The Christmas season presents an opportunity. Our small, ordinary gestures inspired by God’s love can have an unforeseen impact on the lives of those around us - and those around the world. Below, find five ideas to help you grasp the opportunity to live out love this Christmas.

1. Cook a meal for your neighbours

Since the very beginning of the war in Ukraine, OM has been actively providing practical aid to those affected by the crisis. In honour of our Ukrainian brothers and sisters, we'd like to share with you the recipe for a traditional cheese pancake called surnuku!

Why not make some pancakes to share with your neighbours - or if anyone in your community is hosting Ukrainian refugees, why not reach out to them with some food that reminds them of home. 

Download the recipe

2. Support local efforts geared towards the most vulnerable

During 2020, there were countless acts of kindness in communities across the UK. Neighbours shopping for those who were self-isolating, baked goods left on doorsteps, companies offering freebies as a gesture of appreciation to the NHS, people seeking out ways to support the most vulnerable in our society.

Is this generosity and compassion still part of our nation's daily rhythms? As followers of Jesus, we should be known by our love. So regardless of whether we're still seeing this in our communities, let's live graciously and generously in view of the love we've first received.

This might look like giving of your time or money to support those who are vulnerable or suffering in your local community. Find out what your church is already doing, put an extra item in the food shop for the local food bank or volunteer your time at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter.

3. Deliver Christmas tracts

How many of your neighbours know the quaint Christmas story of farmyard animals, angels on clouds and a baby lying idyllically in a manger? 

How many know the story of the teenage mother who gave birth in an unfamiliar place to a son rumoured to be illegitimate? How many acknowledge the terrifying supernatural encounter that a group of ordinary shepherds experienced that night in 1^st century Palestine? How many realise that ‘infinity dwindled into infancy’ when the baby of the Christmas carols was born?

The unlikely truth that Christians believe about the birth of Jesus is that ‘the Word became flesh.’

God himself took on the vulnerability of humanity and walked, talked, ate, laughed, wept, shouted, prayed and lived among us. In all the pain and in all the joy of it, he identified completely with our human experience.

One way to help your local community to grasp the significance of this could be to deliver some Christmas tracts. Pray for each one as it goes, and for the person receiving it.

Find tracts here

4. Share God’s love with one person

When we stop and think about the billions in this world, the countless individuals we pass on a day-to-day basis, who don’t yet know the extraordinary love of God, it can feel overwhelming. Where do we begin to change this reality?

We start with one. One person who doesn’t know Jesus.

Commit to praying for them and serving them in small ways. Consider how you can share the good news of the Christmas story with them, in a way that connects with their context, speaks into their worldview, and points them beyond, to Emmanuel, God with us.

5. Donate to OM's Christmas Appeal

When someone gives, and someone else prays, another follower of Jesus is resourced and empowered to live out God’s love; and the lives of individuals who have never heard of Jesus are changed forever.

Be part of a global community of Jesus followers sharing God’s love and join us this Christmas as we continue to stand together until every person has had the chance to hear that God came, in love, to be with us and bring us to Himself.

Choose to live out love this Christmas through a gift to the Christmas Appeal!

OM Christmas Appeal 2022