ordering system?

It’s been several months in the making, and should make ordering materials from us easier, clearer, and more user-friendly. Have a browse, and let us know what you think!

We took delivery of our new catalogue the other day, with bright new graphics from the designers at Yeomans. It’s a bit of a departure from our normal style, but we’re really pleased with the way it’s turned out. 

It will be available in the next couple of weeks as we ready the next Interact mailing. If you want one ahead of time, you can call us on 020 7730 2155 (UK) and we’ll put one in the post.

Orders have started arriving in SGM Lifewords‘ UK office this week for UCCF’s latest gospel project, FREE. Christian Unions around the country will be giving away hundreds of thousands of copies of Mark’s gospel, and SGM Lifewords is handling the distribution.

For more information, visit the UCCF site. Copies are available in boxes of 100, for student use. Loads of extra resources can be downloaded from the site, including Bible studies, posters and graphics files.

Please note: all orders are handled through UCCF.

The new Life Changing Words site has just launched. Click here to visit, and sign up for our daily Bible email service.

Supporters in Klagenfurt, Austria are sharing the Bible’s life words with football fans this week, as the country is invaded by thousands of visitors for the Euro 2008 tournament.

Operating from a roadside bus parked between the centre of town and the stadium, the team are inviting passing fans in for tea and coffee and a chat, as a simple way of serving the visitors and sharing the faith. Take-up is, needless to say, very good on match days, and SGM Lifewords has been able to help with a supply of literature in a variety of European languages.

We’ve just added a series of short films to the SGM Lifewords website, introducing the Choose Life project. There are interviews with teachers and students, and insights into daily life in Kenyan schools. Click here to view the films.

This has been a difficult year for Kenya, with the instability that followed December’s elections. That has had an impact on our Choose Life programme. You can find out more about the challenges, and the response, in this update from our Africa Director.

Day by Day is a long running and popular pastoral title, with verses for each day of the week. It’s been a favourite with chaplains for a long time, as a simple leaflet that can be left for those going through a hard time.

We’ve updated the graphics with sunlight on the front and moonlight on the back, keeping the tone of the original version and bringing it up to date.

Day by Day is in stock, and you can order it here.

Some of you have reported that you haven’t received yesterday’s advent email. Our server has been misbehaving, and emails have been backed up in a queue. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may be causing to those of you who have been following the readings regularly, and the IT department has been investigating.

The same content will continue to appear here, as this particular site isn’t hosted on our server.

Thanks for your patience!

the SGM Lifewords team

Theos, the public theology think tank, have released some interesting research on the Christmas story. In a poll of over a thousand adults in the UK, the survey found that 73% knew the basics of the Christmas story. When people were asked more detailed questions about the story, the number of people fully informed fell to just 12%.

Respondents were asked where Jesus was born, who told Mary that she would have a baby, who was Jesus’ cousin, and where did Mary and Joseph go to escape king Herod. Almost two thirds of those questioned were able to identify Bethlehem as Jesus birthplace, and an angel as the source of Mary’s revelation. On the two trickier questions, just over half did not know that John the Baptist was Jesus’ cousin, and only 22% knew that the family escaped to Egypt.

Unsurprisingly, Christians got more answers right, although only 36% got all four correct answers.  Older groups scored higher, with 55-64 year olds scoring best. 18- 24 year olds scored lowest, suggesting that younger generations are less familiar with the story.

Paul Wooley, director of Theos, said: “These findings show that the Christmas story, in its classic formulation is still very much in our cultural blood stream.”